Word: vez
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...this much for Roberto Micheletti: The Honduran coup leader, who refuses to let deposed President Manuel Zelaya back into the country, has at least turned Washington and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez into diplomatic bedfellows. But can the Honduran crisis, as many are beginning to suggest, make acrimonious relations between the U.S. and Venezuela chummy again...
...constitution, especially its ban on presidential re-election. The Honduran crisis was sparked when Zelaya made noises about giving presidents a second term - a sign to many Hondurans that he wanted to take them down the path of his left-wing allies, like Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, who recently won a referendum that allows indefinite re-election. When Zelaya last month defied a Supreme Court ban against a nonbinding plebiscite he'd called on constitutional change, the army whisked him away in his pajamas and flew him to forced exile in Costa Rica. (See pictures of the Honduras...
...attitude shift in Honduras is accompanied by a rise of leftists across South America. Chávez has jumped at the chance to bash the coup and promised to back Zelaya in his fight back to power. On July 1, the Organization of American States gave Honduras 72 hours to reinstate Zelaya or face suspension of its membership, and Zelaya has said he plans to return to Tegucigalpa anyway if his foes don't comply. In response, Micheletti has sworn that he will arrest Zelaya if he sets foot in the country and that he is ready for anything Venezuela...
...mustachioed, sombrero-wearing Zelaya makes for an unlikely leftist hero. A 56-year-old former rancher and timber merchant, he took office in 2006 after campaigning on a centrist platform. But once in power, he drew close to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and quickly copied his formula for popularity: giving handouts to the poor and blaming all the country's problems on the rich. Amid rising crime and a spluttering economy, the establishment turned on Zelaya. The flashpoint came in June, when he called for a nonbinding referendum on changing the constitution to allow Presidents to stand...
...Corrales says many Latin Presidents are feeling a similar sort of panic. Earlier this year, Chávez saw plummeting oil prices threaten to undermine his socialist revolution, which has enfranchised Venezuela's poor but has also raised fears about authoritarian rule. Chávez rushed through a constitutional referendum last February that lets him run for re-election indefinitely. Fernández's midterm defeat, says Corrales, may have leaders like Chávez "asking if they should ease up on their ideological hard line or ramp it up to neutralize opponents before it's too late." In Honduras...