Power to the People.(Venezuela politics)

Hugo Chavez looked like a politician living on borrowed time last week. A general strike called by Venezuelan opposition leaders--the country's fourth in the past 12 months--shuttered shops and business offices in the capital city of Caracas and then spread to the all-important oil industry. Operations at the world's biggest oil refinery slowed down as many employees of the state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela company stayed home. At the weekend, oil exports had come to a halt. Last Friday gunmen opened fire on opposition supporters gathered in a suburban Caracas plaza and killed at least three people. Earlier in the week, tens of thousands of protesters chanting "Liberty!" had marched to a Caracas hotel where the head of the Organization of American States was desperately trying to revive talks between the Chavez regime and opposition representatives to break the country's ongoing political stalemate.

Not so long ago, such organized defiance of the once popular Chavez might have seemed inconceivable. Today, however, the 48-year-old president has been put on the defensive largely by a unique coalition of trade unions, business federations, women's-rights groups and other nongovernmental organizations. Mobilizing opposition to a failed head of state is supposed to be the preserve of political parties, at least in a modern, working democracy. But in recent years that vital function has been taken over by a variety of civic organizations in parts of Latin America that are unhappy with cronyism and politics as usual. Indeed, from Mexico to Argentina, the rise of civil society is writing an important new chapter in the political history of the region.

The backlash has been evident in several countries. In Buenos Aires a year ago, antigovernment demonstrators barred the Peronists and other opposition parties from unfurling their banners in the Argentine capital's Plaza de Mayo. Hundreds of thousands of Colombians answered the call of a nonpartisan foundation three years ago to march in the streets of major cities and voice their outrage over the kidnapping epidemic plaguing their nation. "Over the past 15 years, civil-society organizations have been central to advancing political reform and protecting democratic processes," says Kenneth Wollack, president of the Washington, D.C.-based National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI). "They are now an accepted part of the political landscape in Latin America."

But it's been a grudging acceptance in some quarters. Former Venezuelan Interior minister Luis Miquilena, a onetime Chavez ally, ...