Venezuela – irrepressible Chavez
Wednesday, 13 Feb 2008 18:09
Venezuela's Hugo Chavez
In Focus
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Following his re-election in 2006 Hugo Chavez has been keeping his profile high in South American.
August 2007 – Making friends
Mr Chavez made a series of bilateral energy deals with other South American countries on a recent regional tour in August.
The socialist leader, pledging to use his country's oil wealth to improve the energy needs of fellow states in America, signed deals with Bolivia, Argentina, Ecuador and Uruguay.
Continuing his trademark anti-US stance, which saw his country pull out of the IMF and World Bank earlier this year, Mr Chavez said: "The story of neoliberal globalisation was that privatisation was going to bring us big investment. That was a lie.
"The delivery of our natural resources to transnational companies... left us only underdevelopment, technological backwardness, poverty, misery and dependence."
December 2007 – A failed constitution
December 2nd saw a major setback with the rejection of proposed constitutional reforms.
Mr Chavez had been seeking to advance his socialist agenda with changes including independence of the central bank, the expansion of social security benefits to workers in the informal sector and the establishment of a six-hour working day.
He had also been hoping for constraints preventing him running for president again and again to be lifted, but 51 per cent of Venezuelans crushed his hopes.
Mr Chavez described the opposition's victory as "sh*t"
February 2008 – Chavez's many faces
On January 4th he insisted he was not an extremist and said it was right to look for "alliances with the middle classes". A placatory reshuffling of the cabinet and the appointment of a new vice president were necessary concessions.
Regionally, Mr Chavez continued to be keen on building bridges. December 22nd saw him pushing an oil barter scheme in which Caribbean and central American states could provide goods and services to Venezuela in exchange for oil.
He was less welcoming to the wider world, however, saying the new system would not be at the "service of the interests of imperialism and big capitalists".
On January 28th he even called for a defence pact against "aggression" from the US, seeking an alliance between his country and Bolivia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua.
Country profile - Venezuela.