As for the first claim, both The Economist and the Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa were right to put Chávez’s achievement in perspective. Almost every country in Latin America has reduced poverty significantly since the beginning of this century, with the extent of progress depending on baselines and cut-off dates, good years and bad years, the reliability of official data, and other factors.
但是，这两种看法都是片面的，也只是查韦斯一再获得大选胜利的部分原因——他在包括全民公投在内的14次普选中胜出13次。对第一个看法，《经济学人》（Economist）和诺贝尔奖获得者略萨（Mario Vargas Llosa）正确地指出，查韦斯的成就应该放到长远框架来看待。进入21世纪以来，几乎每个拉美国家都大大降低了贫困率，程度各有不同，但那是由于起讫期的不同、好光景和坏光景交替、官方数据可靠性和其他因素造成的。