Venezuela in the Context of Chavismo and the First Pink Tide

1 Introduction

The article focuses on the political and social developments in Venezuela, a country that has significantly influenced the events of the entire Latin American continent in the first two decades of the 21st century. It is divided thematically, content-wise, and chronologically into several sections. The first section discusses the internal political developments in Venezuela in the last decade of the 20th century influenced by the country’s loss of economic prosperity due to the drop in oil prices and the subsequent sharp change in social sentiment that resulted in unrest. In the second section, we look at the ascension of a new generation of politicians led by Hugo Chávez to the country’s leadership, with an emphasis on the constitutional changes in Venezuela. The 1999 constitution, which was in many ways innovative in its design, became the basic legal framework within which social changes associated with the period of Bolivarian government of H. Chávez began to take place. The third section defines the concepts of chavismo and 21st century socialism, detailing the three fundamental roots of chavismo, linked to the legacies of Simón Bolívar, Ezequiel Zamora and Simón Rodríguez. The fourth section defines the Bolivarian Missions (Misiones Bolivarianas) as a unique conception of the wide range of social programs of chavismo implemented since 2003. It also provides examples of the most known types of missions and successes achieved, as well as the critical stances taken towards them by the Venezuelan opposition. The fifth section analyses, in more detail, the international connotations of chavismo’s influence in Latin America, manifested in the phenomenon known as the pink tide (marea rosa).

2 Internal Political Developments in the Last Decade of the 20th Century

An important milestone in Venezuelan political life occurred on 2 February 1999, when Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías assumed the presidency. This followed the results of the December 1998 elections, which he won as the candidate of the Patriotic Pole (Polo Patriótico) coalition, made up of the Fifth Republic Movement, the Fatherland for All, the Communist Party of Venezuela and the Movement for Socialism, as well as several other political entities. The shift in the electoral preferences of the population towards left-wing parties began about a decade earlier, when Venezuela – thanks to its mineral wealth in the form of oil – was still perceived as an economic miracle country.^[1] At that time, President Carlos Andrés Pérez of Democratic Action won and, after Jaime Lusinchi, was entering his second term.^[2] The initially successful candidate gradually had to cope with increasing economic and social problems, which led to the premature termination of his mandate. The difficulties persisted until the end of the decade, when a completely new phase of development began to be written in the country.

The period of prosperity in Venezuela of the previous decade came to an end when the decline in world oil prices depleted the country’s economic reserves from the extraction, processing and sale of fossil fuel products. The new President was left with a number of serious problems that had to be addressed, as recommended by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. This meant cutting social spending, rising fuel prices, making public transport more expensive and a number of other unpopular measures. Riots followed, culminating on 27 and 28 February 1989, and spreading to other parts of the country. They took on the character of an uprising named after the place of origin: Caracazo (cf. Ali, 2008, p. 51 ff.).

The police crackdown on demonstrators has resulted in hundreds killed, dozens injured and missing. Although popular resistance was eventually overcome, tensions in the country persisted, culminating in two attempted military coups in 1992 led by five lieutenant colonels under Hugo Chávez. Both attempts were unsuccessful and the organisers ended up in prison. Nevertheless, this period can be described as the emergence of a new generation of politicians. Neither Pérez’s successors as President, Octavio Lepage (21 May 1993–5 June 1993), Ramón José Velásquez (5 June 1993–2 February 1994), nor the experienced politician Rafael Caldera (2 February 1994–2 February 1999),^[3] who gave freedom to some of the rebels and their leaders in 1994, were able to change the mood of society in the following years. However, the positive effect of this move did not transfer significantly into pro-government sympathy, as the unfavourable economic situation forced him to continue with unpopular economic measures based on IMF recommendations. Long-standing corruption amongst the political elites as well as in the bureaucratic structures at government and regional level also played a role, as pointed out, for example, by J. M. Alvarado Andrade in the prologue to the extensive monograph of A. R. Brewer-Carías on Venezuelan constitutional law (cf. Brewer-Carías, 2022, pp. 43–46). The arguments of the author and co-authors of that monograph about the negative impact of corruption on the sentiments of the population in the 1990s are all the more convincing because Brewer-Carías personally represents that part of the leading constitutional lawyers, even in contemporary Venezuela, who were shaped by the late two-time president R. Caldera as their law professor during their university studies.

