Chvez Wins, but His Power Is Slipping
1 | VENEZUELA
Although socialist President Hugo Chvez routed his centrist challenger, Henrique Capriles Radonski, 55% to 45% in the Oct. 7 presidential election in Venezuela, the opposition can take some consolation from the fact that Capriles did a lot of things right. That includes reaching out in a more credible way to poor Venezuelans, who make up Chvez's base. The problem is that it wasn't nearly enough to make up for all the things the opposition has done wrong in the almost 14 years Chvez and his populist, anti-U.S. revolution have controlled Venezuela, which has the world's largest oil reserves.
Venezuelans had more reasons than ever to vote against Chvez in this election. Rampant violent crime has saddled the country with South America's highest murder rate, economic mismanagement has produced one of the world's highest inflation rates, and official corruption has begun to remind Venezuelans of the elitist sleaze that Chvez once condemned as he rode to power. That a majority didn't reject him says less about the advantages Chvez has derived from his heavy-handed rule than it does about his opposition's nagging failure to offer a convincing alternative.
The Venezuelan opposition has long suffered from lame political skills. That's largely because, during the ultracorrupt decades before Chvez, Venezuelan politicians were far more focused on honing their embezzlement skills--a big reason more than half the population lived in poverty despite the nation's prodigious oil wealth. When Chvez pulled the rug out from under their venal feet in 1998 with his first presidential victory, they possessed few if any of the engage-the-electorate tools they needed to challenge him. Even worse was their blithering denial: fuming over their imported scotch on Caracas' affluent east side, they were utterly incapable of seeing that their profligate abuses were more responsible for Chvez's stunning rise to power--and the broad popularity of his poverty-reduction project--than his red-beret demagoguery was.
Capriles, governor of the state of Miranda, represents a new generation of opposition leaders who understand why Chvez--who got presidential term limits eliminated in 2009--remains Venezuela's most popular politician. Capriles at least made 2012 a much closer race--his strong campaign also helped bring out 80% of voters--and if Chvez's "21st century socialism" keeps undermining the country's economy and security, the next election, in 2018, may well prove even tighter if not a defeat for Chvez.
--TIM PADGETT
A Prelude to Invasion?
2 | SYRIA
Five civilians were killed when a Syrian shell struck Akcakale, a Turkish border town harboring 6,000 Syrian refugees, on Oct. 3. Despite a Syrian apology and antiwar protests in Turkey, the incident triggered a week of sustained shelling by both sides. The Turkish government has grown increasingly hostile to the embattled regime of Syria's Bashar Assad. Meanwhile, the U.S. deployed troops to Jordan to ward off a spillover of Syria's civil war; some 200,000 Syrian refugees have fled to Jordan in the past year.
RUSSIA
'It's the chemistry, the feeling inside that I'm doing the right thing.'