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Special Report - Venezuela: will chavismo survive? (ISSN 17414474)
The regional appeal of the Bolivarian revolution
The political movement led by Hugo Chávez always aspired to have a leading role in Latin America, heading a continental anti-imperialist alliance, which would provide an updated 21st century version of the 19th century anti-colonial struggles of Simón Bolívar. The political dynamic of some of Venezuela’s neighbours, coupled with the commodities boom experienced through much of the first decade of the century, did indeed provide support to a grouping of different centre-left governments committed to redistributing income to the poorer sectors of society. These governments have been described as the rise of a ‘pink tide’ across Latin America. The high point of left-leaning regional administrations came during an eight-year period in 2007-2015. During those years Venezuelan chavismo could count on an important number of ‘natural allies’, including the Cuban government led by Fidel and then Raúl Castro; the Argentina of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner; the centre-left Brazilian government of Luis Inácio Lula da Silva and his successor, Dilma Rousseff; Evo Morales in Bolivia; Rafael Correa in Ecuador; Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua; and Tabaré Vázquez followed by José Mujica in Uruguay. Of course not all these governments saw eye-to-eye with chavismo on all issues, and many leaders, such as Brazil’s Lula da Silva, were best described as social democrats rather than revolutionaries, favouring generally more moderate, and more “market friendly” policies than those pursued by Caracas.