3 The Rise of a New Generation of Politicians and Constitutional Change in Venezuela

This development ultimately brought Hugo Chávez and his associates, including young officers, to power after the victorious elections in December 1998. From the first moments of his presidency, H. Chávez implemented a programme of large-scale transformations of Venezuelan society formulated in his Fifth Republic Movement, which drew on the legacy of the famous Venezuelan native and Liberator of the Latin American continent, Simón Bolívar (1783–1830), while also drawing on the ideas that gradually led to the definition of the concepts known as chavismo and 21st century socialism. Hugo Chávez described the 1961 Constitution of Venezuela as “dying” (moribunda) when he took the oath of office as President of Venezuela on 2 February 1999 on this constitutional text. In doing so, he clearly indicated his intention to push for the adoption of a new constitution that would transform Venezuela’s then Fourth Republic into a Fifth Republic, built on new foundations. The constitution was to be elaborated, according to his conception, by the Constituent National Assembly (Asamblea Nacional Constituyente, ANC), elected directly by the people for that purpose. A referendum was therefore held on 25 April 1999 in which the citizens approved the President’s intention to convene the ANC. This was subsequently elected by the citizens on 25 July 1999 and in a relatively short time prepared the text of the new Constitution, which was submitted to the citizens for approval in a referendum held on 15 December 1999, where the participating voters approved the text of the Constitution in that vote (for more details see Brewer-Carías, 2022, pp. 119 ff.). The Constitution was published in the official gazette (Gaceta Oficial de la República de Venezuela) on 30 December 1999, and thus entered into force. The era of the Fifth Republic in Venezuela, officially known as the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (República Bolivariana de Venezuela), which has lasted until the present day, can thus be said to have begun.

The 1999 Venezuelan Constitution is a rather large text, consisting of 349 articles and 20 additional provisions in the final part of the text. The creator of the Constitution is according to it’s Preamble the people of Venezuela (represented by the ANC), which invokes protection of God and recalls the historical example of Simón Bolívar, as well as the heroism and sacrifices of the indigenous ancestors of the Venezuelan people and of the fighters for Venezuela’s independence. The preamble also expresses concentratedly the objectives of the framers of the constitution, which include, among other things, the creation of a democratic, participatory, multiethnic and pluricultural society in a federal state, committed to the values of freedom, independence, peace and solidarity, common good and the rule of law, guaranteeing the right to life, work, culture, education, social justice and equality, with Latin American integration as one of its objectives in international relations (Constitución de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela, 1999, Preamble).

According to the introductory provisions of the Constitution, contained in Articles 1–2, Venezuela was defined as a democratic and social state governed by the rule of law, which – as already expressed in its new name, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela – subscribed to the doctrine of Simón Bolívar as the Liberator (el Libertador). This continuity with the legacy of Bolívar’s thought was manifested, among other things, in the original construction of the organisation of public power at the federal (national) level (Poder Público Nacional), where a system of five branches of power is applied instead of the tripartite division of power that is customary in most countries of the world.^[4] Since 1999, the legislative, executive and judicial powers in Venezuela have been joined by civil and electoral powers. This system also enshrines the principle of checks and balances, in which the various powers balance, check and interact with each other.^[5]

Some constitutional theorists argue that in this system, the legislative power (Poder Legislativo), represented at the federal level by a unicameral National Assembly (Asamblea Nacional) directly elected by the citizens with a five-year term of office, dominates over the judicial, civil and electoral powers and that parliament is linked through the government majority to the executive power (Cf. Brewer-Carías, 2022, p. 149). However, developments in 2016–2021, when the Venezuelan parliament was dominated by the opposition, showed that the legislative power was unable to assert its dominance over the other powers, which, through their participation in the system of checks and balances regulated in the 1999 constitution, counterbalanced the power of the parliament.

