Venezuela's Chavez Apparently Survives Recall Vote

The whole recall vote was ill thought.

The country was already sourly divided by chavistas and antichavistas. Now the gap is deeper.

The opposition -as often happens with conservatives in Latin America- was too confident. The chavista brigades used all sorts of methods, from blatant propaganda to stirring the fears of "social losses", in order to bring their people into the polling booths.
Now the opposition says the recall vote was rigged.
You bet it was. You bet they will have a very hard time proving it.

This has become a move towards a plebiscitary government.
A dangerous move.

The opposition threw a boomerang, did not catch the prey, and got hit back by it.

I guess it's time for more populism in Latin America.

A woman died, and other six opposers were wounded by bullets when a group of Chavez sympathizers attacked their protest against the apparent results of the Chavez recall vote.

All the attackers wore red frannel shirts. Some of them bore posters of the Venezuelan president, reports AP.

I see this populism growing out of an ethnic division in South America. Marxism has failed and ethnic identity and ethic community is replacing it. Much if not all of the elite in south America is Western in ancestry and cultural proclivities. But a good deal of the general population is Native American either full or in part. This is particularly so in the Andean nations and most of these populations are disadvantaged. Chaves is playing off this and he will not be the last.

What Acquiunk says is quite true in some Latin American countries. Less so, IMO, in Venezuela, where the indigenous population is about 2%. But of course, the race factor is there, with about 10% blacks.
While Venezuela's income distribution is bad, traditionally it hasn't been as bad as in other Latin American countries.

But certainly there is a cultural and social divide, with some racial traits. Chavez is profiting from it.