On top of 23 percent inflation—one of the highest rate in the world—and growing government debt, worsening blackouts have emerged as a serious dilemma, forcing Chavez’s government to announce rationing measures with rolling power outages in some parts of the country.
Chavez is increasingly focused on shoring up support ahead of his 2012 re-election bid, and some analysts say his domestic woes seem to be limiting his international reach in Latin America.
“President Chavez is going through a very difficult time,” Maria Teresa Romero, a professor of international studies at the Central University of Venezuela, told The Associated Press. “He’s not the same Hugo Chavez he was four, five years ago.”
She said Chavez no longer has the financial ability to promote oil-funded diplomacy the way he did several years ago, and is increasingly facing blackouts, deadly prison riots and deficiencies in the health care system.
“If he can’t handle such serious problems that are slipping out of his hands such as electricity,… how can it be explained that he’s going to help other countries?” Romero said. She said elsewhere in Latin America, “They see he’s weak.”
Chavez lined up with President Ahmadi-nejad a half dozen years when Chavez was the height of his popularity across Latin America. Chavez was Iran’s entrée to the continent and allowed Iran to link up with the handful of countries that found Yankee-basking to be politically useful.
A half-century ago, when the United States faced such Yankee-bashing from Cuba’s Fidel Castro it fought back—and made Castro an international celebrity. But as Chavez tried the same ploy, President George W. Bush and now President Obama have refused to take the bait. They have just yawned at Chavez’s antics. Latin leftists seem less interested in a man that doesn’t rile the Yankees, but just leaves them guffawing.
Chavez reinforced his alliances by selling oil on credit and offering investments to build refineries in countries such as Ecuador and Brazil. The refinery projects, however, have been delayed for years, and other Chavez ideas such as a natural gas pipeline across South America have yet to get off the ground.
During more than 12 years in office, Chavez has been joined by increasing numbers of left-leaning Latin leaders and has enjoyed close ties with presidents from Bolivia’s Evo Morales to Argentina’s Cristina Fernandez.
Yet Chavez has also increasingly faced unfavorable public opinion in countries such as Peru, where President-elect Ollanta Humala, once an open admirer of Chavez, has since distanced himself and indicated he favors the moderate, business-friendly policies of former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
A poll in 18 countries taken last year by Latinobarometro, an independent Chile-based polling organization, found that on average Latin Americans gave Chavez a 3.9 on a scale of 1 to 10 — the second-worst score on the list after his ally and mentor Fidel Castro.
Chavez scored 5 on the same annual survey in 2005, and has declined steadily since, said Carlos Macuada, a Latinobar-ometro researcher in Chile.“As the years have passed, his image has been viewed more negatively by people in Latin America,” Macuada told the AP.
Public opinion toward Chavez varied widely by country, with 69 percent in the Dominican Republic and 55 percent of Venezuelans saying they view Chavez favorably. In Colombia and Mexico, in contrast, only 14 percent expressed a favorable view of Chavez, and in Peru, 18 percent.
Chavez’s approval ratings at home have slipped in the past few years as the country weathered a recession, and have been hovering in the 50-percent range.
Polls suggest he remains the country’s single most popular politician, and in recent months the economy has returned to positive growth. Still, other woes weighing on him include Latin America’s highest inflation, one of the region’s highest murder rates and corruption that critics say is among the worst in the world.