Hugo Chavez can’t run a country, but he has usually been pretty shrewd about politics and political strategy. Thus, it was somewhat of a surprise when on Saturday he announced that he had already chosen his candidates for Governors in the 2004 regional elections. It appears as if Chavez simply improvised, thinking that third would be a good strategy to distract attention away from the recall referendum. But the strategy or improvisation appears to have backfired. To begin with Chavez proposed the Mayor of Maracaibo Martino, to run against current Governor Rosales. However, Martino declined the next day, saying that he was happy where he was. The truth is that while Rosales’ popularity has been soaring and is currently at a 69% approval rating, Martino’s has declined mainly due to his association with Chavez. Chavez MVR even had to send a delegation to Maracaibo to talk to Martino and Chavez said on TV that Martino had changed his mind at the same time Martino himself was reiterating, once again, that he was not interested in being Governor. But perhaps it was worse in other regions. Chavez announced the candidacies of some of his closest associates in some cases to the Governorships of states that they are not even from. This has actually created a feeling of uncertainty in the regions, where others who have been loyal to Chavez had been planning to run next year. Meanwhile, Chavez thought that the opposition would pick up the ball and start talking elections, but it is clear that the opposition has realized that it gains nothing by replying to everything Chavez says. Thus, Chavez issue has become a non-issue in a scant three days. A different take is that of Tal Cual Editor Teodoro Petkoff, who focuses more on the fact that, once again, Chavez has forgotten about the promises and beliefs that took him to the Presidency and made him so popular. This is Petkoff’s take: Participatory Democracy by Simon Bocanegra a.k.a Teodoro Petkoff It is not even worth wondering about those candidacies that Chavez launched at his rally on Saturday. It is just bullshit, directed at artificially creating an electoral climate, different from the recall referendum But this mini-reporter is going to look at it form a different point of view. That of the singular “democratic” criteria of the President. In none of the states for which Chavez announced candidacies was the opinion of the members of MVR even polled, nor that of the allied parties. He even said it “This is MY cock”, “This is MY candidate”. This is called “participative democracy”. You will see the messy fights they will have.
I participate that I do what I want. In MVR there is no group of insiders, what there is, is the will of a single person that imposes, without any discussion, without even the fiction of a democratic debate, over a submissive collective (and perhaps a collective ashamed of the role it is playing) which everyone expects will obey. However, if in the National Directorate of MVR the majority are robots; we only have to wait a little bit to see the reaction of the militants in the regional states. That those candidates that Chavez proposed are accepted just like that will be more difficult that climbing a palm tree on your back,
The Devil's Excrement 
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