The Coup That Wasn't Allende spoke to his nation as a professor; Ch�vez, who staged his own failed coup in 1992, often as a thug. Ch�vez's undeniable charisma flirts with megalomania, his denunciations of all opposition borders on the paranoiac and his antidote to the hollower forms of democracy is often ham-fisted demagogy. Corruption within his regime, an increasingly autocratic style and an inability to make much of a dent in poverty have swollen Ch�vez's opposition far beyond the ranks of the pro-American economic elite.