On the one hand, I hope he makes it in. At the very least, it should expose a lot of historical crime to the light of day and help El Salvado into the 20th century. But I have to say, I've been less than impressed with the "leftist" governments of Nicaragua, Venezuela, Brazil, Bolivia, etc. (Though I Uruguay and Ecuador seem pretty decent, given the hand they've been dealt). Here's to hoping that they get some significant reforms through. posted by klangklangston at 9:21 AM on March 12
I am not sanguine about the potential for real reform anywhere in Latin America. posted by Xoebe at 9:35 AM on March 12
klangklangston: Uruguay, Ecuador, and Argentina seem to be definitely the most decent functioning. Venezuela is doing a lot of good stuff, but I'm skeptical to Chavez (more now than I was a year or two ago). Evo Morales hasn't convinced me he's competent, but he's definitely well intentioned. And Lula, well, Lula's been a bit of a disappointment, although I think he's better than the alternatives. posted by Joakim Ziegler at 6:50 PM on March 12
The answer appears to be, yes! posted by asok at 4:38 AM on March 16
Venezuela is doing a lot of good stuff, but I'm skeptical to Chavez
Which good stuff were you refering to? Seizing foreign assets? Defaulting on contracts? Stockpiling Soviet surplus? Ridding itself of that pesky, overrated democracy thing?
Or are those forgivable trivialities because he mandated free software for all government agencies? posted by Pollomacho at 5:03 AM on March 16
Way too late to answer this now, but the good stuff I'm referring to, which is, according to Wikipedia, generally agreed on even by critics, is things like making more than one million illiterate Venezuelans literate, dropping the infant mortality rate by more than 18%, dropping the Gini coefficient from 48.7 to 42, reducing poverty from 59.4% to 30.2% and extreme poverty from 21.7% to 9.9%.
And while I'm skeptical of Chavez, it seems democracy is functioning fairly decently, and he's respected referendums that went against him, while his opponents are mostly known for having staged a military coup against him (not that he hadn't tried that himself before). And I don't know if "seizing foreign assets" is necessarily a bad thing in itself.
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posted by netbros at 8:11 AM on March 12