Chavez's Dirtiest Trick Yet

IBD Editorials ^ | October 19, 2011 | Editor

[Kaslin]

Elections: If there's any better proof that Venezuela's Hugo Chavez can't win an election fairly, it's in his Supreme Court's sorry bid to disqualify a promising opponent this week.

Why anyone would want to run for president in a democracy as corrupt as Venezuela's is an open question. After all, President Hugo Chavez's Marxist government has used state funds to buy votes, engaged in ballot-box fraud (as gullible observers like Jimmy Carter grinned and nodded), and used surveillance and retaliation against those who voted "incorrectly" in supposedly secret elections.

But it speaks well for those who do, keeping the faith for democracy against the odds.

Maybe that's why the government of Hugo Chavez's Venezuela has come up with its lowest blow yet: disqualifying a popular candidate to knock him out without a vote.

The candidate, Leopoldo Lopez, is a former mayor of the Caracas district of Chacao who kept the streets clean, enforced the law, and kept taxes low even as the rest of the city morphed into a red-shirted, graffiti-strewn Chavista cesspool of garbage, crime and corruption.

Of course he's popular.

But this week, the Venezuelan Supreme Court defied a September Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruling that held Lopez should not be banned from running for president due to politically motivated charges of corruption in 2005 that never went to court. Venezuela's constitution requires abiding by any IACHR ruling, so it should have been an open-and-shut case,

[ETL]

“We are creating a new world, a balanced world. A new world order, a multipolar world,” Chavez told reporters during a visit to Communist China, one of many. His “new world order” includes [RUSSIA], China, Iran,... and a significantly weakened United States, he explained.

Resurgent Communism in Latin America
by Alex Newman, March 16, 2010:

http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/world-mainmenu-26/south-america-mainmenu-37/3122-resurgent-communism-in-latin-america?tmpl=component&print=1&layout=default&page=
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From the Russian News and Information Agency:
July 27, 2006
"'I am determined to expand relations with Russia,' Chavez, known as an outspoken critic of what he calls the United States' unilateralism, told the Russian leader, adding that his determination stemmed from their shared vision of the global order.":
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20060727/51913498.html
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From the Sino-Russian Joint Statement of April 23, 1997:
"The two sides [China and Russia] shall, in the spirit of partnership, strive to promote the multipolarization of the world and the establishment of a new international order."

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/HI29Ag01.html
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"Joint war games are a logical outcome of the Sino-Russian Friendship and Cooperation Treaty signed in 2001, and reflect the shared worldview and growing economic ties between the two Eastern Hemisphere giants."

http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed092605a.cfm
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President Obama and Venezuela dictator Hugo
Chavez at the 2009 Summit of the Americas in Trinidad.
Note the "soul bro" handshake. (my caption)

Obama, Chavez shake hands at Americas Summit:
http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2009/04/17/2698451-obama-chavez-shake-hands-at-americas-summit
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Russia's Medvedev hails "comrade" Obama

Associated Foreign Press (AFP) ^ | April 2, 2009 | Anna Smolchenko

"Russia's Dmitry Medvedev hailed Barack Obama as "my new comrade" Thursday after their first face-to-face talks"

http://www.france24.com/en/20090402-russias-medvedev-hails-comrade-obama

April 1, 2009:
"Obama, Medvedev pledge new era of relations":
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090401/wl_afp/usrussiadiplomacynuclear_20090401152002
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[molson209]

so ,Chavez is going to run in the next election dead or alive

[Da Coyote]

Coming to a country very near you.

Thanks, Obama.

[GeronL]

This is not new. Chavez and his minions have done this several times in the past. Level false charges against a candidate to have them disqualified from the ballot.

[ARepublicanForAllReasons]

I am cheering for Hugo’s cancer cells!

[SunkenCiv]

Jimmy Carter’s probably got his hotel reservations and plane tickets so he can again certify the next immaculate election in the democracy that is Venezuela. Thanks Kaslin.

[Verginius Rufus]

Looks like Hugo Chavez learned a trick or two from Barack Obama on how to win elections.

[DJ MacWoW]

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[SunTzuWu]

Maybe that's why the government of Hugo Chavez's Venezuela has come up with its lowest blow yet: disqualifying a popular candidate to knock him out without a vote.

If I remember correctly, obama did the same thing to win his State Senate seat. He got the incumbent democrat disqualified and then ran unopposed.

[Kaslin]

I think you are correct

[Kaslin]

And it was Alan Keys

[Oceander]

My father’s late wife (second wife) was a native of Venezuela, and we still mourn for what Chavez has done to that beautiful country.

[Kaslin]

I don’t doubt it