Venezuela's rejection of Mr. Chavez's "president for life" ambition is encouraging. But as various panelists have noted, he doesn't represent the "Left" any more than does Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The trend in Latin America still seems to me to be a strengthening of the center-left, after the failure of the very conservative pro-market governments in Argentina and elsewhere. The paradigmatic figure is Lula in Brazil. Maybe it's this "New Left" -- very pragmatic, market-friendly but not slavishly so -- that deserves a closer look. (Especially since something similar may be emerging in the U.S. in the 2008 presidential elections).
I would be interested to know whether PostGlobal panelists and readers see similar signs of this more confident center-left in their parts of the world.
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