Word: socialists
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...allowing President Hugo Chávez to seek re-election indefinitely. The constitutional amendment, supported by 54% of voters (including these Chávez supporters, above), comes more than a year after the leftist leader's first attempt was shot down. Chávez says the measure was necessary to continue his socialist reforms; critics say it has brought the country closer to dictatorship...
It’s hard to say which is more famous, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s radical socialist policies, or his notoriously exaggerated personality. Chávez’s constant interruptions of the Spanish prime minister in late 2007 at a summit in Chile brought the king of Spain, a normally soft-spoken man, to shout, “Why don’t you shut up?†Yet Chávez will not be shutting up any time soon. On Monday, Venezuela passed a national referendum that removed term limits for public...
...Eliminating term limits brings Venezuela further from democracy and closer to a one-party socialist dictatorship. In any country, incumbents enjoy a huge advantage in name recognition and free media coverage that puts legitimate challengers at a disadvantage. Term limits also help prevent a trend toward career politicians who can grow complacent or unresponsive to public need...
...hard to isolate a Latin American head of state when the rest of Latin America doesn't sign on - and most nations in the region are not willing to freeze out Chávez. He may irritate them, but he also emboldens them, because his oil-fueled socialist revolution has changed the political conversation in the Americas. The fact that Venezuela's majority poor have been enfranchised for the first time has prodded the rest of Latin America to finally confront its corrosive social inequality. Even officials of moderate Latin governments say privately they're gratified that Washington's regional...
...Walsh says Chávez already has inordinate control over the nation's legislative and judicial branches. If, as most expect, Chávez moves now to radicalize his socialist project, he could enervate them even more. Chávez's former ambassador to the U.S., Bernardo Alvarez, disagrees: "Chávez has had every opportunity in the world the past 10 years to become a dictator, and he hasn't done it," he says. "Instead he's created a real democracy here for a change, and under him those institutions will continue to strengthen...