Executive power (Poder Ejecutivo) at the federal level is vested in the President of the Republic who is elected by the citizens in direct elections for six years, the Executive Vice President (Vicepresidente Ejecutivo) appointed by the President, ministers and other officials designated by the Constitution and the law (Constitución de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela, 1999, art. 225 et seq.). The relationship between the legislature and the executive is – as in most Latin American countries – constructed on the basis of a presidential form of government with a strong presidential position, following the North American model. This is partly balanced by the possibility of a vote of no confidence in the executive vice-president or any of the ministers by the National Assembly by qualified majority, with their subsequent obligation to resign (Constitución de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela, 1999, arts. 240, 246). This can be described as an element of the parliamentary form of government that is typical of European states, including the Slovak Republic.

The exercise of judicial power (Poder Judicial) is vested in the Supreme Court (Tribunal Supremo de Justicia), as well as in other courts designated by law. The Supreme Court, which, as in the USA, also exercises constitutional justice, plays an important role in the system of balancing and intertwining the powers mentioned above. For example, according to Article 231, the newly elected President takes the oath of office before the National Assembly, but if this is not possible, the oath is administered before the Supreme Court (Constitución de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela, 1999, art. 231).

The inclusion of a fourth, namely the civil power (Poder Ciudadano), in the Constitution was justified by its drafters on the basis of the inspiration of Bolivar’s idea of the moral power (Poder Moral), which el Libertador had proposed in his draft Constitution presented to the Congress of Angostura (1819–1821). It was to be an institution in charge of the “conscience of the nation”, with the task of looking after the formation and education of citizens, leading them to respect the Constitution and republican institutions (Cf. Peña Solis, 2015, p. 357). This understanding of Bolívar’s moral power is reflected in several provisions of the 1999 Venezuelan Constitution regulating civil power (Constitución de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela, 1999, art. 273 ff.). The latter is entrusted to the Republican Moral Council (Consejo Moral Republicano), made up of the Ombudsman (Defensor del Pueblo), the Attorney General (Fiscal General) and the Controller General of the Republic (Contralor General de la República). Bolívar’s legacy is also evident in the wording of Article 278, according to which one of the tasks of the Republican Moral Council is to promote pedagogical activities aimed at, among other things, knowledge and study of the Constitution, love of country or respect for human rights (Constitución de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela, 1999, art. 278). The fifth, namely the electoral power (Poder Electoral) is exercised under the Constitution by the Supreme Electoral Council (Consejo Nacional Electoral) and its subordinate bodies (Constitución de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela, 1999, art. 292).

The Constitution also enshrined the basic principles of the socio-economic system, which are social justice, democratisation, efficiency, free competition, environmental protection, productivity and solidarity, with the State, in conjuction with private initiative, to promote the development of the national economy (Constitución de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela, 1999, art. 299). This concept of a mixed economy with a strong social emphasis is matched by the extensive regulation of human rights in the Constitution, where, in addition to civil and political rights, guarantees of economic and social rights are regulated in detail, and the rights of indigenous peoples and the regulation of environmental protection are also included (Constitución de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela, 1999, arts. 19–129). As part of the regulation of human rights, the framers of the Constitution also included the strengthening of direct democracy through the institution of the referendum, introducing the removability of all elected offices, starting with the President of the Republic. A referendum may be held if at least one-fifth of the electorate so requests, during the second half of the term of office of the official being recalled. The recall occurs if an equal or greater number of voters vote in favour of the recall than the number by which he or she was elected to the office (Constitución de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela, 1999, art. 72). Such a referendum was also faced in 2004 by H. Chávez but the attempt for his recall was not successful and the president has completed his mandate lasting until 2007. The 1999 Constitution, which was innovative in many respects, became the basic legal framework within which the social changes associated with the period of H. Chávez’s rule began to take place.

