She is right, too, that Mas Canosa was a caudillo, and not by instinct a democrat.

ECONOMIST: Cuban-American relations

With independence came two of Latin America's lasting political scourges: militarism, and the caudillo, the strongman.

ECONOMIST: Millennium issue: Freeing Spanish America

Though from 1946 he lived in Rome, his followers tended to be close to the Francoist cause, and several served as ministers in the caudillo's government of the 1950s and 1960s.

ECONOMIST: A controversial canonisation

Venezuelan politics exhibit more "caudillo populism" than classic socialism.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Venezuelan oil bonanza