The Rival Chávez Won't Permit

Leopoldo López, center, mayor of the central Caracas district of Chacao, at Mother's Day celebrations in Caracas in May. (By Fernando Llano -- Associated Press)

Defenders of Hugo Chávez like to argue that there is no alternative to the Venezuelan caudillo other than the feckless and unpopular politicians who preceded him in the 1990s. The simple refutation of that canard is Leopoldo López, the 37-year-old mayor of central Caracas, whose boyish good looks only underscore the fact that he represents a fresh generation. López, a hyperarticulate graduate of Kenyon College and Harvard, is a pragmatic center-leftist, like most of the presidents elected in South America since the turn of the century.

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