4 Chavismo and 21st Century Socialism

The term chavismo is used to describe the ideology associated with the name of former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. This ideology dominates the Venezuelan ruling coalition, the Great Patriotic Pole (Gran Polo Patriótico, GPP), in which the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela, PSUV), founded by H. Chávez, has a major influence. At the turn of the millennium, the new political leader was able to rely on a varied and diverse network of leftist sympathisers, made up of representatives of the diverse groups of the popular movement, rank-and-file members of the army, simple soldiers and the progressive part of the armed forces’ officer corps, former guerrillas and representatives of other resistance groups. All this without a unifying political idea. Chávez, with his political intuition, understood that this was his opportunity to fill this vacuum. Chavista philosophy draws on several basic kinds of ideologies, which are intertwined to create their distinctive Venezuelan variant.

Starting from this concept, chavismo can be characterized as a tree that relies on three basic roots. Ignácio Ramonet, author of several scholarly publications on Latin American countries, typifies chavismo as an innovative Latin American political path that is liberated and emancipated from the eternal European and Anglo-Saxon conceptual trusteeship…. It is, in his view, the most innovative and daring project Venezuela has had since the days of Bolívar (Ramonet, 2022). First, it grows out of its Bolivarian roots because of its approach to equality and freedom, based on the legacy of Simón Bolívar, and because of its geopolitical vision for the integration of Latin America. Secondly, it draws on the Zamora root of Ezequiel Zamora, general of the sovereign people and supporter of civil-military unity, and thirdly on the Robinson root of Simón Rodríguez, Bolívar’s teacher. The pseudonym Samuel Robinson, which he used, symbolizes here an excellent disseminator of popular education, endowed with life wisdom, who also professed freedom and equality. To these three roots, Chávez gradually adds the legacy of other figures from Latin American history, such as Miranda and Sucre, as well as Martí, Che Guevara and Fidel Castro.

A prominent place within chavismo belonged to the philosophical ideas of socialism, and this current was not defined by the ideas of utopian socialism, nor by the principles of Marxism-Leninism or real socialism of the Soviet type, but based its foundations on the everyday reality of life in the countries of Latin America, especially Venezuela. It found its concrete expression in what Chavismo called 21st Century Socialism. One of its essential features was that it sought to distinguish itself from the socialist experiments of 20th century Europe. However, this has not always met with understanding among the Venezuelan scientific elite. For example, the author of the prologue to the monograph on the 1999 Venezuelan Constitution, J. M. Alvarado Andrade, on the contrary, argues that the country’s fall into the vortex of the most obsolete socialism foreshadowed a troubling future for the region that is already beginning to manifest itself today (Brewer-Carías, 2022, p. 43).

Let us leave aside that the very adjective “most obsolete” added to the term socialism is a rather vague statement without a more precise determination of which of the real forms of this social system is actually in question. It can only be assumed that these may be countries where socialism disappeared in the context of the global movements around 1989. It is not the aim of this work to make a scientific analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of this system, but in any case it can be said that the chavista understanding of socialism, for example, lacks dogmatism and is rather characterised by flexibility, which is manifested, among other things, in the acceptance of not only social but also private ownership of the means of production, including its other forms, for example, in the form of cooperative entrepreneurship and other combinations of collective and individual ownership. It also promotes self-management and participation in the management of production relations and commercial exchange. Another important element of chavista policy are socialist communes. Their legal regulation was brought about by the 2006 Law on Community Councils (see Ellner, 2014, p. 90 ff. for more details).

