Word: venezuela
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Morales sailed to victory thanks largely to that indigenous cohort, which is concentrated in Bolivia's Western highlands and makes up about two-thirds of the country's population. Like Hugo Chávez, his left-wing counterpart in Venezuela, Morales has lavished unprecedented social programs on the poor, including free medical care, stipends for new mothers and the elderly, and a massive program for literacy that includes payments to low-income families who make sure their children attend school. "Evo knows what it's like to be like us," said Ilda Condori, an indigenous voter waiting outside a polling...
...Castro wannabe. Yet he's remained in power for 10 years, and may well last another 10, in part because he's exploited Washington's election obsession. He's been cleanly voted in three times and that's helped him retain a democratic legitimacy despite his hegemonic power inside Venezuela. Valenzuela insists that the recent Honduran election doesn't whitewash the coup; but Amselem recently told the OAS he thought it would. Now, by recognizing its results, after earlier warning that he wouldn't, Obama has essentially accepted Amselem's dubious principle...
That's a potential embarrassment for Uribe, whose success against the rebels has been an economic boon for Colombia. Economic growth from 2002 to 2008 averaged an impressive 5.3% annually. But the number of working-class Colombians bolting for Venezuela hints that Uribe has yet to make that new wealth trickle down - a failing that could simply continue the kind of inequality that has fueled civil wars in Colombia for centuries. "The economic growth statistics published in the media are one thing," says Patricia Yañez, a sociologist at the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas who studies...
...Still, Venezuela's own migratory numbers suggest a different story than the one Chávez's "21st century socialism" promotes. While tens of thousands of poor Colombians might be flocking to Venezuela, just as many middle-class Venezuelans are leaving. A report by the Latin American & Caribbean Economic System, a multi-lateral organization based in Caracas, finds that from 1990 to 2007, Venezuelan emigration to developed countries rose 216%. Erick Castro, a Caracas-born engineer, left for Canada last month thanks in large part to the Venezuelan capital's out-of-control violent crime, 30% annual inflation and what...
...offered an exorbitant interest rate, set largely by the government, because of his economic status. "I came out with the impression that they give priority to the lower strata," he says. It's admirable to boost the poor, who before Chávez were largely ignored by Venezuela's élite. But Flerida Rengifo, a demographics analyst at the Central University, says stories of the Venezuelan middle-class brain drain are getting more common. "There's no support for private industry," she says, "so people feel unsupported by the state in terms of their ability to invest in the country...