Venezuela: A Role Model for Democracy

[maplesyrup]

Venezuela set for Chavez vote

Venezuelans are voting in a historic referendum that will either remove Hugo Chavez from the presidency or keep him in office for two more years.

Fears that a close or contested outcome could trigger protests and violence persisted in the final hours before Sunday's poll, which was due to start across the country at 1000 GMT.

"We don't know what's going to happen ... we hope that nothing happens, but there are lots of rumours," said Rodolfo Escalona, a 36-year-old painter, as he stocked up on essential groceries in a Caracas market on Saturday.

Both Chavez, who has ruled since 1998, and his opponents have predicted they will win the referendum.

The vote and its aftermath will be watched across the world because of Venezuela's importance as a major oil producer and leading energy supplier to the US.

Today's historic vote should be a good example of what democracy is all about.

[maplesyrup]

Venezuela's Referendum and the Nation's Poor

Deja vu!

I am beginning to think there is something obscene about this recall legislation. Like Chavez was democratically elected, so why doesn't the opposition accept the democratic results and just wait for the next election? Does anyone know the history of the recall legislation in Venezuela?

I am also wondering to be fair is this similiar to the many Quebec refendums? Like how many friggin' times is enough? Or am I mixing apples and oranges here?

[maplesyrup]

Massive turnout as Venezuela goes to polls

They have extended the voting time by an additional 4 hours to cope with the huge turnout.

What should be a major cause for concern is that the losing side may not support the results.

Their voting process seems quite high tech using a system of feeding fingerprints into a computerized vote counting process.

[maplesyrup]

Turnout 'Massive' In Venezuela's Vote on Chavez

Chavez is a hero to many of the country's destitute. But critics, who include many in the middle and upper classes, accuse him of ruling in an inept, authoritarian style and fomenting class hatred.

The significance of the vote goes well beyond Venezuela. This South American country is the fourth-largest supplier of oil to the United States and has been a traditional U.S. ally. But the Bush administration has been irked by Chavez's close ties to Cuban President Fidel Castro and his support for left-wing movements in the hemisphere. Chavez, in turn, has been deeply suspicious of the Bush administration since it quickly recognized a coup in April 2002 that briefly deposed him.

This is huge folks.

This is your classic right vs left battle, with the rich backed by President Bush while Chavez and his supporters are backed by China.

[maplesyrup]

U.S. can redeem itself after Venezuelans vote

Venezuela will face the most important election in its history today. For the first time, Venezuelans will vote on whether to recall their president.

The United States had better respond more responsibly than it did two years ago.

What, no exit polls in Venezuela?

[maplesyrup]

Venezuela's Chavez Survives Recall Referendum (Update2

Chavez defeated the vote 58 percent to 42 percent, based on 94.5 percent of the ballots counted, National Electoral Council President Francisco Carrasquero said in a televised press conference in Caracas. The ballot lasted more than 18 hours and drew more than 60 percent of the nation's 14 million voters.

``Today's victory is a victory for the constitution,'' Chavez, 50, said after singing the national anthem from a balcony of the presidential palace draped with Venezuela's red, blue and yellow flag. In the square below, supporters wearing red berets and T- shirts danced, sang and set off fireworks.

Crude oil futures fell from record highs after Chavez won the vote. Prices had climbed on concern the referendum could prompt violence and disrupt supplies from Venezuela, a member of OPEC and the fourth-largest exporter of oil to the U.S.

Oil for September delivery fell 38 cents to $46.20 a barrel in after-hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 9:16 a.m. London time. Earlier it had risen to $46.91 a barrel, the highest intraday price since oil futures began trading in 1983.

Now that the will of the people has been expressed, the big question is, will President Bush and the US Administration respect democracy in Venezuela?

[maplesyrup]

Support for Chavez Unwavering in Slums of Venezuelan Capital

Like many in the winding, hillside shantytown of brick-and-tin shacks in Catia district, Contreras has no steady work. He owns a truck and occasionally is hired as a mover or for other odd jobs.

    Even so, he said life had improved dramatically since Chavez was elected in 1998. From a spot that offers a sweeping view of the neighborhood, Contreras pointed to a new health clinic staffed by Cuban doctors. The government has also opened several nearby markets that sell subsidized food to the poor.

    There are new literacy programs, and Contreras, who is 47 and hadn't studied beyond third grade, now attends a school built by the government. He hopes to earn a high school degree.

    If the opposition has support here, it does not readily show its face other than a handful of "Yes" signs scattered about the neighborhood. The walls of the shantytown and windows in homes are covered with red signs urging a "No" vote in the recall referendum.

    "This whole street is Chavista," Contreras said as he led a tour through the neighborhood. "Maybe one in a hundred is for the opposition."