An important component of chavismo in the internal political sphere of the country’s life is the patriotic ideal of a sovereign people, which in the economic sphere translates into the need to manage the natural wealth of the country as a basic source of income that guarantees economic growth and generous social goals. Indeed, Chávez has implemented this plan, nationalising large companies in the hands of foreign capital, in preference to domestic strategic companies owned by Venezuelans. In doing so, he sought to bring together two seemingly disconnected themes – the social programme of chavismo and the social programme of Christianity contained in the Latin American version of liberation theology. Chávez was a committed Christian who adopted the Nicaraguan Sandinista slogan: “There is no contradiction between Christianity and revolution.” (“Cristianismo y revolución, no hay contradicción.”) He even went so far as to call Jesus Christ the first socialist to shape modern times, espousing the vision that the Kingdom of God must be built already here on Earth. According to Ramonet, the patriotic philosophy of humanism as a legacy of Christianity and liberation theology is typical of chavismo (Ramonet, 2022).

5 Bolivarian Missions

By Bolivarian Missions we mean a unique concept of a wide range of social chavist programs implemented since 2003, whose aim is to fight poverty and social injustice. The conception of such social policies from the first moments of H. Chávez’s ascension to power in 1999 was inspired by the dire, even disastrous, consequences of the management of the state by the previous liberal politicians in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s. Poverty at that time stood at over 50% of the population, and other social and economic indicators were also beyond the point of tolerance. One of the first steps taken by the Chávez Government was to propose measures for a special emergency social policy programme, which was given the name ‘Plan Bolívar 2000’. It was effectively the first Bolivarian Mission, although it was not expressis verbis defined as such. It involved some 40–60 thousand military personnel who assisted in areas such as food supply, health, education, infrastructure development, even waste removal and care for the homeless (Otálvaro, 2019). The plan itself, due to a lack of experience with similar activities and other problems, may not have ended successfully, but at least it showed Chávez’s great determination to fight the inherited poverty in Venezuela.

The Bolivarian Missions were formulated by the government in 2003 as emergency measures in the fight against poverty aimed at addressing the country’s acute social problems. This gave impetus to the birth of the first social programme Barrio Adentro, which was launched at the end of 2003. Its mission was to provide free comprehensive health services to the population and to improve the quality of life of Venezuelans. The creation of a network of health centres, including in remote areas with difficult access or without health infrastructure, was intended to contribute to this. Among the first to be set up was the Mercal Mission,^[6] whose aim was to provide the deprived sectors of the population with subsidised food and other basic goods, which made it possible to ensure their food security. Missions in the field of education, whether primary, secondary or higher education, including higher university forms, have also met with great success. The Robinson Mission, for example, relied on adult volunteers to teach the basics of mathematics, reading and writing. The Ribas Mission was for second-level schools, and the Sucre Mission provided a free opportunity for adults to acquire higher education. Subsequently, a wide network of missions developed in virtually all areas of Venezuelan society. Particularly significant were the housing initiatives of the Gran Misión Vivienda (GMVV), which were to result in the construction of hundreds of thousands of dwellings a year, some three million in total by 2013. The latest statistics indicate that Venezuela will have completed the number of apartments handed over to citizens at four million 400 thousand on 29 December 2022. An apartment with this ranking was given to a family in Las Tejerías, in the state of Aragua (Prensa Latina, 2022). Other missions focused on rural development and agrarian reform (Vuelta al Campo Mission, Zamora’s Mission), or the promotion of science and the arts, etc. The breadth of the scope of the Bolivarian missions can be illustrated by the existence of Cristo Mission, whose main mission, apart from religious motives, was mainly to combat the various manifestations of poverty. This reflects the peculiarity of religiosity of the Venezuelan people, its social dimension and the attitudes of Chávez himself. The number of missions oscillates between 40 and 50, and their form and focus varies from year to year. For these reasons, the actual data on their real state at present are not of any significant value. Since 2005 the missions have been called socialist. This was publicly declared by President H. Chávez in connection with the declaration of “Socialism of the 21st century”. He did so on 30 January of the same year at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre.

