For the record, your stance on Chavez usually depends on how much better or worse he is than your leaders at home. I can realize he's an antidemocratic paranoid prick with a streak for corruption and cronyism, but that still makes him better than the guy running the Canadian federal government right now, and he did use his country's oil wealth to decrease economic inequality in Venezuela (which virtually no one does), so he gets a few props from me. It is not so hard to recognize the good and the bad of Chavismo; what's needed is to move beyond the bad and keep the good.
Something I suspect his successor will not be capable of doing.
Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.![]()
In general, the topic of Venezuela is making all newspapers be more polarizing when writing on the subject. I admit though that since I tend to support the PSUV and the Bolivarian Revolution as a whole (not without some specific criticism that I have), I don't mind seeing The Guardian support them either. I would ask that writers do try and source their information though, so that we know where their information comes from.
Well Maduro did say in the article that tackling crime and corruption was going to be one of his main goals. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt on that. I'd also ask, why do you consider Chávez to be an 'anti-democratic paranoid prick'?
edited 16th Apr '13 6:46:54 AM by germi91
"It is true that we are called a democracy, for the administration is in the hands of the many and not of the few."Can't speak to the "paranoid prick" part, but Chavez and his state-controlled media certainly weren't friends to anyone who didn't run on a pro-Chavez agenda in the run-up to various elections, giving plenty of air time to Chavez (and this time around, to his designated successor) while virtually starving any opposing candidates. That the vote this time around was so close was actually kind of refreshing, compared to the way things usually go down in Latin American faux-elections where the wannabee dictator du jour holds a pretty damn significant lead (which is admittedly far better than things like, say, Saddam getting like 98% or somesuch of the vote when Iraq's pre-2003 presidential elections came around).
One report I saw that some vote collection boxes for this election were found dropped on the side of the road (don't have a link readily available, offhand) certainly doesn't suggest all is well as far as electoral integrity goes.
All your safe space are belong to Trump
And yet the Venezuelan voting system is hailed by international observers as one of the best in the world. And any allegations of bias towards state television can also be directed to the private networks when refusing to show speeches by Chávez or Maduro, or giving more air time to Capriles.
I could also include the very recent fires set to two local groupings of the PSUV by pro-Capriles supporters.
edited 16th Apr '13 8:42:08 AM by germi91
"It is true that we are called a democracy, for the administration is in the hands of the many and not of the few."I do not like the concentration of media power in the hands of executive members of any government, be it at the federal level or lower.
Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.
EDIT: Maduro has banned an opposition rally in Caracas.
He cited the recent violence and unrest as reasons for the prohibition. Capriles accuses him of stoking the violence so as to avoid a recount.
edited 16th Apr '13 11:34:02 AM by Achaemenid
Schild und Schwert der ParteiAnd apparently the images taken of the man next to a box with votes on the side of a highway or the soldier burning ballot boxes were fake (the latter were photos of soldier burning the materials already used after the 2010 elections, so it was garbage burning), and were also used in the previous elections. Apparently the guy responsible for circulating the image was called Daniel Andres Rondón Sayago, and he works at a private TV network as security.
https://twitter.com/JorgeGalindoMIJ
edited 16th Apr '13 12:22:16 PM by germi91
"It is true that we are called a democracy, for the administration is in the hands of the many and not of the few."Yay for fear, uncertainty, and doubt. I can now honestly say I haven't the faintest idea as to what's going on in Venezuela.
Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.
Here ya go
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/16/us-venezuela-election-idUSBRE93F0RU20130416
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/15/us-venezuela-election-idUSBRE93C0B120130415
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-22176532
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/04/2013416152044803967.html
edited 16th Apr '13 3:47:43 PM by stripesthezebra
Seven people were killed apparently during the protests called by Capriles, among them a policeman and sixty-one were injured (one of them burned alive).
"It is true that we are called a democracy, for the administration is in the hands of the many and not of the few."Private networks are that.
Private. As far as I know, they are free to show whatever they want unless it is against the law. Public media on the other hand, should remain impartial and provide equal coverage to all candidates in an electoral race. Something which the PSUV-led government has failed to do. And even so, the private networks do show quite a lot of Maduro and Chavez. Why not? It is news after all.
Furthermore, Capriles has never called for violence and his speech has called always for nothing but peaceful protest and the counting of the votes. Something he's well on his right to ask when the race was so close and the MUD has a report with 3600 irregularities in the voting tables, including broken machines which denied thousands of their right to vote, assisted voting, centers from which the MUD witnesses were kicked out from and much more. That's not even accounting for the dozens of photos captured of ballot boxes being thrown on highways of the country, filled with votes for Capriles. Not to mention the highly suspicious results of Maduro, who has never much being in the spotlight politically and whose short reign has brought little good, scoring more votes than the very Chavez did months before.
Then again, the calling of the results was highly irregular as well, with the head of the CNE merely stating how many votes Maduro had, how many Capriles had and the percent of abstinence. In an ultra short address they failed to mention the other candidates, the breakdown by state of the votes, the votes in the exterior, the null votes among many others. And then, the very next day Tibisay invests Maduro as president ahead of time.