    Nationwide, voters are divided over the recall, but in poor neighborhoods like this one, the president appears to have overwhelming support.

    The opposition and the Bush administration have attacked Chavez for his close friendship with Cuban leader Fidel Castro, but that relationship doesn't bother poor Venezuelans who receive free treatment at government health clinics from Cuban doctors. Before, the poor had, at best, little access to healthcare.

    "Chavez has love for the people," Contreras said. "He was poor and he understands the needs of the poor."

    Chavez also benefits from poor Venezuelans' skepticism of his opponents, whom they see as remnants of the country's discarded political past.

    Before Chavez won power, two elite parties exchanged power for four decades. Those governments were widely considered corrupt and squandered much of the country's oil wealth.

Chavez's leadership must be having an impact on the rest of Latin America. Finally they have a leader who has successfully stood up to the right wing policies of the Bush administration.

Do you think Chavez's victory will give Lula some courage?

[Stoker]

Is this a private debate?

Chavez's leadership must be having an impact on the rest of Latin America. Finally they have a leader who has successfully stood up to the right wing policies of the Bush administration.

Why didn't you bother to paste the Kerry quote?

John Kerry

Both U.S. presidential candidates have made threatening remarks about Chavez's supposedly authoritarian and undemocratic rule. John Kerry went so far as to say that Chavez's close relationship with Cuba's Fidel Castro ``raised serious questions about his commitment to leading a truly democratic country.''

[maplesyrup]

Kerry. Bush. What's the difference? We all know who they represent.

[Stoker]

Kerry. Bush. What's the difference? We all know who they represent.

Kerry represents a large number of Unions

[maplesyrup]

Victorious Chavez vows to continue his 'revolution for the poor'

"How is it possible that at this stage, some opposition leaders don't have the grace  . . . to accept that they did not succeed in recalling me?" Chavez told a news conference. He called the result "an alternative to capitalism and false democracy."

The results underscored the resilience of a leftist firebrand who has bluntly challenged "imperialist" U.S. foreign policies and cozied up to Cuban President Fidel Castro.

"Hopefully, from this day on Washington will respect the government and the people of Venezuela," Chavez proclaimed, speaking from a balcony at the presidential palace to thousands of supporters celebrating under a light rain.

But will Washington? Somehow I doubt it.

[Guest eureka]

I suspect that Washington will, for world consumption, respect the vote. However, I also suspect that, in secret, it will work towards another coup.

Afetr all, Chavez has been using the $24 billion in oil revenues to improve the lot of the poorer as opposed to those who serve Washington. He has even forced some land redistribution to the poor farmers (without stealing it from the owners). We all know what Washington has done in Central America in the past when its influence base among the rich elites has been threatened in this way.

[idealisttotheend]

I think the key to the left succeeding will be if SA can stick together. Brazil is far from pro-US these days as well and Venezualia has joined their common market, (resisting the NA one).

If the US can't isolate Venezualia it won't be able to kick Chavez out. It may or may not fund the opposition but so long as Chavez has regional allies he should remain safe.

[maplesyrup]

Why He Crushed the Oligarchs

The Importance of Hugo Chávez

By TARIQ ALI

The turn-out in Venezuela last Sunday was huge. 94.9 percent of the electorate voted in the recall referendum. Venezuela, under its new Constitution, permitted the right of the citizens to recall a President before s/he had completed their term of office. No Western democracy enshrines this right in a written or unwritten constitution. Chavez' victory will have repercussions beyond the borders of Venezuela. It is a triumph of the poor against the rich and it is a lesson that Lula in Brazil and Kirchner in Argentina should study closely. It was Fidel Castro, not Carter, whose advice to go ahead with the referendum was crucial. Chavez put his trust in the people by empowering them and they responded generously. The opposition will only discredit itself further by challenging the results.

The Venezuelan oligarchs and their parties, who had opposed this Constitution in a referendum (having earlier failed to topple Chavez via a US-backed coup and an oil-strike led by a corrupt union bureaucracy) now utilised it to try and get rid of the man who had enhanced Venezuelan democracy. They failed. However loud their cries (and those of their media apologists at home and abroad) of anguish, in reality the whole country knows what happened. Chavez defeated his opponents democratically and for the fourth time in a row. Democracy in Venezuela, under the banner of the Bolivarian revolutionaries, has broken through the corrupt two-party system favoured by the oligarchy and its friends in the West. And this has happened despite the total hostility of the privately owned media: the two daily newspapers, Universal and Nacional as well as Gustavo Cisneros' TV channels and CNN made no attempt to mask their crude support for the opposition.