The Bolivarian missions had the advantage of being able to rely on the state power and economic base that the country’s oil wealth and continuous economic growth from 2004 to 2008 provided. As a result, Chávez’s policies were able to show several exclusive results. The social achievements of the first decade of this century have been documented by the Venezuelan National Statistics Institute (Instituto Nacional de Estadística, INE) and other public and private institutions at home and abroad. In 2010, for example, Venezuela achieved the lowest Gini coefficient in Latin America, documenting the high degree of equitable income distribution among the population. It also scored well on indicators such as the UN Human Development Index (IDH), which assesses countries’ access to education, income levels and life expectancy at birth. Venezuela already met the UN Millennium Goals in 2005. The effectiveness of social policy was also reflected in an important indicator such as the poverty rate, which fell from 49.4% in 1999 to 27.8% in 2010. Similarly, extreme poverty fell from 22.2% in 2002 to 10.7% in 2010. Venezuela was also the second Latin American country after Costa Rica with the highest happiness index in 2012, according to the World Happiness Report (cf. Otálvaro, 2019).

But all this is far from being consistent with how the global and domestic opposition media describe the reality of the country. They are mainly dominated by criticism and, one might even say, demonization of the image of President H. Chávez as a dictator, from the first moments of his rise to power virtually until his death in 2013 and beyond, and it is quite likely that this will continue in the future. This attitude is also typical of the Venezuelan opposition, which has criticized the Bolivarian Missions and the emergence of a wide network of community-based organizations for a number of reasons. Above all, it blamed them for creating parallel structures in the state that have weakened the unity of its governance. In particular, they were opposed by some representatives of the traditional authorities, such as governors, mayors, judges, and executive representatives of the various state agencies, who refused to give up their former privileges.

Positive discrimination against socially marginalised groups was one of the key points of the political programme of H. Chávez. The opposition rejects the redistribution of wealth in this way, arguing that it disadvantages other important sections of society, such as entrepreneurs, tradesmen and the like. Criticism is also voiced in the ranks of the academic community, which in its analyses points to various social ills such as populism, inefficiency, protectionism and corruption in social policy, and attributes them to the Bolivarian Government. Overall, according to some academics, the contribution of the Bolivarian missions to the development of society is also diminished, and the view is promoted that they are in a process of gradual decline after their boom in the first period of their existence since 2007 (D’Elia & Quiroz, 2010). Any criticism of this kind certainly has a rational core and may be more or less sincerely meant. It cannot be rejected a priori, but neither can it be accepted unilaterally. It does not, for example, correspond to the reality that the middle class and members of the upper classes may have considered themselves excluded from the development processes of community organizations and Bolivarian missions. In fact, the opposition also had access to social programmes, which it exploited accordingly. Around 60–70% of the Venezuelan population participated in the missions (Otálvaro, 2019). And although the Bolivarian government has promoted its social policies, which have helped to improve the quality of life of millions of Venezuelans, it has not yet eliminated the historically inherited inequalities. The business classes in commerce, finance, construction and the media continue to accumulate their wealth.

6 International Connotations of the Influence of Chavismo – The Pink Tide (Marea Rosa)

Hugo Chávez’s victory in the 1998 presidential elections and his ascension to the presidency of Venezuela in 1999 is seen as the beginning of a political phenomenon in recent Latin American history for which the term ‘marea rosa’ has been customary. It was the gradual rise to power of left-wing and centre-left governments in most Latin American countries, a trend that peaked around 2011 and persisted until cca 2015, only to be revived again at the end of the last decade and the beginning of this one, when, after the victory of the left in the Brazilian presidential elections of October 2022, it took on an even greater scale than it had in the aforementioned 2011. We can thus distinguish, with some simplification, two phases of the pink tide – the first (c. 1998–2015), in which the chavista Venezuela played a prominent role, and the current second (c. 2018-present), in which Mexico and Argentina in particular can be identified as the leaders of this process. In our analysis, we will focus on the characteristics of the pink tide and its impact in Latin American integration processes, as well as on Venezuela’s role in this process.