Maduro said that he was confident in counting the votes, but the next day he pulled back. And while I don't have sources on hand because it is quite late, the violence of the protest can't be attributed so easily to the opposition. There were many reports of attack by angry officialists on campaign centers of the opposition as well destruction of private property and the like. Furthermore, I can't account for all of them, but most of the opposition protests are pacific and carried out by students who have been repeatedly shot upon by the National Guard and thrown gas at.
Capriles said that he would not recognize Maduro as President until the validation of the votes came through and Maduro attacked right back by saying that he would not send one penny to State of Miranda and that he would not recognize him as Governor. Likewise, Diosdado Cabello, head of the National Assembly denied the right to speak to all opposition deputies until they recognized Maduro as president.
That without mentioning violence directly inside the National Assembly, whose seats are overwhelmingly being filled by people of the PSUV, who as a session started attacked two deputies of the opposition, calling them murderers and fascists wounding one of them which can be seen here (Warning, blood).
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Now... there are rumors that Maduro has asked for Capriles, Leopoldo Lopez and other high ranking members of the MUD to be incarcerated. This last part, so far, is only rumors which I truly hope do not come true.
edited 17th Apr '13 7:41:38 AM by germi91
"It is true that we are called a democracy, for the administration is in the hands of the many and not of the few."On the first point, that is why I added as far as the law allows. Of course they can't show whatever they like, but a private network has more freedom to show the content they desire. And still, I'd say they show a lot more of Maduro and Chavez than the state run media do of Capriles, even when it is the public media the one that has the responsibility to provide equal coverage of all candidates.
As for the second point, here
you can see how on Barinas boxes with electoral material were found on numerous points of the highway. Such reports were also made on other states of the country. The official answer to this is that they 'fell off' during transportation, however, that gives a certain amount of worry.
Third point, the votes which were declared null for any given reason, which are always mentioned in the declaration of the results. Those of the broken machines weren't even null votes, they were votes which were not able to be cast, thus denying Venezuelans of their right to vote. Furthermore, the core of this point is how suspicious it is for Tibisay Lucena to make such a short address, with so little information as if she were trying to rush Maduro's victory. The whole situation is incredibly fishy and even without that, it is highly unprofessional. It is her job to provide the numbers and results of our elections in full.
Fourth point, here you have some sources. Here
, here
, here
, here
. Many of those are simply speaking again of the attack on the building of Accion Democratica, however that is most widely reported account of it. And most of the other cases I've seen were in twitter, by videos recorded by simple citizens on their cellphones.
Fifth point, I don't know if they have declared not to recognize Maduro, but to deny the right to word to all rightfully elected members of the National Assembly who are on the side of the opposition on those bases is ridiculous, specially since the 'rightfully elected president' is embroiled in such a big scandal, a rushed swearing into office while there are a lot of very concerning irregularities in the electoral process which 'legitimately' gave him presidency. The auditory has to be carried through as well as the counting of the votes.
John Kerry: US may not recognize new Venezuelan president
Well, this is a situation where what the U.S. thinks is not as relevant as what Venezuelans think. But while the leadership is justified in ignoring the former it really should not be ignoring the latter.
Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.Maduro sworn in as Venezuela president
. Latin American leaders attend ceremony as election council agrees to expand audit of results in disputed vote.
So it's good that there's going to be a full audit. But given Maduro has been swiftly sworn in and welcomed by various American leaders already, good luck on dislodging him if there actually are any discrepancies found.
The other main thing that annoys me is the rhetoric, which has been proudly inherited from the old regime. You're with Maduro or you're enemies of the people, agents of the West and violent coup plotters. The guy that jumped on stage is turned into a failed gunman by Maduro's saying "The security has failed totally. They could have shot me easily". Another coup or conspiracy is always just round the corner and of course Capriles is suspected of being behind it.
PS. in my opinion this thread title is a bit biased against Venezuela and Chavez. Granted, most posters have a pretty dim view of the 'Little Bird', but what do folks think of removing the "one of the worst countries?" bit?
edited 20th Apr '13 8:33:54 AM by betaalpha
Watching from the outside, the spin coming from both sides is incredibly intense. Pro-MUD folks i've seen elsewhere seem absolutely certain of their victory with no doubt that fraud alone accounts for the 300k vote gap. While i usually don't go in for the Golden Mean Fallacy, i do tend to think that the answer lies somewhere in between when an election is questioned for fraudulence.
Given Chavez is dead, perhaps the title should be "Venezuela and the Chavez legacy".
Sounds good to me. If no one voices an objection to it you can just use the holler function (the exclamation point in the triangle) to call for a mod's attention, and ask that the thread title be changed.
All your safe space are belong to Trump

Before that they've been ridiculously adoring of him, their commenters even more so. Seumas Milne had to tie himself in knots to justify it, but its there. Hardly surprising from the Guardian, it's been getting nuttier by the year.
Schild und Schwert der Partei