The US and Latin America should press President Hugo Chávez, Venezuela's radical nationalist leader, to find common ground with his opponents and revive “barely functioning” representative institutions, a high-level task force urged on Thursday.

The group, led by former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso and former US trade representative Carla Hills, and organised by the Washington-based policy forum Inter-American Dialogue, also urged the US to give greater attention to Latin America more generally, arguing that even a “relatively modest additional US investment of effort and resources in Latin America could have a huge pay-off”.