SOUTH AMERICA:As Latin America's leaders gather in Chile for this year's Ibero-American summit, the annual get-together with former colonial masters Spain and Portugal, one item that is not on the agenda is the growing trend among the South American contingent to try to roll back limits on their time in power.
Half of the 10 South American presidents attending the summit are currently the focus of projects to change their constitutions to allow them to run for further terms in office.
The most avid constitutional rewriter is Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez. He has already won three presidential elections but now wants to change the constitution he himself brought in eight years ago to allow him to stay in power indefinitely.
A referendum next month on constitutional amendments that, among various changes, would scrap presidential term limits, has sparked the latest round of street protests and counter-protests in Venezuela.
In Colombia, president Álvaro Uribe last week indicated he might seek a change in the law to allow him to run for another term, just two years after pushing through a change to the constitution that cleared him for a second term, which he comfortably secured last year.
Both Bolivia and Ecuador have elected assemblies to redraw their constitutions, with presidents Evo Morales in Bolivia and Rafael Correa in Ecuador hoping the new documents will scrap bans on immediate re-election.
In Brazil, leading members of the ruling Workers' Party have taken fright at polls showing that none of the party's likely candidates are capable of succeeding charismatic president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva by winning the next presidential election in 2010.
Therefore, despite repeated assertions from Lula himself that he will not seek a third term, party colleagues have refused to stop strategising about how to overcome the constitutional block on another four years for him - and the party - in the executive.
Last month saw Argentinian president Néstor Kirchner engineer the triumph of his wife Cristina in the presidential elections. This has created unease in a country where presidents are limited to two consecutive terms in office but where the constitution does not prohibit a ruler from transferring power to a relative, even after a democratic vote, as is the case in Brazil.
Local critics say the Kirchners are risking a constitutional crisis if last month's victory proves to represent more of a re-election for the Kirchner couple rather than a distinct Cristina election, as both Kirchners are eligible to run in 2011 for what critics say would constitute a third Kirchner term.
Aside from the various local intrigues, there is a wider regional impulse driving this trend. The global commodities boom of recent years has been particularly kind to South American economies, historically commodity exporters. Regional treasuries are filling up with the proceeds from the sale of oil, gas, soy, iron ore and anything else that the region can sell to China.
David Fleischer, professor of politics at the University of Brasília, said: "There is lots of money to spend, so politicians want to stay in office and be the ones to spend it." The promise to redistribute the region's commodity bounty lies behind the popularity of Chávez, Morales and Correa and is also the bedrock of the Kirchners' political project and the explanation of Lula's ability to defy a series of political crises and corruption scandals.
This popularity has reinforced the power of the presidencies over traditionally weaker legislatures and courts, making it easier to contemplate constitutional changes in the executives' favour.
"The problem is that leadership in the region is highly personalistic and emphasises the executive," said Peter DeShazo of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "This underscores the need for stronger institutions."
Despite the weakness of courts, legislatures and political parties, however, strong executives are still finding blocks on their ambition.
Deep divisions have left Bolivia's constitutional assembly gridlocked for months. Many of Lula's coalition partners have presidential hopes of their own and are unlikely to accommodate the Workers' Party's wish to stymie them by helping to legally free up Lula for a third term.
Just this week, a former high-ranking general and long-time ally of Chávez came out against his plan to scrap limits, raising the possibility of splits in Venezuela's army over Chávez's ambitions.
South America's leaders will have much on their minds in Santiago besides the summit's theme of deepening social inclusion.