U.S. report: Chavez subverting regional governments

AP photo/Leslie Mazoch

U.S. government analysts say Venezuela’s leftist leader Hugo Chavez is working to subvert other governments in Latin and South America by supporting political candidates in regional elections.

Chavez has endorsed Peruvian presidential candidate Ollanta Humala and also is supporting Sandinista communist Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua’s upcoming election. Chavez donated a helicopter that is being used by Ortega as part of his campaigning around Nicaragua for the November presidential elections.

The effort is “an apparent effort to bolster the perception of a Caracas-based political movement on the rise,” said a U.S. government report on the Chavez political program, known as Bolivarism. Continue.