Chavez Puts Forth Candidacy

Caracas
The official presentation of President Hugo Chavez s candidacy on Saturday marked the beginning of the final stage of a campaign that shows the Venezuelan statesman as the favorite candidate to win the elections in December.

After seven years in power, Chavez, who continues to be very popular, has structured a political front that has the ambitious goal of winning 10 million votes from 16.3 million registered voters.

Although achieving that quantitative goal will be very difficult, his followers have taken it as a challenge to defeat Chavez s strongest rival: abstentionism.

Chavez is supported by his Movimiento V Republica and the Patria Para Todos, Podemos and Communist parties, among other lesser groups and social organizations totalling three million members.

The Venezuelan president has said that the "Bolivarian Revolution", as he has defined the process he is leading, will enter a new phase after 2007 and demands the consolidation of unity between the people, the nation and power.

According to his own words, the candidacy responds to the current political situation and to the socio-cultural, economic and social transformation of the nation, in which the people and the institutions play a major role.

Chavez, who proposes a socialist model of development to eradicate poverty and injustice, assures that during his new mandate, he will further boost his project, which is characterized by a highly-social content and fair distribution of the country s oil revenues.
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Unity Candidate to Run Against Chavez
n Venezuela this week, the opposition selected Manuel Rosales, governor of the state of Zulia, as its multi-party unity candidate to run against President Hugo Chavez in December.

Rosales will ask the National Electoral Counsel for transparent electronic voting conditions to avoid fraud. Rosales must face voter abstention (35 percent) and political "dirty war" tactics -- the insults he will surely receive from the present government, headed by Chavez, who wants to remain in power.

In brief, Rosales will have to compete in an environment that will not be good for him. His strength may lie in mobilizing those who would not vote for Chavez (70 percent of the electorate). The danger is that they may be dispersed by teargas and even gunfire -- a strategy utilized by the dictatorial government.

What is the difference between Chavez and Rosales?

Chavez is a political autocrat and myth maniac. He promised a revolution to diminish poverty, but poverty over the last seven years has only increased. Much of the money made through the exploitation of petroleum has paid for his visits to countries like Russia, Iraq, Iran, and Vietnam.

Chavez plans to press society and compress the political system -- a la neofascism. The poor must hide themselves, in red clothes, and demonstrate their loyalty to receive aid. Under Chavez, Venezuela has ceased to be a real democracy.

Oil output from the state oil company (PDVSA) has declined by about 60 percent, a trend analysts say accelerated in the past year because of poor technical management.

Chavez's push to extend his influence throughout Latin America and the Caribbean with promises of cheap oil for friends and allies may be overstretching PDVSA's finances. Venezuela currently supplies about 300,000 barrels per day to Cuba, Nicaragua, and others under favorable long-term financing arrangements. This week, Venezuela signed a deal to send oil to town mayors in Nicaragua who are aligned with the left-wing Sandinista party.

Rosales, 53, has 27 year of experience in politics. He is one of only two opposition governors (out of 24). He governs the most populous state, Zulia, which has 3.2 million inhabitants. Rosales was re-elected in 2004. He is a successful regional politician. One need only compare the abandoned historic center of Caracas to the pleasant life available in Maracaibo, the capital of Zulia, for evidence of his success.

The decision to select Rosales as the opposition's unity candidate will serve to put politics above the anti-politics that has ruled the country for the last seven years.
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Is Chavez's Opposition For Real? - TIME Magazine
With a presidential election only four months away, Venezuela's virtually unchallenged leader may finally face a unified front...
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