Welcome, I'm Anastasia Yuglova, and you're listening to Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, December 11, 2006.

Last week selections in Venezuela proved once again the tenacity of the populist sentiment in Latin America.

Here to discuss what Hugo Chavez's victory means for Venezuela

is Moses Ma'am, editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy magazine,

and a speaker at a recent Cato Conference on Latin America between populism and modernity.

Based on a victory speech, it looks like Chavez views his re-election as a victory over

Bush and not his challenger Emmanuel Rosales.

President Chavez has learned... and not his challenger Emmanuel Rosadez.

President Chávez has learned a powerful lesson from Cideal Castro, and that is to use the United

States as a shield and as a screen to shield himself from any accusations of underperformance

by explaining that it is the fault of the United States machinations and attempts to undermine his government.

In a screen where he can project all sorts of threats and all sorts of ideas. of

ideas that in the world today find a lot of echo.

Do you think Travis will interpret his victory

as a mandate to broaden his socialist revolution?

He actually said that.

And so the question now, he was very clear that he's going to move full speed ahead.

The only question remaining is at what speed. Is this going to be a very

gradual movement towards that and what does it actually mean or it is going to be a shock kind of strategy where changes and policy

reforms and drastic changes will be implemented in a very sudden, very deep way quite quickly.

Why is populism so popular in Latin America?

It's clearly not a sustainable set of policy options.

...