In the process of the first pink tide, started by Chávez’s victory in Venezuela in 1998 (which was repeated with his re-election as president in 2000, 2006 and 2012), other leftist governments began to join in the domino effect, replacing the previously ruling governments, which were mainly guided by neoliberal principles in their economic policies. These became especially prevalent in the 1980s and 1990s and brought about a significant widening of the social gap between the elite and the grassroots, which played into the hands of the left (On this, see e.g. Fernandes Pimenta et al., 2014, pp. 3–4). Another state where this brought the left to power was Brazil, an influential country with a large population and great economic potential. On the first day of 2003, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva^[7] of the Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, PT) became its president. Another part of the spectrum of figures and leaders of left-wing governments within this phase of the pink tide was the Argentine presidential couple originally from the Peronist political camp: Néstor Kirchner (president from 2003 to 2007) and his wife Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (president from 2007 to 2015). Uruguay was steered to the left by the presidency of Tabaré Vázquez of the Broad Front (Frente Amplio, FA) coalition from 2005 to 2010, who was succeeded by José Mujica (2010–2015) of the same coalition, and Tabaré Vázquez was again Uruguay’s president from 2015 to 2020. The pink tide was particularly strenghtened in 2006 when Evo Morales, representing the left-wing Movement for Socialism (Movimiento al Socialismo, MAS), assumed the presidency of Bolivia in January as the first candidate of indigenous origin in the country’s history. Together with Chávez and the Castros, he has formed the authentic core of a clearly defined Latin American left.

In late 2006 and early 2007, this core was enriched by two other new leftist governments in the region when, after winning the elections at the end of 2006, Daniel Ortega (2007-present) took the presidency in Nicaragua as leader of the Sandinista Front for National Liberation (Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, FSLN), and Rafael Correa (2007–2017), representing the Alianza PAIS party, in Ecuador. Developments in a Central American country where there was no such tradition, Honduras, have also begun to move to the left. Paradoxically, the symbol of leftist politics there has gradually become President Manuel Zelaya of the Liberal Party, who took office in 2006, establishing close cooperation with Chávez’s Venezuela and its allies. After he was ousted by a military coup in 2009, Honduras went through a twelve-year period of right-wing governments, which ended, in a directly symbolic way, with the victory of Zelaya’s wife, Xiomara Castro, as the candidate of the left-wing LIBRE party in the presidential elections of late 2021, but this was already part of the second wave of pink tide. In 2008, the pink tide even hit the South American country of Paraguay, a country ruled for decades by the dictator Alfredo Stroessner and his right-wing Colorado Party, which was replaced in 2008 by the centre-left coalition Patriot Alliance for Change (Alianza Patriótica por el Cambio, APC) - led by the president, former Catholic bishop and Liberation Theology supporter Fernando Lugo, running for the centre-left Christian Democratic Party (PDC). A similar development occurred in long-term rightist El Salvador, where in 2009 the presidential election was won by Mauricio Funes, the candidate of the left-wing Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional, FMLN). His vice-president was former FMLN guerrilla commander Salvador Sánchez Cerén, who won the next presidential election in 2014, succeeding his predecessor in office after the end of his term. During his rule, lasting until 2019, he deepened El Salvador’s leftist orientation. In addition, Martín Torrijos of the centre-left Democratic Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Democrático, PRD) – the son of the country’s former military leader Omar Torrijos – ruled Panama from 2004 to 2008, while Guatemala was ruled by a similarly oriented President Álvaro Colom. Centre-left orientation has also been the one of presidents in Chile, Ricardo Lagos (2000–2006) and Michelle Bachelet (2006–2010, 2014–2018), and in Peru: Alan García (2006–2011) and Ollanta Humala (2011–2016).

