Lieber Zettel,

ich steh mit meiner zugegen recht nachdrücklich vertretenen Auffassung nicht alleine.
Der Americas Redakteur des Economist Michael Reid sagt in seinem nun als Taschenbuch erschienenen "Forgoten Continent"

In Antwort auf:

---

Yet rather than a twenty-first-century socialist, Chávez most resembled the political figures of Latin America´s past: The tewntieth-century populists and the nineteenth century military caudillos. Like Perón and the other populists, he has created a personalist regime, blurring the boundaries between leader, party, government and state. Like them, he used the mass-communications media effectively. Like them, he used elections as his route to power, but ignored the checks and balances and pluralism inherent in democracy. Like them, he engaged in unsustainably expansiory economic policies. Like Rosas and the caudillos of the Argentine interior in the 1830s, he commanded a private army in the shape of the reserve. Like Rosas, as well as like Castro, he seemed to see himself as pretty much president for life. In a speech in 2005, he said that he did not intend to retire until 2030, the bi-centenary of Bolivar´s death, by which time he will be 76. As long as the oil price remained high, the odds were that Chávez would cling to power for many more years. But given its inefficiencies keeping the Bolivarian show on the road required ever more money. It is not hard to envision the regime imploding amid fights over corruption and cash. If the oil price were to fall sharply, Venezuela would face an appalling hangover. The Caldera government had belatedly established a fund to save windfall oil revenues, with the aim of cushioning the effect on the economy when the oil price falls. Chávez scraped that arrangement, and spent like there was no tomorrow. The prospect facing Venezuela might not be that of turning into a second Cuba but a second Nigeria - a failed petro-state.

---