By Arshad Mohammed and Sue Pleming
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bolivia and Ecuador are unlikely to give into the temptation of authoritarianism and to follow Venezuela in centralizing power, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon said on Wednesday.
Since his landslide reelection in December, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a vitriolic U.S. critic, has moved to consolidate his control over the country, receiving powers in January to rule by decree for 18 months and taking steps to form a single ruling party.
Critics of Bolivian President Evo Morales and Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa believe they may use constitutional reforms to strengthen their powers, much as Chavez has done in Venezuela, the No. 4 oil exporter to the United States.
"I don't think it is going to happen ... because the region is alive to the temptation and intent on showing as much solidarity as possible and indicating a willingness to help these countries though these moments," said Shannon, the top U.S. diplomat for Latin America, in an interview.
He said democracy was taking root in the region and that governments had the challenge of meeting expectations and demonstrating "that democracy can indeed deliver the goods, that it can provide benefits."
"Where we have found democratic institutions being challenged it is where institutions have been the least capable of addressing these expectations and where the temptation to authoritarianism kind of asserts itself again," he said.
"It's been starkest in Venezuela simply because there has been such a conscious effort in Venezuela to concentrate political power, and not only to centralize ... in reality, but to build a theory around it," he said.
He also stressed the diversity of the region and said he believed the Bolivian and Ecuadorean societies would find ways "to hold the political space open."
"I think Venezuela is a very unusual case," he added.
Shannon played down the broadsides Chavez launched at the United States earlier this month as President Bush toured Latin America.
With shouts of "Gringo, Go Home," Chavez led anti-Bush protests, accusing the U.S. president of hypocrisy, imperial ambitions and indifference to the poor.
"We don't consider ourselves to be in any kind of competition with Venezuela, and certainly not a PR competition," Shannon said, saying Bush went to Latin America with a positive message about how the United States could cooperate with countries to address huge social issues.
"We were not going into the region to preach, we weren't going into the region to wag our finger," Shannon added, saying the United States would not rise to Chavez's provocations. "We are not taking the bait."
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