In general, the political drift to the left on the continent, most marked in Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador, and present in a number of other countries starting with Brazil and Argentina, has been based to a decisive extent on public dissatisfaction with the consequences of the operation of the neoliberal model in the economic sphere of these countries. The left-wing governments that have emerged on the wave of this discontent have therefore sought to mitigate the negative consequences of this legacy in the social sphere. They have promoted poverty reduction, the reduction of social inequality, production-based growth and the redistribution of wealth. They emphasized the development of public services, especially health and education. As confirmed by several UNESCO reports, significant achievements have been made through erradication of iliteracy in raising the level of the basic classes of the ordinary population. Another important aspect of the pink tide was the launching of regional Latin American integration processes on a scale never seen before. In addition to strengthening the functioning of existing mechanisms of regional integration – as was the case of MERCOSUR – new integration groupings emerged, built in a decisive part precisely by the governments of the pink tide (Cf. Fernandes Pimenta et al., 2014, pp. 7–8, 16–18). This was the case of the Union of South American Nations (Unión de Naciones Suramericanas, UNASUR), founded in the first decade of the 21st century, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeños, CELAC),^[8] whose first summit was held in 2011 in Venezuela, and, specifically, the organization Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – Peoples’ Trade Treaty (Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América – Tratado de Comercio de los Pueblos, ALBA–TCP), founded in Havana on 14 December 2004. Its founding members are Cuba and Venezuela, and it has gradually expanded to include Bolivia (in 2006), Nicaragua (in 2007) and a number of smaller Caribbean states (Dominica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, Grenada). Honduras (2008–2010) and Ecuador (2009–2018) were also temporary members of the now ten-member grouping. In its policy of integrating the states of Latin America and the Caribbean, the ALBA–TCP is based on the thought of the independence fighters of the countries of the region, such as Bolívar, Martí, San Martín, Sucre, Sandino and others. In the social sphere, it aims to fight poverty and in the political sphere, it seeks to present common positions towards third parties, as well as to promote a change in international relations towards a pluripolar and multicentric system (Cf. ALBA–TCP, 2022). Regarding the current functioning of these integrationist groupings, while UNASUR went into decline during the temporary weakening of the left in the region after 2015, the ALBA–TCP continues to be active as a platform for cooperation and coordination of the positions of its member states, and CELAC, under the presidencies pro tempore of Mexico (2020–2022), Argentina (2022–2023) and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (2023-present), is growing in importance from 2020 onwards. Thus, the foundations for greater cooperation between Latin American and Caribbean countries, laid during the first pink tide and with Venezuela’s not insignificant contribution, have persisted into its second pink tide, which, with the current distribution of political forces in the region, favours the strengthening of integration efforts.

7 Conclusion

Political and social developments in Venezuela and throughout Latin America at the turn of the millennium have been significantly influenced by the personality of Hugo Chávez and this influence has been even lasting to the current period. During the 14 years of his rule, Chávez and his political companions initiated a departure from the neoliberal model that had dominated in the 1980s and 1990s in Venezuela and the wider region of Latin America. The social programs launched during his administration, linked to the ideology of socialism of the 21st century, as well as the related changes implemented in the Venezuelan legal system (including the adoption of a new constitution in 1999) showed that the development different from the neoliberal paradigm in Latin America is possible. On the ideological level, this social movement found the formulation of its principles in the form known as chavismo and in the implementation of the social programs of the Bolivarian Missions. It is a unique and large-scale social experiment, concerning practically all areas of the country’s life, which – despite the intense criticism of the Venezuelan opposition and the right-wing forces of the continent – has no parallel in the history of Latin America.

Chavismo has also had its international political consequences. Its influence grew and was further strengthened by the emergence of leftist and center-left governments in other Latin American countries, such as Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia, among others, for which the term pink tide (marea rosa) was used. This made it possible to implement Chávez’s efforts for Latin American integration, following on the legacy of Simón Bolívar. This integration materialized in organizations such as ALBA – TCP, CELAC and UNASUR, created thanks to the cooperation of the leftist governments of Latin America and the Caribbean. Although the aforementioned development trend faced serious challenges in the years after Chávez’s death in 2013, which were caused by both internal and external factors, the pink tide phenomenon has revived in Latin American countries after a temporary decline since 2018 and is currently dominant in this part of the world again. The ideas of the post-neoliberal model, emphasizing social justice, whose origin in Latin America was connected with chavist Venezuela, thus demonstrate a remarkable vitality in this part of the world.