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Andean Group - March 2011 (ISSN 1741-4466)
POLITICS: Chávez and the students
It was probably no coincidence that President Hugo Chávez 's cautious
stance on the popular uprisings in North Africa, and his initial
silence on the crisis in Libya, only ended once the government had reached
agreement with over 80 student hunger strikers camped outside the Caracas branch
of the Organization of American States (OAS). Students have provided some of the
most effective opposition to Chávez , handing him his only electoral defeat in
November 2007 and more recently forcing him to backtrack on a controversial
university reform. This has prompted comparisons with the youth-led popular
revolts in Egypt and elsewhere. However, Venezuelan students are a minority,
hail largely from the small middle class and are, as yet, unable to muster up
the mass support seen in North Africa and the Middle East. And critically,
neither do they have the support of the Venezuelan army.
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