Venezuela's marathon man looks to run down Chavez

Telegraph - UK ^ | September 29, 2012 | Philip Sherwell, Maracaibo, Venezuela

[Cincinatus' Wife]

........In Venezuela's presidential elections on Sunday, Mr Capriles faces one of the toughest challenges in global politics - defeating Hugo Chavez.

The socialist autocrat dominates the airwaves and is tapping the state's deep oil coffers to fund his campaign and "buy" votes with a calculated explosion of investment in populist social programme in the weeks before the vote.

But despite its energy riches, the country is mired in debt and unemployment as state-imposed price and exchange rate controls shackle the economy. And violent crime is so endemic that Caracas has the unenviable ranking of the murder capital of the world.

Now, with the long-divided opposition united for the first time behind a charismatic state governor who is already a veteran of Venezuela's rough-and-tumble politics despite his youthful years, President Chavez is facing his most serious competition at the ballot box since he came to power in 1998.

At stake is the grip on power of an anti-Western firebrand who embraces Iran and China and is seeking to use the nation's oil wealth to export his dream of a socialist revolution across Latin America.

It is a "David and Goliath" battle, Mr Capriles told The Sunday Telegraph during a wide-ranging interview in which he pledged a number of radical breaks from the policies of the former paratrooper officer know by his fervent supporters as "El Comandante".

On his first day in office, he said, he would halt the "gifts" of free or heavily-subsidised oil to Mr Chavez's left-wing ideological allies in Cuba and Nicaragua. Nor would there be any more discount deals to sympathetic Western leaders such as Ken Livingstone, a Chavez admirer who as London mayor negotiated cheap oil from Caracas for the capital's buses.....

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Worth the read. Thanks to the UK Telegraph for their coverage. Election

While reading it, think of Hugo Chavez's state control, community organizing, takeover of government, courts, education, media; his vote "buying" with government handouts, gun control, property seizure and redistribution, economic collapse, embrace of like-minded communists/dictators, violent undercurrent, war on "wealthy," dependency culture to groom supporters, etc.......sound familar?

Time to sweep out commie "firebrands" in this hemisphere, including and most importantly, the U.S.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Jimmy Carter blesses Venezuelan election as fear of violence grows "Jimmy Carter's capacity to astound continues to know no bounds. Last Friday, presiding over an event at his eponymous organization, the former president allowed how Hugo Chávez's election process in Venezuela is "the best in the world."

Well, apparently he isn't reading much on the run up to Venezuela's October 7 presidential election, because such an affirmation flies in the face of nearly every report in recent weeks, which have overwhelmingly concluded it has been a fundamentally unfair process. (A few examples are here, here, and here.).................."

__________________

Two Venezuelan opposition activists shot dead "Gunmen shot and killed two local leaders of parties backing presidential challenger Henrique Capriles on Saturday in the worst violence of a volatile campaign before Venezuela's election next weekend........"

[Cincinatus' Wife]

"...........Though Capriles's campaign has momentum, Chavez retains his charismatic, folksy rhetoric, and state media ensure [Chavez] gets blanket coverage.

And then there's the money. A ramping up of spending on social welfare is guaranteed to win votes, while state institutions have barely concealed their use of official resources to support Chavez. Capriles's own, cheaper, campaign relies on donations and fundraising by supporters. Some wealthy Venezuelan businessmen and exiles are also thought to be helping.

Capriles says he trusts the president to step down if he loses. Yet more radical opposition activists claim, without offering evidence, that Chavez would do anything to stay in power, from vote-rigging to sending armed supporters into the streets. While there are no official international monitors for the 7 October poll, the Unasur group of South American nations is sending observers. Capriles's Democratic Unity coalition will place witnesses at almost all the voting booths, as will the government. But many analysts say government spending during the campaign is likely to be a bigger factor than any potential fraud." - Source

[Artie]

“And violent crime is so endemic that Caracas has the unenviable ranking of the murder capital of the world.”

Just when my old hometown,Detroit,thought it was safe to make a comeback

[preacher]

"Time to sweep out commie "firebrands" in this hemisphere, including and most importantly, the U.S."

[Cincinatus' Wife]

"................From stacking the electoral council with his loyalists, to his near-monopoly control of the broadcasting media, to his non-transparent spending of Venezuela's record oil profits for political purposes, to intimidating voters with the public exposure their votes, Chávez has used every tactic, above-board and underhanded, to smother the candidacy of former governor Henrique Capriles. It is a measure of Capriles' tenacity that not only is he still standing, but that he is giving Chávez all he can handle.

Yet, while Capriles's surging candidacy certainly bodes well for the preservation of some semblance of democracy in Venezuela (not to mention the prospects of a Chávez-less Venezuela), it is also heightening concerns that should Chávez come to believe he is losing on election day, he will unleash a wave of violence targeting the opposition.

In a recent 2,400-word exposé, Reuters reported on what are known in Venezuela as "colectivos," radical (and armed) neighborhood groups committed to outwardly defending Chávez's political project. They are unaccountable to any authority, acting above the law and with impunity. According to Reuters,........." Source

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Preach it!

