Many of your critiques apply to many countries considered democracies. Excessive gerrymandering is an issue in many democracies including the US. Not to mention

Many of your critiques apply to many countries considered democracies. Excessive gerrymandering is an issue in many democracies including the US. Not to mention that in the US minorities are specifically targeted for exclusion. A lot of countries don't have term limits for heads of state (for most of its history the US didn't). Press freedoms aren't what defines what a dictatorship is either. Would Saudi Arabia be a democracy if suddenly all censorship laws are purged from the books? > Except for the time he lost, and within two days a military coup of the democratically elected body put him back in power LOL. The coup was done against him after being democratically elected in 2000 but it failed disastrously, making him some kind of a folk hero in most of Latin America. If you don't know this basic fact you really have no business talking about Venezuela, let along calling Chavez a dictator just because you didn't like the guy. Venezuela had many chances of getting rid of him democratically and they decided not to, we all can disagree about how wise a decision it was but that is different matter.