Two recent electoral defeats – along with the prospect for two more – of candidates running against free markets and with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez have opened a new chapter in the struggle for the ideological upper hand across the region.

Indeed, no factor has been as fundamentally important in these contests, and the apparent split in the region, as “The Chávez effect” – the force Chávez has had on politics, elections and regional diplomacy. His impact, however, now seems to be more hindrance than help.

True, Chávez has developed a particularly strong bond with Bolivia's Evo Morales, consummated in large measure by Morales' nationalization of the oil and gas industry on May 1. And Ecuador's physician president, Alfredo Palacio, wasted little time after booting U.S. oil company Occidental from Ecuador in welcoming Chávez to Quito to sign energy cooperation agreements. But these are becoming the exception rather than the rule.

Exhibit A of “The Chávez effect” is Venezuela's Andean neighbor Peru. The just-completed presidential election there saw Alan García edge out the populist former colonel and Chávez protégé, Ollanta Humala. No figure or issue played as heavily or importantly throughout the election as Ch 7/8avez. Beginning with candidate Humala's Chávez-embraced visit to Caracas in January, followed by recalling ambassadors and severing of diplomatic relations between the countries in the last two months, and finally, not long after García's victory speech not so subtly called his win a defeat of Chávez, the Venezuelan has continued the feud by demanding an apology from the president-elect and intimating that he would not have diplomatic relations with a García government.

As made clear by the final tally, the Peruvian people did not wish for their country to be ruled by a Chávez adherent. With García's nearly 10-point victory, Peru loudly rejected the “invitation” to the resource nationalist club.

On May 28, Colombia, another Andean neighbor of Venezuela, sent President lvaro Uribe to a second term with 62 percent of the vote. Uribe, a U.S. ally, ran on a pro-market, tough-on-narcoterrorism platform. Most notable, he ran away from a central tenet of the Bolivarian Revolution by expressing a sincere interest in attracting private investors from abroad to the country, particularly for its oil sector.

Meanwhile in Mexico, the Chávez effect has made Sunday's presidential election a much more interesting affair. For the better part of two years, former Mexico City Mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known as “AMLO,” representing the leftist Democratic Revolution Party or PRD, had a sizable lead in the race to succeed President Vicente Fox.

Enter Hugo Chávez. After last November's contentious Summit of the Americas in Argentina, Chávez dubbed Fox a Yankee lap dog, causing both countries to withdraw their ambassadors. The rift and turmoil was quickly subsumed into the electoral process as charges emerged linking Chávez and the López Obrador campaign. A subsequent aggressive advertising campaign launched by National Action Party candidate Felipe Calderón portraying Lopéz Obrador as another Chávez disciple set off Chávez – perhaps more so than Lopéz Orbador himself, though Lopéz Orbador desperately tries to avoid any association with the Venezuelan – and led Chávez to attack the PAN and ridicule the election in Mexico on his weekly television program. Since these episodes, Calderón has pulled even with Lopéz Orbador and made the race a dead heat.

Small but historically important Nicaragua has also witnessed the Chávez effect. With his fevered intentions to distribute cheap oil to cities controlled by Sandinista leaders, and strident support of the Reagan-era relic and presidential candidate for life Daniel Ortega, Chávez has sparked the Nicaraguan government to formally ask that he stay out of its domestic politics and electoral process. Joining Chávez on his weekly television program in late April has afforded Ortega no better than second place in the latest polling for this November's presidential election, trailing pro-market candidate Eduardo Montealegre.

While the elections in Peru and Colombia, and impact to date on those in Mexico and Nicaragua, have signaled to Chávez that his dream for a region-wide Bolivarian Revolution has not been fully embraced, it would be erroneous to interpret the results as a vote to return to the heady neoliberal days of the recent past or even an embrace of the United States or Bush administration.

Rather it is a reminder that Latin America is a region of very unique and distinctive countries with varied histories, social and cultural mores, and political institutions where national sovereignty is paramount and outside influence is often unwelcome regardless of whether it comes from next door or further north.

* Martin is director of the Energy Program at UCSD's Institute of the Americas.

Source: Sign On San Diego

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