Rafael Correa's strong showing in Ecuador's recent first-round presidential elections is yet another indicator of the gathering danger that Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez poses in the Americas. U.S. policymakers and pundits have long portrayed the Venezuelan president as a buffoon, aping in front of cameras with his erratic, theatrical style as was evidenced by his fiery address before the United Nations General Assembly a few weeks ago. They have also labeled him a dictator -- an anti-democratic, demagogue in a region that is moving beyond military rule.
But increasingly, Chavez has become a major Hemispheric challenge for the Bush administration and its allies. He has divided Latin America by disrupting Hemispheric-wide efforts at free trade, bankrolled a number of leftist opposition candidates around the region, including Ecuador's Correa, and meddled in the internal affairs of neighboring states. With the second round of elections slated for Ecuador and national elections in Nicaragua in the coming weeks, Latin America could be home to another two pro-Chavez leaders. This is not good news for Washington, D.C., and it could spell bad news for the Americas.
Chavez is the classic caudillo on his home turf -- in full political control, repressing the media and opposition, and in full, authoritarian mastery of the the armed forces. He has curbed the free market by implementing price controls, committed widespread election fraud, stacked the supreme court with his own people, and virtually controls all three branches of government. Now in total control of Venezuela, he has even suggested that the constitution be changed to allow for his perpetual rule. So it is no surprise that he has turned to his mentor Fidel Castro to push socialism in the region.
The Cubans and Venezuelans continue to align their economies, trading some $3.5 billion annually. And while most of that is the 90,000 barrels of crude petroleum that oil-producing Venezuela sends daily to the communist-run island, replacing the island's long-gone subsidized Soviet supplies. Under his leadership, Venezuelaentered into an Agreement among Peoples, first with Cuba and, most recently, with Bolivia. Goodbye Washington Consensus, hello Caracas Consensus, courtesy ofVenezuela's abundant oil revenues
Spending petrodollars like a drunken sailor, Chavez has traveled the world to shore up support for a U.N. Security Council seat for Venezuela, sending Cuban ophthalmologists around the region, and buying friends where he can. That has given him the stage from which to start his international tour against the United Statesand its national interests. He has visited with dictators in Syria, Iran, and Belarus, praising their ways.
During his rule, Venezuela has entered into dozens of agreements to sell petroleum to China. Chavez even started his own pan-American television station, Telesur, to spin his version of the truth. His oil money has also bought Venezuela billions of dollars worth of Argentine sovereign debt, replacing the International Monetary Fund and other Western banks.
Despite this regional focus, Chavez has not fared too well building better relations among South American states. He has initiated a military build-up in the region, given his penchant for purchasing scores of weapons from the Chinese and Russians. He has helped scuttle the U.S.-led negotiations toward a Free Trade Agreement of the Americas. Chavez pulled Venezuela out of a trade pact with Colombia and Peru, decrying its "neo-liberal framework" and agreed to join the Southern Cone Customs Union known as MERCOSUR. He has even upset Brazilian President Lula da Silva by encouraging Bolivian President Evo Morales to nationalize Bolivia's oil and gas fields, stripping Brazil's Petrobras of its investment there.
During Peru's recent national elections, Chavez met with Peruvian presidential candidate Ollanta Humala, forcing Peru to recall its ambassador to Venezuela in protest for the foreign interference in its election process. Chavez also caused a diplomatic flap with Mexico, by pulling Venezuela's ambassador to Mexico when Vicente Fox demanded that Chavez apologize for calling the Mexican president the "lapdog" of the United States. Chavez's diplomats regularly bicker at the Organization of American States over everything from texts on the rights of poor people to counterterrorism collaboration. He is, in short, not good for Latin American and Caribbeanunity, despite his seemingly endless attempts to buy the hearts and minds around the region.
Chavez may have supplied much needed cement to Jamaica during a shortage on the island, computer experts to Bolivia to help register some 2 million voters in the Constituent Assembly elections there, and even supplied low cost home heating oil to the poor around the northeastern U.S. last winter, but he has also made many enemies in the process. Nicaragua's governing party accused Chavez of indirectly funding the leftist Sandinista Party's current national election campaign by supplying oil at below-market prices to leftist-leaning towns. If Daniel Ortega and his Sandinista party win in next month's presidential elections, add one more country in the pro-Chavez column.
And while Chavez's efforts to influence the elections in Peru fell short, another left-of-center administration in Ecuador, traditionally a U.S. ally, would be unwelcome news for U.S. policymakers. Let's hope that the final round of elections on Nov. 26 in Ecuador does not produce more division in Latin America.
James Cooper is a law professor at California Western School of Law, in San Diego, where he directs Proyecto ACCESO, a rule-of-law and public-education program that operates throughout Latin America.