When is the United States going to wake up to what is happening in Latin America? The growing influence of Venezuela’s leftist president, Hugo Chávez, is casting a dark shadow over the region. Some countries – Chile, Columbia, and Costa Rica, for example – remain committed to progressive growth-oriented and democratic regimes. But over the past year, allies of Chávez have come to power in countries like Ecuador and Bolivia, and just missed winning in a few others. In Mexico, Chávez’s admirer Andrés Manuel López Obrador would have seized the presidency, possibly for life, had he convinced just a quarter percent more Mexicans voters to support him.
When is the United States going to wake up to what is happening in Latin America? The growing influence of Venezuela’s leftist president, Hugo Chávez, is casting a dark shadow over the region. Some countries – Chile, Columbia, and Costa Rica, for example – remain committed to progressive growth-oriented and democratic regimes. But over the past year, allies of Chávez have come to power in countries like Ecuador and Bolivia, and just missed winning in a few others. In Mexico, Chávez’s admirer Andrés Manuel López Obrador would have seized the presidency, possibly for life, had he convinced just a quarter percent more Mexicans voters to support him.