"For me, this isn't a defeat", said Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez in a press conference on Sunday night, announcing he lost in referendum for constitutional reforms.

He got only 49% of votes, his opponents 51%. But for a leader like him, who was elected in 2003 with 63% of votes, it's the first bitter defeat since he became president, nine years ago.

Last Sunday, Venezuela said no to Chávez's crusade to make his country the flagship of 21st century socialism. Among the 69 proposed constitutional changes, he aimed at altering the extent of president's control over the military and removing the autonomy of Venezuelan central bank.

But the most relevant point was abolishing term limits, to enable the President to keep running for office for decades. Otherwise, according to current constitution, by the end of 2012, Chávez must leave the palace of Miraflores.


Who is Chavez?
Born on July 28,1954 in Sabaneta, State of Barinas, and graduated from Military Academy in 1975, he led the Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement (a secret socialist movement, inspired to the historical figure of Simón Bolivar, leader of several independence movements throughout South America) in a failed cup in 1992 against former President Carlos Andres Perez.

After two years spent in a military prison, he was granted a pardon. Then Chávez moved from soldier to politician, giving birth to his party, the Movement of the Fifth Republic. He took power in 1998, defeating the two main old parties, accused of wasting the country’s vast oil reserves, and presenting himself as protector of poor and scourge of "predatory oligarchs", considered corrupt servants of international capital. Chávez' leadership, since the beginning has always been a controversial one.

At first glance, Chávez seems populist and demagogic, a modern caudillo (caudillo is a Spanish word used to designate a political-military leader at the head of an authoritarian power). He is renowned for his flamboyant public speaking style, which he puts to use in his weekly live TV programme, Aló Presidente (Hello President), in which he talks about his political ideas, interviews guests and sings and dances.

Close friend of Cuba's leader Maximo, Fidel Castro, and fierce opponent of Bush's Administration and US foreign policy, Chávez is renowned for being extremely outspoken. In a famous speech to the United Nations General Assembly in September 2006, he referred to George W Bush as "the devil".

Chavez economic power mostly comes from Venezuela's energy resources: is the petroleum sector that dominates Venezuela's economy, accounting for roughly a third of GDP, around 80% of exports, and more than half of government revenues. Besides, despite fraying ties with the US, Venezuela remains the No. 4 oil supplier to the United States, and with the price of oil hovering around $100 a barrel, the state coffers are getting richer.

Andrea Sesti, in his thesis The Chávez Case: Ideology and Image (original title Il caso Chávez: ideologia e immagine, the work is entirely in Italian), offers the reader a complete and exhaustive survey over the figure of Hugo Chávez, considering both his domestic and foreign politics, and analysing his relationships with other South American leftist leaders, his strong ally like Fidel Castro, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, or opposing Michelle Bachelet, who defined him caudillo.

Ever since 2002, South America's political scenario changed. First, Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva, former labour organizer and leader of Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers' Party) was elected president of Brazil, then other important counties in the continent started been governed by leftist leaders.

Chávez gained allies and began taking advantages of such favourable political situation. Even if Lula had moderate positions, he embarked on collaborating with Venezuelan president, and together with leftist Uruguayan president Tabarè Vasquez, the Argentinean Nestor Kircner, representative of Peronist left party, elected in 2003, and the Paraguayan leader Nicanor Duarte Frutos, doomed an agreement the US proposed to build close economic integration between the two Americas. Chávez labelled the opposing block as "the five musketeers".


South America leftism
Niccolò Locatelli in his thesis Mutamento politico in Sudamerica: l'avanzata dei partiti di sinistra (in English: Political Change in South America: Leftist Parties Advancing) makes a survey of the political turnover since Chavez's first election, offering the reader some explanations why the sub-continent almost en-bloc abandoned the former neo-liberal political and economic system.

In Brazil, Lula's victory sounded more like the outcome of Brazilians' discontent with former corrupted politicians. As O Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra (Landless Workers' Movement), that supported Lula's party, declared few days after elections: "Our victory was not the result of a mass movement growth, but the consequence of the failure of the economic model adopted by the elite".

