Word: venezuela
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Brazilian host, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva - who is the head of Brazil's Workers Party and supposedly the Castros' leftist soulmate - is perhaps Latin America's most acclaimed capitalist leader. Capitalism's excesses get deservedly excoriated for causing today's global catastrophe. But even Venezuela, which helps prop up Cuba's economy with cut-rate oil, has made it clear in recent elections that it's not the socialist hotbed that its left-wing President Hugo Chávez dreams of. Yes, the hypocritical drill among Latin leaders is that they censure Washington publicly but Havana...
...will have a harder time whipping up anti-yanqui< fervor among his supporters now that the more liberal Barack Obama is about to replace Chávez's conservative archenemy, George W. Bush. "Chávez is envisioning tougher times ahead," says John Walsh, a Venezuela expert at the Washington Office on Latin America, an independent think tank. "In order to gin up his base, he decided he better do this now rather than later, while he can still muster a majority of the vote. He knows that time may not be on his side...
...viable successors. In recent years he's had to fend off dissidents within his party and coalition, and as a result, he's been reluctant to promote anyone else to the national stage. The Chavista rebels complain that the theatrics of revolution have superseded the obligations of governing in Venezuela. That concern is a big reason why the PSUV lost last week in large urban centers like Caracas and Maracaibo. In those areas, Chávez, to his credit, has spent billions on long-overdue social projects. But violent crime has nonetheless reached horrific levels, basic services like trash collection...
...look set to deny their remarkably popular conservative President, Alvaro Uribe, a third term when his second expires in 2010. Chávez does have an authoritarian streak and is indeed a gushing admirer of Castro, and with the legislature and judiciary firmly under Chávez's control, Venezuela's democratic institutions are hardly a showcase...
...media, and ever since he was elected in 1998 (and in a special 2000 election and again in 2006), he's followed democratic procedure and conceded defeat, however irascibly, when it's come. Chávez's backers insist that even if term limits are eliminated, Venezuela's opposition, unlike Cuba's, can still dethrone...