Chavez and democracy

Hugo Chavez just won his bid to remain as President of Venezuela, 58% to 42%, an overwhelming victory. It was the largest voter turnout in history with people sometimes waiting for hours to vote. There were outside observers who said the election was very orderly and peaceful. Despite the fact that he has been elected twice previously and has now survived this attempt to recall him by a large margin you might think his opponents would accept the will of the people. But not so. The very rich and the United States oil interests, still refuse to accept the vote and claim that somehow the vote must have been dishonest. Do not forget that when he was elected by the popular vote previously a White House spokesman remarked that “winning the most votes doesn’t make him legitimate,” or words to that effect. Apparently the White House, which claims to promote democracy around the world, has its own definition of democracy and/or legitimacy.

The problem is that Chavez wants to help the Venezuelan poor – to own land, go to the dentist, go to school, have better health care, and other vicious socialistic things like that. And because he asked Cuba to help provide doctors and dentists he must be a rabid socialist who cannot be tolerated. He even had the audacity to ask for a bigger cut of Venezuelan oil revenues. Whereas previously they received only 16% Chavez, to raise money to help the poor, wanted 30%. This of course outraged Dick the Slimy who controls the oil policy in the United States. But in spite of repeated CIA and other attempts to influence the situation, and in spite of the mainstream press labeling Chavez as some kind of dictatorial monster, the majority of the people in Venezuela want him as their president, a democratically elected president. As the U.S. apparently doesn’t want to deal with a democratically elected president over whom they have little or no control, they will continue to vilify him and attempt to get rid of him. I sincerely hope he has a large and talented group of bodyguards.

As virtually all Venezuelan land is owned by a very wealthy elite, and as Chavez wants land reform so the poor have more than a merely 1% share in it, he clearly must be the devil incarnate. There has always been an obscene difference between the rich and the poor in Venezuela. Chavez’s attempt to alleviate poverty gets branded as class warfare by the very people who invented it and cling to it desperately. As usual, selfishness and greed, know no bounds.