All or nothing for Chávez

In recent years, King Juan Carlos I of Spain has emerged as a respected arbitrator of diplomatic disputes in Latin America. It was therefore entirely out of character when, during the Ibero-American summit on 10 November, he jabbed a finger at Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, invited him to "shut up" and stormed out of the debating chamber.

The king's outburst was matched for shock value by the response of his Prime Minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. Irritated by Chávez' repeated references to the conservative former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar as a "fascist", the socialist Zapatero asked Chávez to show more respect. In the space of two minutes, Chávez had managed not only to enrage a taciturn constitutional monarch but also to temporarily reconcile two of the most strident adversaries in European politics.

The incident highlighted a significant trend - Chávez is beginning to attract criticism not just from his established enemies but also from those, like Zapatero, who were previously inclined to support or indulge him. It is a trend replicated at the domestic level. University students, a constituency that has traditionally provided one of the bulwarks of support for radical socialist reformers, have in recent weeks played a leading role in mass protests against proposed constitutional reforms scheduled to face a national referendum on 2 December. If approved, the reforms will effectively re-constitute Venezuela as a socialist republic while removing limits on the number of presidential terms Chávez can serve.

As well as the students, Chávez has begun to lose the support of relatively moderate factions within his governing coalition. The Democratic Socialist Party (Por la Democracia: Podemos) has been pushed into semi-opposition since Chávez attempted to force it to join a United Socialist Party of Venezuela (Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela: PSUV) following his victory in presidential elections in December 2006. Meanwhile a collection of smaller parties on the moderate left and centre-right have come out in opposition to the constitutional reform proposals in recent weeks. 330 of 926 words