No surprise in Venezuela: all Chavez, all the time?
Venezuelan not-quite-President-for-life-but-getting-there Hugo Chavez announced that he’s asking for a few changes: an extension of the length of the Presidential term of office, and an end to limits on reelection.
To those critics who suggest this is another step in his road to fidelity to a Fidel-like dictatorship, Chavez has an answer. Not a very good one; but an answer nonetheless: it’s only a possibility, a possibility that depends on many variables.
But of course. Only a possibility, depending on many variables, such as how firmly he can entrench himself in power in the meantime, and how many of the former constitutional safeguards against tyranny he can manage to jettison. If the “possibility” doesn’t become an actuality, it’s certainly not for lack of trying on the part of Chavez.
Not surprisingly, Chavez is also proposing changes in some of those “variables,” such as a program to end “the autonomy of Venezuela’s Central Bank, which would give him access to billions of dollars of foreign reserves. He also called for increasing the government’s power to expropriate private property before getting a court’s approval.”
And so Chavez marches on. To those who suggest he’s undermined the democratic process in Venezuela, he cites the wide margins by which he’s won elections.
Wide margins, of course, do not a democracy make. In fact—with the rare exception of the occasional bona fide landslide, of course—they tend to be the hallmark of dictatorships featuring fixed, manipulated, and/or coerced elections. The quoted AP article fails to detail the very strong evidence that Chavez did exactly that, but it’s here if you wish to peruse it (follow the links in there, as well).
It is sad, sad. That is what happens when a coup mongerer comes to power. I have worked with Venezuelans in Venezuela (long ago) and in the US (recently). There is no love for El Chavez among Venezuelans in the US, at least the ones I have met.
There are indications that the voting process in Venezuela is less than honest and transparent. Interested readers may pursue the links which I will send in a separate posting.
vcrisis.comllegoelmomento.comivcdteam.orghttp://blogs.salon.com/0001330/categories/rrModels/ (Devil’s Excrement on the 2004 Recall Referendum)
http://www.vcrisis.com/index.php…rs/ 200702221623
ISI-published article on 2004 referendum (peer-reviewed by Statistics professionals!)
http://isi.cbs.nl/ISReview/abst743-05.pdf
abstract for above article
http://www.llegoelmomento.com/
Venezuela election/fraud analysis
http://www.ivcdteam.org/ election…nce_english.pdf
2006 election
There is a problem with the way that your blog processes links.
Gringo: there is indeed a glitch in the comments section that I haven’t as yet been able to fix. The links show up as an extra segment at the beginning of the sentence, as well as showing up in the regular way. I am still working on it and hope to find a solution soon.
Re: Gringo
Don’t worry about election in Venezuela. Afterall, the Nobel Peace Prize winner Jimmy Carter have certified them to be cleaner than United State Federal Election.
Comrade Robert Mugabe have already perfected the formula to destroy a country. Comrade Hugo Chavez is following the formula, and well on his way to destroying his country.
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isn.ethz.chVenezuela: is Hugo Chavez in control?
“Everything is broken, and there is total movement.” Ivan Briscoe plunges into the maelstrom of the “Bolivarian revolution” and emerges with a forensic assessment – both panoramic and ground-level – of a major political experiment.
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?ID=17988
Remember when the Left keeps talking about how the Right supports dictators and thus is this why the Right shouldn’t talk about fighting for liberty?
I think the lesson here is that the Left will say whatever they think will get them what they want, or whatever they think will manipulate you into doing what they want. Don’t take it personally, since they don’t see you as actual persons.
They, and this includes Chavez, will only listen to success. Or power in this case.
The left is strangely quiet about this.
One commenter actually came to Neo’s site and tried to argue that Chavez’s shutting down of the media was a thing done to protect Venezuella from American imperialism.
The Left is so amusingly full of obsolete tools and fools. Too bad George won’t use the surplus for our benefit.
Thousands of illegal aliens have been found to have registered to vote in Texas, and the press basically ignores it. Then we have the left wing group ACORN who fraudently created bogus voters and the press mostly ignores that as well. Then Democrats oppose voter I.D. laws on behalf of the “poor, minorities and elderly”. Don’t think for a moment voter fraud is not happening here. The Republicans need to call the Dems bluff. The Dems have complained about electronic paperless voting machines-something I agree with them on- but we need to insure only citizens are voting as well. The reforms need to be tied together. Paper trails and tougher registration and identification procedures.