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VENEZUELANS ARE GOING to the polls today with President Hugo Chavez facing his toughest election in his near 14-year rule after youthful rival Henrique Capriles galvanized the opposition.
Voters stood in lines to cast their ballots while Chavez supporters played bugles to rally supporters of the president, who is seeking a new six-year term to cement his socialist revolution.
The 58-year-old leftist leader held a 10-point lead in the latest opinion poll, but Capriles, 40, has attracted huge crowds at rallies while other surveys have put them in a statistical dead heat.
Chavez retains a loyal following among the country’s poor, who have propelled him to easy victories in past elections, but Capriles has narrowed the gap in opinion polls after an energetic door-to-door national campaign.
Weakened by a bout with cancer, the president stepped up his campaign this week, even dancing in the rain at a Caracas rally on Thursday as he pleaded for another six-year term to seal his oil-funded socialist revolution.
Chavez, a fierce US critic, is a highly polarizing figure who survived a coup in 2002 and became popular with the long-neglected poor for using the country’s vast oil wealth to fund health and education programmes.
Facing his biggest election challenge, Chavez has admitted making mistakes, vowing to “become a better president” if re-elected.
The business-friendly, center-left Capriles has hammered Chavez over the country’s regular power outages, food shortages and runaway murder rate, which has risen to 50 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.
Around 19 million voters are called to the polls. Some 140,000 troops have been deployed to prevent violence while alcohol sales are banned until Monday.
People wait for a polling station in Caracas to open earlier this morning. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
- © AFP, 2012
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Viva Chavez!
Long live the revolution!
The only man that can stand the bully’s of the west..
He is a bully himself!
Venezuela has, according to a report Jimmy Carter did for the UN, the fairest and best election process in the world. Heres a good article about the most lied about country in the world. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/03/why-us-dcemonises-venezuelas-democracy Chavez in a landslide.
Declan, what kind of a statement is that to make. If you knew even the slightest about Venezuela you know this would not be true.
What exactly are you basing the above statement on?
B Lowe I only have to look at the people he courts, Fidel, amadimajab and others. He’s a buffoon as well. You continue to show yourself as a person who is on the side of despots of the world b Lowe!
Guilty by association , thats your argument..tut tut, Mr Noonan….Long Live Chavez
Declan… Mitt Romney wants your vote.All your idols will be ousted in time people are waking up to the gangsters that run the world including your beloved hypocracy of democracy the U.S.A ran by Timothy Geithner who is turning the U.S into a Bank controlled playground .No wonder Obama does’nt give a shit about it he got his eyes and arse opened when he went into power do what your told MR President..Land of the free ya right.
@declan noonan the bushes did deals with the bin ladens for years!!!
Jack, you don’t know which way I vote!
Dictator is a strange term for a man who has successfully stood and clearly won in at least five open and free election contests !
Venezuela’s socialist revolution is yet another indictment of Marxism as a means of raising the standard of living of the poorest in society. Despite Venezuela’s huge oil reserves, Chavez, has failed to improve the lot of his nations lest well-off citizens.
Unsurprisingly, left off Michael D’s itinerary.
“A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.”
Lao Tzu
@Sean, great quote
Sources?
But 14 years on, as even his most hardcore supporters acknowledge, Chávez’s experiment in 21st-century socialism isn’t really working. After the chaotic nationalisation of most of the agro-industrial chain – from the farm to the supermarket – food shortages have become chronic, with various staples disappearing from shelves. Lines at subsidised government grocery shops are long, and particularly scarce commodities sell out almost the second they’re delivered.
On closer inspection, the only thing that appears to be 21st century about Chávez’s 21st-century socialism is the presidential Twitter account. The economy is still run along the same rigid lines that crippled eastern bloc economies for much of the 20th century. One after another, industries have been nationalised only to become outsized money-pits unable to produce the goods needed. The steel and cement industries can’t produce enough to meet the country’s housing needs; electric utilities have brought chronic blackouts throughout the country; and the phone company has failed to deliver adequate internet access. Venezuelans like to joke that Julian Assange passed over Venezuela for political asylum simply because the internet is so slow there.
That Venezuela’s economy doesn’t grind to a halt, Zimbabwe style, amid the waste, corruption and mismanagement of incompetent central planning is down to a single word: oil. Sitting atop the world’s largest reserves at a time of extraordinarily high prices, the government is kept afloat by a torrent of petrodollars that more or less papers over the cracks. When steel production falls by two-thirds after a botched nationalisation, the government simply re-routes part of the petrodollar stream to finance steel imports. When nationalised farms suffer a similar fate, food imports are jacked up.
Oil wealth is a magical elixir that keeps up the appearance of normality, even as the country sinks deeper and deeper into the economic morass.
The Guardian 27/09/12
I have not the faintest why the article is calling the election a tough one. It must be an AFT/Reuters or some other propaganda piece.
Chavez has been ahead consistently in the polls by anything from 12 points to 23 points, I would call that a land slide victory and certainly not a tough election.
The article cites huge crowds at rallies. I mean in a country with millions it would only take a tiny tiny percentage to have huge crowds at a rally.
Chavez will win and long live the revolution. Venezuela is much better off as a result.
He is a dictator that crushes any Media that speaks badly of him.
Another person with lofty ideals who thinks that Chavez has actually done well for Venezuela. The man is a horrible dictator who is running the country into the ground and using oil to keep afloat.
Aaron, you seem to be believing the imperialist propaganda against Chavez. He is not against the media. He is merely against 3/4 wealthy elites families who have massive business interests owning media institutions. There is a difference.
Long live Chavez!
Dictatorship ..crushing media ..is he on about the western media Reuters Fox Sky BBC ..tell me are you awake or are you just happy living in an illusion ?
Indeed – I hope he’ll have the strength to continue his good work. Viva Chavez!
I see the usual crew of everything is allright in the west are here to demonise anyone that trys to use a different system that helps the majority in their country. Nobody said it was perfect or that it was going to be easy especially when the major private industries, banks and media in Venezuala are controlled by a elite few and wanna put the country back to 75% of the population living in poverty in a resource rich country. Well in 14 years Chavez has reduced that to less than 25% and that is what living is all about. Again to the naysayers, stop worrying about people in different countries trying to change things 4 the better and start worrying about the true dictators in this world living in our countries that try to make things worse for everyone. Peoples priorities are so messed up lately.
The absolute state of the left-wing posters on this website. I know the type, saw them in UCD all the time. None of them are intelligent.
+1 , they still admire che aswell, its really funny how a controlling murdering war criminal can be regarded as a ‘revolutionary’ if hes left wing enough.
Over a decade in charge of a country that has the 6th highest oil production in the world, during a time when oil prices have skyrocketed,and the nation still has power outages….says a lot.
I think its a tough one to call. Personally I think Have, losing might be a good thing because it would show him not to be a dictator. Also it would show the American lies that he has messed up the country. Undoing generations of harm against the poor takes time. Oh and for those of ye who point out what bad friends he has I seem to remember a picture of Donald Rumsfeld shaking Saddams hand and big smiles all around. American hyprocy is alive and well.
Check out one of the most recent episodes of Ross Kemp’s Extreme World on Sky… A lot of human rights abuse going on there. The jails are a disgrace. Murders and kidnapping are a daily occurrence. People being forced to kidnap as they have no money to feed their families (not saying that it is right)… Crazy situation in that country right now.
@ Declan your full of sh1t I’ve been to Venezuela . Have you ?
Aaron and Ross same question to you
have your say