The reversals of fortune in Venezuelan politics over a single weekend are a dramatic reminder of the volatility of politics in the world's fourth-largest petrol exporting state.
A country that has seen three presidents and two coups in three days is clearly unstable, but these extraordinary events paradoxically offer some hope that democracy is more deeply implanted there than had seemed to be the case last week.
Lt Col Hugo Chavez was the democratically elected president of Venezuela until early on Friday morning, when some senior army officers announced that they had persuaded him to resign. They replaced him with the leader of the employers' federation, Mr Pedro Carmona, who had led a crippling three-day strike demanding that Mr Chavez step down. The killing of 11 demonstrators outside the presidential palace, in disputed circumstances, was the pretext for what amounted to a military coup.
Mr Carmona immediately revoked the authority of both the Supreme Court and the national parliament, and set about dismantling Mr Chavez's radical and controversial reforms. Within less than a day, however, it became clear that large sections of the military, and very large sections of Venezuela's poor, were deeply opposed to the coup. And Mr Chavez had not agreed to resign. Parliament reasserted its constitutional authority, and Mr Carmona ceded power to Mr Chavez's vice-president, who in turn invited him to return from his brief exile. By yesterday morning Mr Chavez was president again.
The irony is that Mr Chavez himself first tried to take power through a coup 10 years ago. However, he now enjoys a strong democratic mandate, endorsed in several referenda since he was first elected. One of the most disturbing aspects of his forced removal from power was the deafening lack of protest from champions of democracy elsewhere, especially in Washington. Mr Chavez had had the temerity to revive the power of OPEC, and to criticise the US for civilian casualties in the Afghan bombing campaign. Not for the first time, a most regrettable message has been sent to Latin America: democracy only appears to be a good thing when it serves the interests of the United States.
Mr Chavez, of course, has gratuitously supplied his enemies, at home and abroad, with ample ammunition. His hectoring style, his open admiration for an authoritarian leader like Mr Fidel Castro, and his ambiguity towards the FARC guerrillas in Colombia have all created an impression that his own commitment to democracy is less than absolute. However, there is much that is admirable in his efforts to challenge a corrupt oligarchy and to redistribute some of Venezuela's shamefully squandered wealth to the country's numerous dispossessed. His prompt and relatively bloodless return to power should be welcomed by democrats. It also offers Mr Chavez a unique opportunity to distance himself from some of his less salubrious associates abroad, while pursuing his own policies - as long as a majority of the Venezuelan people wish him to do so.