Chile, Brazil, Uruguay and Peru _ which is led by unpopular President Alan Garcia _ have been able to tap into savings to stimulate their economies in a way that the populist-led countries cannot match.

Taking their lead from Chavez, the populist leaders have shown a desperate desire to extend their time in power.

Like Chavez, Ecuador's Correa and Bolivia's Morales got voters to approve new constitutions that dropped re-election bans. Correa won re-election in April, while Morales is favored to win another term in December.

Ortega has sought without luck to get Nicaraguans to allow him to seek re-election in 2011.

"They all are like traditional Latin American caudillos wanting to stay forever in power," said Rafael Nieto, a Bogota, Colombia-based political columnist for the newspaper El Tiempo.

It was Zelaya's machinations to try to get another term that led the Supreme Court to rule that he had acted illegally and the military to hustle him out of the country.

The Kirchners have employed a unique approach to hold on to power. Nestor Kirchner served one term as president, then stepped aside so his wife Cristina could win her own four-year term in 2007.

Widely disliked, she has upset Argentina's rural voters by raising taxes on farm exports and angered urban voters by nationalizing the country's pension system as a way of tapping into the system's huge financial reserves.

Nestor Kirchner's defeat in Sunday's mid-term congressional elections and their Peronist party's overall poor showing seem to have derailed plans for him to run for president again in 2011.

"They were never willing to have dialogue, they saw everything in a confrontational manner," said Claudio Loser, an Argentine economist who consults for the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, D.C.

After five years of high growth, Argentina's economy will contract by 2 to 3 percent in 2009 and barely grow in 2010, estimated Loser. He said the government has lost credibility by saying the inflation rate is 5 percent when independent economists put it at 15 percent.

Chavez won a major victory in February when Venezuelans voted to allow him to seek re-election in 2012. Poverty has fallen by 50 percent during his decade in office, the government says.

But Chavez has lost popularity since February and only about 50 percent of Venezuelans have a positive view of him now, said Luis Vicente Leon, a Caracas-based pollster.

Since February, Chavez has taken a hard turn to the left by nationalizing private companies and stripping power from local and state governments governed by political opponents. The economy has become increasingly schizophrenic _ one week, butter and eggs are absent from supermarket shelves, the next week it is toilet paper. The inflation rate at 27 percent is the highest in Latin America.