Hugo Chávez must build bridges to the other bank: if the president suffers from arrogance, his adversaries lack the slightest bit of endurance, says the author. If the rise in internal confrontations and the excessive international pressure following the referendum persists, there will be a strong social split. Dialog and internal consensus are missing in the Venezuela of today, and barriers abound, he points out.

Among other topics, relations with Brazil, Venezuela, Uruguay and Chile, the reactive gestures and pragmatism with Washington, economic management and the renegotiation of the foreign debt have marked Buenos Aires’ foreign policy during Néstor Kirchner’s term of office. To understand what challenges Cristina Fernández de Kirchner will face in the realm of foreign policy, in this article I take stock of Argentina’s achievements and mistakes during the period of 2003–2007.

What are the reasons for holding the Iberian-American summits? And for not holding them. Where does the skepticism come from? What was expected of Summit XVII in Santiago de Chile? Are these Summits justified? The Parallel Summit. The importance of face-to-face meetings. The debate about institutional quality in Latin America. Next, the first part of the analysis.

Álvaro Colom is the new president of Guatemala after elections that were clean but marked by absenteeism and an elevated number of intentionally null votes. The principal objectives of the new legislature are to overcome the criminality rate, lack of security, poverty and low levels of production. Right now the key lies in governability.

The hard-fought result of the referendum for the constitutional reform that President Hugo Chávez attempted to push through, evidence for the fact that Venezuela continues to be polarized into two sides without accepting any middle ground, with the social and political consequences that this entails. The triumph of the No is the Venezuelan society’s rejection of another Putin, and apart from that provides the leaderless political opposition, which now has no excuse to not get organized with an opportunity.

• There is a lack of dialog and a surplus of barriers in Venezuela
  por

The rejection of certain models that are not conducive to integration, overcoming the idea that ideological affinities like We can do it, decreasing the democratic deficit and carefully assimilating the potential of Venezuela: the story of the work that should be done to resolve the Mercosur crisis in order to escape stagnation.

Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa, indisputable winner in the elections for the formation of the Constituent Assembly, has initiated his particular reform of all of the pillars of the government. Far from the initial dialog, the imposition defines the leader’s ways, and so we will have to see if Correa is a statesman or another caudillo, says the author.

The Argentinians and Brazilians must overcome their old historic mistrusts, because there is no possible fate for an isolated Argentina, or for an isolated Brazil. The solution is to strengthen integration, which demands giving up individual ownership and sharing certain positions. There is no alternative, because the risk of inaction is to be converted into simple segments indifferent of the international market.