Michelle Bachelet, current president of Chile, is the first woman leader in that country. Son of a general, tortured and poisoned for collaborating with Salvador Allende, when Augusto Pinochet came to power in the September 11, 1973 cup, she had been exiled for almost 5 years, and only in 1990, when democracy was restored, she entered publicly Chilean political life.

Global Competitiveness Report, published few weeks ago by World Economic Forum, ranked Chile 26th, the best in South America economy. Jerry Haar, an international-business professor at Florida International University in Miami, in an interview with Time, told the ABCs (Argentina, Brazil and Chile) are spelling a model of "pragmatic socialism [...] drawing both to a more globally competitive middle."

Evo Morales, was elected in 2005 head of state of Bolivia, declaring himself the first indigenous of South America after Spanish Conquest – he is an Aymara. Morales is the leader of the MAS (Movement Towards Socialism) and is supported by cocaleros - coca leaf-growing campesinos who are resisting the efforts of the United States government to eradicate coca.

But cocaleros are not drug trafficker. In an interview with the Guardian's journalist, Steve Boggan, Morales claimed Bolivia's cultural and traditional ties with coca-leaf production: "For us, it is a way of life, but coca is not cocaine. Traditionally, Bolivians have not processed it into the narcotic drug cocaine. We completely oppose that. I am saying no to zero coca, but yes to zero cocaine."

Paolo Gallizioli wrote an interesting thesis about Morales, Socialism, Indigenism and Populism: Evo Morales leadership in Bolivia (original title Socialismo, Indigenismo y Populismo: el liderazgo de Evo Morales en Bolivia, the work is entirely written in Spanish), framing his leadership within the history of South America, implied with socialist and Marxist movements that merged into indigenism.

According to Gallizioli's definition, indigenism is an old movement, deep-rooted since the Spanish domination, that aims at protecting indios and fighting for their right. During the twentieth century, such movement put on more political features, for this reason: "Fenómenos como la revolución mexicana de 1910 o la revolución en Bolivia de 1952, se pueden incluir en la categoría del indigenismo político." ["phenomena such as the Mexican revolution of 1910 and the Bolivian revolution of 1952 can be included within the category of political indigenism"]

But political indigenism took centuries to gain power and enter democracy. If we consider Bolivian population, it may sound a bit scratchy: two-thirds of nine million inhabitants are indigenous - Amerindian Aymara and Quechua - approximately 1% are African descendants of slaves brought over for mining, and the remainder are descendants of European settlers, primarily Spanish.

To a larger extent, it seems neo-liberal model is loosing South America's support, even if Lula and Bachelet positions are not so radically opposed to US (in particular to Bush administration). Besides, the stakes leftist government have to face are difficult enough for not being tackled immediately and easily.

Poverty, equal distribution of goodness, easy access to public services, instruction and public welfare, fight against corruption are just some of these challenges. As well, populism and the spectre of military power appears like a the dark shadow imperiling South America's democracy.

The whole continent, after gaining independence, faced political overturning, military cups and populist regimes, always in the balance between its aspirations, its enormous natural resources and all the impediments that prevent South America's populations from wellbeing and economic wealth.

At the same time, the US hegemony, in the 70s during Nixon's administration (allegedly involved in Pinochet cup) and in the 90s, with the so-called Washington consensus (which imposed restrictions to public expense, de-taxation for companies and rich classes, privatisation of state-run firms and openness to foreign direct investments), heavily influenced the sub-continent, destabilizing its economy. In this sense, 2002 Argentina economic crackdown can be explained as the most meaningful result of the failure of neo-liberal economic models.

Probably Chavez, recognizing his defeat, presented himself as a democratic leader that accepts democratic dialectic, as Venezuelan, saying no to his constitutional overhaul, expressed their wish for more democracy. After results were announced, Chavez told his opponents: "I thank you and congratulate you", thus deflecting charges of despotism from Washington and critics at home.

As Simón Bolívar – Chavez' mentor – once said "El sistema de gobierno perfecto es aquel que produce la mayor suma de felicidad posible..." ["The perfect system of government is the one able to produce the highest amount of possible happiness"] That's why democracy is such a complicated issue, and probably always an imperfect system, despite all the efforts politics, intellectuals and citizens may take.