This is John Batcher. Comments by Professor Evan Ellis, my colleague about the way of corruption

in Latin American states over these last decades. It's a striking fact that consistently it's someone who is running against corruption,

who becomes corrupt himself.

The idea is to campaign when the people are frustrated with the bosses who steal.

And campaign is a reformer and you are.

Uu Chavez in Venezuela was a reformer.

Correa was a reformer.

Correa was a reformer in Ecuador.

I could go on.

Evan does.

And then, here's the formula.

And Evan explains it very carefully. You switch sides. Evan Ellis, corruption

with a reformer at the helm. More of this tonight. The dictatorships that we've had across Latin America, if you look at how the Ortegas came back in Nicaragua,

if you look at how Raphael Correa came to power in Ecuador back in 2006, again running on the people's frustration with corruption.

If you look at Mexico with with Amlo and the Breonna Party, time and time again, it's been corruption

and weak institutions that have brought opportunistic elites to power,

and it's been that same weakness of elites that's allowed them to use and weaponize that same corruption

for their own political end.

So you are absolutely onto something and it

really explains why the tragedy that's happening in Venezuela is happening and it also explains

some of the dangers that we have across the region where frustration with corruption runs deep and is being

weaponized by multiple different new populist leaders.

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