Some foreign correspondents in Caracas have convinced themselves that Chavez is an oppressive caudillo and they are desperate to translate their own fantasies into reality.. They provide no evidence of political prisoners, leave alone Guantanamo-style detentions or the removal of TV executives and newspaper editors (which happened without too much of a fuss in Blair's Britain).

A few weeks ago in Caracas I had a lengthy discussion with Chavez ranging from Iraq to the most detailed minutiae of Venezuelan history and politics and the Bolivarian programme. It became clear to me that what Chavez is attempting is nothing more or less than the creation of a radical, social-democracy in Venezuela that seeks to empower the lowest strata of society. In these times of deregulation, privatisation and the Anglo-Saxon model of wealth subsuming politics, Chavez' aims are regarded as revolutionary, even though the measures proposed are no different to those of the post-war Attlee government in Britain. Some of the oil-wealth is being spent to educate and heal the poor.

This is a interesting article in Counterpunch by Tariq Ali, who personally interviewed the President. Ali explains why Chavez won and what some of the ramafications are.

Not very impressed with the Economist smear job though.

[maplesyrup]

Chávez has support of progressives world-wide

President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, first elected in 1998 made democratic history last Sunday in a triumphant defeat of the recall referendum on his presidency. The very Constitution that he championed in 1999 and that re-elected him in 2000, allows for a mid-term recall referendum for the president's term in office. After six years in office, in this recall referendum held on August 15, Chávez led with a 58 per cent majority. Voters clearly exercised their constitutional right to confirm the president in a historic referendum process, never practiced in the history of this hemisphere.

Under the watchful eyes of over 600 international observers and media scattered throughout the country, a majority of Venezuelans prevented their president from being ousted by a coalition opposition led by Accion Democratica (AD) and the Christian Democrats (COPEI), both parties representing the moderate and ultra right. Renowned international election-observer delegations from The Carter Center, Organization of American States (OAS) and European parliamentarians hailed the referendum process as free and fair.

With this referendum President Chávez's government has been reaffirmed in a total of eight elections, referendums and plebiscites in six years. Apart from the democratic processes at work, Chávez and his government have withstood the coup d'état of April 2002, a general lockout orchestrated by the oligarchy management and union leadership (CTV) that stalled the country's oil economy. They have resisted the aggressive private media (press and television alike) that have been carrying out a flagrantly racist character assassination of the Mestizo (Indigenous, Black and White) politically-left president.

Chávez escaped an opposition-hired Colombian paramilitary's attempt to assassinate him in May 2004. He has remained popular while a segment of the Catholic Church leadership — who enjoyed the benefits of aligning themselves with the wealthy — tried to diminish his commitment to the Church and the poor. He has jarred the political opposition that is backed by the private media and corporations, not to mention the international private media that continue to frame Chávez as a militant red beret military commander-in-chief, in spite of his repeated landslide democratic electoral victories. It has kept the tide out from the oil guzzling empire just north of the Caribbean Sea, which earned tax free investment and free market opportunities here for 80 years and backed the failed coup d'état against Chávez in April 2002.

Regardless of this pressure, Chávez remains the only elected leader of a nation who has the relentless guts to give continuing volume to his peoples' opposition to U.S-led neo-liberalism in the region and economic, political and military aggression the world over. If the social movements which captured the world's imagination with the slogan “another world is possible” could choose a political leader, it should be President Hugo Chávez. Such resistance runs in the veins of Hugo Chávez's Bolivarian Revolution provoking left and middle ground political leaders.

Finally it looks like Latin America has a chance of getting out from under the gun of the US. Chavez in his wisdom purposely did not join trade agreements with the US. Good contrast with Canada's stupidity.

[Stoker]

Finally it looks like Latin America has a chance of getting out from under the gun of the US. Chavez in his wisdom purposely did not join trade agreements with the US. Good contrast with Canada's stupidity.

Venezuela

Exports - partners:

US 45.1%, Netherlands Antilles 12.8%, Dominican Republic 2.8% (2002)

Imports - partners:

US 32.1%, Colombia 8%, Brazil 6.2%, Germany 4.6%, Mexico 4.4%, Italy 4.1% (2002)

Colombia

Exports - partners:

US 44.8%, Venezuela 9.4%, Ecuador 6.8% (2002)

Imports - partners:

US 32.7%, Venezuela 6.7%, Brazil 5.8%, Japan 5.3%, Mexico 5.1%, Germany 4.2% (2002)

Panama

Exports - partners:

US 47.8%, Sweden 5.8%, Costa Rica 4.8%, Honduras 4.5% (2002)

Imports - partners:

US 34.4%, Colombia 5.9%, Japan 5.4%, Costa Rica 4.2%, Venezuela 4.2% (2002)

Costa Rica

Exports - partners:

US 29.1%, Netherlands 8.2%, UK 4.2%, Mexico 4% (2002)

