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Chávez-led Latin American Group Looks Weaker Without His Charisma

By Nina Negron

If a potential successor follows President Hugo Chávez's international role, AS/COA’s Christopher Sabatini assures that “the Venezuelan oil sponsorship could continue as this has always been part of [Chávez] diplomatic strategy.” 

BOGOTA -- Charismatic and tireless, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has spent much of his 14 years in power building a Latin American bloc free of U.S. influence, relying in part on his country's vast oil wealth.

Indeed, after a series of political alliances led to strong economic ties, Latin America distanced itself from Washington. But absent Chavez, who has cancer, the movement may fall apart and it is unlikely another Latin American leader could fill Chavez's shoes….

For Christopher Sabatini, of the Council of the Americas lobby in Washington, “Chavez gave strength and personality to an openly anti-American alliance in the region, but this coalition doesn't have anyone to replace him” in case his illness definitively keeps him from picking back up the reins in Venezuela.

Chavez, elected in 1999, has focused on aggressive diatribes against with Washington, and, helped by the country's enormous oil reserves, has forged alliances and implemented mechanisms for cooperation and integration in the region, such as the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas.

Re-elected on Oct. 7, Chavez will not be able to be sworn in as planned for his new term on Thursday. He has not appeared in public since he left for Cuba a month ago for his fourth and most complicated round of cancer surgery since he was diagnosed a year and a half ago.

For Sabatini, if any figure at the heart of his movement could play the same role as Chavez on the international stage, “the Venezuelan oil sponsorship could continue. This has always been part of his diplomatic strategy,” he assured AFP....

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