Viva La Revolucion!

Kind of ironic, isn't it? After Presidents Reagan and Bush Snr spent so much time, trouble, money and lives on supporting right-wing puppets across the same region: it now looks like Central and South America is ready to swing sharply back to the left.

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez just won yet another election, increasing his majority from 89 to 114 seats. The five main opposition parties boycotted the election, accusing the electoral body of bias, and only about 25% of registered voters cast a ballot. This has led the Bush adminstration to claim Venezuelans have 'lost faith in polls'. Hmmn... More likely, they are just sick of having to go and vote every other week (and when the opposition has withdrawn from the vote, why bother?).

Having survived an attempted US coup and US-backed offorts to remove him by a forced referenudm, Chavez is nowing donating oil to poor citizens in Bush's USA and implementing social reforms like giving factory workers control of their factories. Sounds terrible, doesn't it?