Imports - partners:

US 35.4%, Japan 4.3%, Mexico 3.9% (2002)

Nicaragua

Exports - partners:

US 59.4%, El Salvador 7.5%, Honduras 4.8% (2002)

Imports - partners:

US 23.6%, Costa Rica 10.2%, Guatemala 7.8%, Venezuela 7.1%, El Salvador 6%, Mexico 4.9%, South Korea 4.6% (2002)

Honduras

Exports - partners:

US 69%, El Salvador 3%, Guatemala 2% (2002)

Imports - partners:

US 53.3%, Mexico 4.3%, El Salvador 4.2% (2002)

El Salvador

Exports - partners:

US 62.9%, Guatemala 11.9%, Honduras 6.8%, Nicaragua 4.4% (2002)

Imports - partners:

US 38.2%, Guatemala 9.9%, Mexico 6.1% (2002)

Guatemala

Exports - partners:

US 59%, El Salvador 9.4%, Nicaragua 3.2% (2002)

Imports - partners:

US 34.3%, Mexico 8.6%, South Korea 8.4%, El Salvador 5.9%, China 4.1% (2002)

My only question.......what color is the sky in your world MS?

[Stoker]

Let's look how well Comrade CHAVEZ is doing:

Venezuela

Venezuela was one of three countries that emerged from the collapse of Gran Colombia in 1830 (the others being Colombia and Ecuador). For most of the first half of the 20th century, Venezuela was ruled by generally benevolent military strongmen, who promoted the oil industry and allowed for some social reforms. Democratically elected governments have held sway since 1959. Current concerns include: an embattled president who may face a recall vote, a divided military, drug-related conflicts along the Colombian border, increasing internal drug consumption, overdependence on the petroleum industry with its price fluctuations, and irresponsible mining operations that are endangering the rain forest and indigenous peoples.

Venezuela continues to be highly dependent on the petroleum sector, which accounts for roughly one-third of GDP, around 80% of export earnings, and more than half of government operating revenues. Despite higher oil prices at the end of 2002 and into 2003, domestic political instability, culminating in a disastrous two-month national oil strike from December 2002 to February 2003, temporarily halted economic activity. The economy remained in depression in 2003, declining by 9.2% after an 8.9% fall in 2002. In late 2003, President CHAVEZ committed himself to $1 billion in new social programs, money the government does not have.

GDP - real growth rate:

-9.2% (2003 est.)

GDP - per capita:

purchasing power parity - $4,800 (2003 est.)

Population below poverty line:

47% (1998 est.)

Unemployment rate:

18% (2003 est.)

Budget:

revenues: $20.1 billion

expenditures: $23.3 billion, including capital expenditures of $2.6 billion (2002)

Industrial production growth rate:

-5.4% (2002 est.)

Great job that CHAVEZ fellow is doing........I wonder if Layton copied his notes in school?

[maplesyrup]

I just knew we could count on the right wing to be above board and ethical:

U.S. Poll Firm in Hot Water in Venezuela

CARACAS, Venezuela Aug. 19, 2004 — A U.S. firm's exit poll that said President Hugo Chavez would lose a recall referendum has landed in the center of a controversy following his resounding victory.

    "Exit Poll Results Show Major Defeat for Chavez," the survey, conducted by Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, asserted even as Sunday's voting was still on. But in fact, the opposite was true Chavez ended up trouncing his enemies and capturing 59 percent of the vote.

    Any casual observer of the 2000 U.S. presidential elections knows exit polls can at times be unreliable. But the poll has become an issue here because the opposition, which mounted the drive to force the leftist leader from office, insists it shows the results from the vote itself were fraudulent. The opposition also claims electronic voting machines were rigged, but has provided no evidence.

    Election officials banned publication or broadcast of any exit polls during the historic vote on whether to oust Chavez, a populist who has sought to help the poor and is reviled by the wealthy, who accuse him of stoking class divisions.

    But results of the Penn, Schoen & Berland survey were sent out by fax and e-mail to media outlets and opposition offices more than four hours before polls closed. It predicted just the opposite of what happened, saying 59 percent had voted in favor of recalling Chavez.

    Cesar Gaviria, secretary general of the Organization of American States who monitored the referendum, said the poll must have had a tremendous impact on Chavez's opponents, who felt they were about to complete their two-year drive to oust him.

Scumbags is what they are.

Are they going to kill Chavez next?

[maplesyrup]

Please hand the opposition the silver bullet ... so it may finally rest in peace

And on and on it goes!

No kidding every country on the planet needs solid social democratic, particularly television, media outlets.

[Cartman]

I am surprised this guy is still alive. I would not be surprised, however, if he met with some unfortunate "accident" at any time. On the other hand, Castro is still alive somehow.