[piasa]

Speaking of some things sounding familiar :

1979 : (LIBYA, BILLY CARTER & JAMES ABOUREZK -- See ADC) [SD Democrat James] Abourezk had been present in Libya with Billy Carter to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Muammar Qaddafi’s reign in 1979, and the next year he had founded the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), which allied with left-wing groups in providing legal support to advocates of Palestinian rights.80 ---- "Wilsongate: Motive, Means, and Opportunity," Original FReeper research | 11/21/2005 | Fedora

"If I get back in, I’m going to [expletive] the Jews."---- Jimmy Carter, in a discussion about failing reelection prospects in 1980

AUGUST 4, 1980 : (CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR REPORTS THAT LIBYA PURCHASED 300 TONS OF PARTIALLY REFINED URANIUM ORE FROM NIGER; LIBYA LATER PASSED IT ON TO PAKISTAN IN EXCHANGE FOR AID WITH NUCLEAR WEAPONS TECHNOLOGY) A Christian Science Monitor article alleges that Libya purchased 300 tons of partially refined uranium ore from Niger, which it later passed on to Pakistan. Libya, it is suspected, hopes to receive nuclear weapons technology from Pakistan in exchange for this aid. --------"Mideast Nuclear Threat—Tale of Murder, Intrigue," Christian Science Monitor, 4 August 1980. -- via "Libya Nuclear Chronology, 1968-2004," NTI.org, Libya Profile, Chronology, http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Libya/4132_4135.html 1985 : (PAKISTANI BANKER AGHA HASSAN ABEDI, FOUNDER OF BCCI, DONATES $4 MILLION TO THE CARTER CENTER)

[Cincinatus' Wife]

How Tyranny Came to Zimbabwe - Jimmy Carter still has a lot to answer for "In April 1979, 64 percent of the black citizens of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) lined up at the polls to vote in the first democratic election in the history of that southern African nation. Two-thirds of them supported Abel Muzorewa, a bishop in the United Methodist Church. He was the first black prime minister of a country only 4 percent white. Muzorewa's victory put an end to the 14-year political odyssey of outgoing prime minister Ian Smith, the stubborn World War II veteran who had infamously announced in 1976, "I do not believe in black majority rule--not in a thousand years." Fortunately for the country's blacks, majority rule came sooner than Smith had in mind.

Less than a year after Muzorewa's victory, however, in February 1980, another election was held in Zimbabwe. This time, Robert Mugabe, the Marxist who had fought a seven-year guerrilla war against Rhodesia's white-led government, won 64 percent of the vote, after a campaign marked by widespread intimidation, outright violence, and Mugabe's threat to continue the civil war if he lost. Mugabe became prime minister and was toasted by the international community and media as a new sort of African leader. "I find that I am fascinated by his intelligence, by his dedication. The only thing that frustrates me about Robert Mugabe is that he is so damned incorruptible," Andrew Young, Jimmy Carter's ambassador to the United Nations, had gushed to the Times of London in 1978. The rest, as they say, is history................."

[DeaconRed]

Send JIMMAH down there to monitor the election.
OK it won't do any good. It will get the old coot out of this country for a while. That can't hurt.

[SumProVita]

They won’t go quietly.

http://news.yahoo.com/chavez-showcases-projects-capriles-hits-hard-venezuela-vote-002051661.html

Two Venezuelan opposition activists shot dead

CARACAS (Reuters) - Gunmen shot and killed two local leaders of parties backing presidential challenger Henrique Capriles on Saturday in the worst violence of a volatile campaign before Venezuela’s election next weekend.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

The ballots have already been stuffed. All that’s left is for the media to cover the results.

[chainsaw]

defeating Hugo Chavez.

How do you defeat the person that controls which ballots too count.

[A Strict Constructionist]

“Jimmy Carter’s capacity to astound continues to know no bounds”

I think Carter is one of the Plagues of American much like the Plagues that were visited on Egypt in the Bible. He claims to be a Christian...I don’t see how anyone so vindictive can be.

[bert]

The voters question is should we vote him out or pray he dies quickly when re elected?

[SkyDancer]

Anybody taking bets on when the guy will be killed? Accidentally of course.

[MasterGunner01]

It never ceases to astound me how Jimmy Carter manages to always support the worst scum on the planet and he's lauded as some kind of great humanitarian. His support for thugs and killers has resulted in the deaths of multitudes and yet he's seen as some kindly man building homes for the poor [aka Habitat for Humanity].

Carter has supported the Ayatollah Khomeini, Daniel Ortega, Fidel and Raul Castro, Robert Mugabe, Nelson Mandela, Hugo Chavez, and now Barack Obama. Quite a rogue's gallery, but it's never mentioned.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

This article (though perfectly believable) certainly is something to read: Secret Service Hated Jimmy Carter

[MasterGunner01]

I believe that Jimmy Carter is a totally evil and amoral man. His persona is that of a phony or con man. His arrogance is grating, by far too many Americans are still bamboozled by this fraud.