In February, President Hugo Chávez won a referendum allowing him (and any other public official) to be re-elected indefinitely. A total of 54% of the electorate supported this option, but did this represent a recent peak in the Venezuelan President’s popularity? Over recent months Chávez provoked a diplomatic row with Colombia and sent troops to […]
When he first ran for office, Hugo Chávez declared that he wanted to reduce the size of government, and to make it more efficient. However, Venezuela’s National Institute of Statistics released figures showing that there are now 2,372,587 government workers, an increase of 70% during Chávez’s time in office. The percentage of all persons employed […]
President Alvaro Uribe recently moved one step closer to running for a third term in office. The Colombian Senate voted 56-2 last week to approve a plan for legal changes that would enable him to be reelected a second time. The process must now be approved by the House of Representatives and pass a nationwide […]