Venezuela's cancer-stricken leader, Hugo Chávez, appears to be losing ground to opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski, and the ruling party is taking dramatic steps to bully the opposition and to whitewash the results of the Oct. 7 balloting. Only in Venezuela could violent street gangs and a former U.S. president be on the same team. According to sources in Miraflores palace, about two months ago, Chávez began refusing cancer treatment and check-ups, insisting...

I was expelled from Venezuela several years ago as a result of my political activism against the abusive rule of the Chavez government. Therefore, in the primary elections that took place on Sunday February 12, I was not allowed to register as a voter like a regular Venezuelan citizen living abroad. What happened to me reflects one among many aspects of Chavez’s despotic regime. However, my personal story of exclusion does not prevent me from seeing that something important has just...

During the earlier part of this November, elections took place in Nicaragua. These elections displayed an element of fraud from the beginning. According to the European Union's electoral mission the vote tally was "opaque and arbitrary". Prior to the election the outcome was almost pre-ordained because, the Ortega-controlled Supreme Court nullified a constitutional provision that limited the President to no more than two terms. The Nicaraguan Supreme Court interpreted this provision...

The, October 23rd presidential elections in Argentina have given a clear advantage to Cristina Kirchner, who was reelected president of Argentina with an overwhelming majority. Kirchner, of the Frente Para la Victoria - the Centre-left wing of the Justicialista (Peronist) Party -took 54 percent of the vote, while her closest rival won 17% percent. This will be Ms. Kirchner’s second term after being preceded by a full four-year term by her late husband, Nestor Kirchner. This means that...

Just a couple months ago, the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP), based at Vanderbilt University, released the Americas Barometer 2010 . Published every two years since 2002, LAPOP’s survey is the most comprehensive effort to probe political, economic and social attitudes throughout the Western Hemisphere. The latest batch of results distills more than 40,000 interviews made in 26 countries, including the whole of Latin America, most of the Caribbean (with the glaring...

Markets and Democracy Briefs are published by CFR’s Civil Society, Markets, and Democracy initiative. They are designed to offer readers a concise snapshot of current thinking on critical issues surrounding democracy and economic development in the world today. Opening Mexico's Economy Mexico began to open up its economy in the 1980s when collapsing petroleum prices and rising international interest ratesmade its import-substitution economic model?characterized by high levels of...

“Democracy is the worst form of government save all those other forms" - Winston Churchill. The sudden, although foretold death of Néstor Kirchner, the former president who was also the nominal head of the Peronist movement, plunged me back into the past. I remember vividly the day when the death of Juan Perón was finally announced. A deputation of workers from the plant where the Buenos Aires Herald was printed came to see me. Any sadness that they felt at the loss...

As Mexico’s 2012 presidential election gets underway, a national conversation has finally begun on the country’s future. Thanks in part to the recently published book *A Future for Mexico*, which I coauthored with Héctor Aguilar Camín, one of the country’s most distinguished pundits, historians, and novelists, the issue of how Mexico can become in the next 15 years what we call a “middle-class society” has taken center stage. Through public debates...