President Hugo Chávez's outright win in Venezuela's presidential elections sets an agenda of more radical change at home and possibly in Latin America at large. He promises a "new phase of the revolution" to consolidate "21st century socialism" - and has the economic resources to extend existing social programmes tackling basic poverty in a highly divided society.
Venezuela, one of the world's richest oil states, is currently enjoying a huge cash bonanza from high oil prices. Mr Chávez says his victory is "another defeat for the devil which wants to dominate the world" - and promises to build a multipolar alliance against the United States. His policies will attract and require more searching attention in coming years.
Mr Chávez undoubtedly won the election fairly and squarely by a margin of 20 percentage points in a 70 per cent turnout. He has used his eight years in power and this, his fourth successive election victory, to consolidate support among the poor Venezuelans benefiting from his redistributive policies. Government expenditure has increased from $8 billion in 2000 to $56 billion this year as oil quintupled in price over the same period.
Subsidised food, free education, extensive health clinics, social housing, support for local co-operatives, alternative energy projects and land transfers are among the most prominent programmes involved. Many of them are directly controlled by the president as social spending reaches half of total government outlay. He has not been slow to demand political loyalty in return, but it has been freely given.
Deepening these programmes will further polarise Venezuelan society and probably lead to more nationalisation and confiscation of property and economic protectionism. This would be a departure from the relatively liberal market policies he has adopted so far, partly to protect revenues arising from being the US's fourth energy provider.
In the political sphere Mr Chávez wants to change the constitution so that he can stand again in 2012 and to strengthen the role of presidential decrees enforcing new legislation. He has shown too little regard for military and judicial independence, political pluralism or media freedoms, in the belief that these institutions are all weighted in favour of his political enemies. There are genuine and well-founded fears that these new measures will bolster existing authoritarian tendencies classically associated with such populist movements, even though Venezuelans value their long-standing, if socially skewed, democracy.
In foreign policy Mr Chávez has been a firebrand critic of the Bush administration, taking on Castro's regional revolutionary mantle, allying with Iran and making large arms purchases from Russia. His is the sixth recent left-wing victory in Latin America after changes in Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Bolivia. Not all are radical populists like him and there are tensions between them. But these changes deserve informed debate and scrutiny.