It’s good news for Venezuela and good news for the general sanity of outside commentary on Venezuela that the constitutional referendum in Venezuela did not pass.  Perhaps now we can start to shelve silly talk about the “Cold War’s return”?  As Alex Massie notes, this was an unexpected outcome.  I certainly expected the referendum to pass.  I assumed that if Chavez could do one thing right, it would be to rig his own power-enhancing referendum to make sure that he wins the chance to keep being re-elected (and that those “re-elections” would also be thoroughly rigged).  However, I had to remind myself, as I have written in the past, that Venezuela really is a democracy.  Unlike some, I do not bestow this label as a form of praise, but as a description.  Venezuela is a populist, illiberal democracy, but a democracy all the same.  Sometimes demagogues and populists overreach and do not receive the popular support they expect, and this seems to be one of those times. 

I would add that this makes the prospects of the Venezuelan-Bolivian military threat to Argentina and the rest of South America, feared by some, less likely, but I suppose there isn’t much point in discussing the changing likelihood of an impossibility.