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Chavez looms over Latin American elections
By Patrick Moser
AFP
MEXICO CITY
Petroleumworld.com 07 02 06
Venezuela's fiery anti-US President Hugo Chavez has become a powerful but often unwitting weapon in Latin American elections, where his name is often brandished as a warning of potential disaster.
In Mexico, where voters pick a new president on Sunday, conservative campaigners have likened leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to the firebrand Venezuelan, calling him authoritarian and warning that his populist policies would plunge the country into a deep crisis.
Mexico's main business association, which supports conservative candidate Felipe Calderon, ran a series of television spots featuring Chavez and painting doomsday scenarios in case of a move away from the current conservative policies -- a clear reference to Lopez Obrador.
In one such spot it showed Chavez saying "being rich is being evil."
Lopez Obrador's camp has firmly dismissed the suggestion the leftist candidate's policies were in any way inspired by the Venezuelan president, and analysts generally agree the former Mexico City mayor does not share his virulent anti-US rhetoric.
In Peru, social-democrat Alan Garcia won the presidency in early June after repeatedly raising the specter of a Chavez-like government in case of a victory by militant nationalist Antauro Ollanta, a close ally of the Venezuelan president.
In his victory speech Garcia said Peruvian voters "defeated the efforts by Mr. Hugo Chavez to incorporate us in his strategy of expansion of the militarist and retrograde model he wants to implant in South America."
Analysts say the Venezuelan president's public expressions of support for Humala may have helped the once controversial Garcia win a second term.
Nicaragua's US-educated presidential candidate Eduardo Montealegre claims Chavez is financing the electoral campaign of former guerrilla leader and ex-president Daniel Ortega.
Speaking recently at a conference in Washington, Montealegre -- widely seen as the US favorite for the November balloting -- warned that a Chavez-aided victory by his leftist rival would cause severe political disruptions in Latin America.
"They claim I have sent money and two helicopters to my friend Daniel Ortega, but that is not true," Chavez said just over a week ago.
The victory of Evo Morales, a close Chavez ally, in Bolivia's presidential elections late last year further fueled concerns in Washington, which already worried about a leftward trend over the past few years in Latin America.
The US administration recently praised Latin American countries that have denounced Chavez for allegedly interfering in their domestic politics.
"It is encouraging that democracies in Latin America that feel that Venezuela has been infringing on their own democratic process are speaking up on their own," Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick said in early June.
AFP 01 1104 GMT 07 06
Copyright ©2006 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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