The election has a geopolitical significance well beyond Venezuela. The continent’s politically predominant left has polarised between supporters of a Chávez-Castro axis, encouraged by Venezuelan oil money and Cuban doctors, and those more inclined to an accommodation with both neo-liberal economics and their US neighbour, aligned with Brazil’s former president Lula. Chávez’s associations with regimes like Iran and Belarus, with rebels in Colombia, and his Russian arms sales, would make a realignment most welcome to many of his neighbours.
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