Even as Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri and Ali Khamenei were hedging their bets in the face of massive demonstrations, the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (i.e. Hugo Chavez) congratulated the Iranian people for the extraordinary day (ripoff?) last Friday.
At the same time, the Venezuelan Government (i.e. Huguito) manifested its (his) most firm rejection to the feroucious and unfounded campaign of discredit that from abroad (???) has been unleashed against Iranian institutions. Venezuela denounced this interference in Iranian affairs (by million of Iranians?) and asks for the immediate end to these activities.
Well, it took three days, but it happened in the end according to the expected script. The only thing missing was mention of the Venezuelan opposition as being part of the interference (Sadly, they have not said anything). You have to wonder where the Venezuelan Government thinks the millions of protesters came from and how come the deaths always occur in opposition demonstrations and not in those in favor of ruling President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (sound familiar?).
But I guess Chavez is seeing himself in that mirror, the crowds are no different than those of April 2002: a majority of women and young people. The big difference is that they don’t seem to stop protesting even when they are shot at. Chavez managed to stop protests in 2002 when he ordered his people to shoot at the demonstrators in April 2002, except he did not count with having to resign. Luckily for him, we had the military making decisions and somehow stupid Carmona ended up on top and Chavez managed to come back.
But using Chavista logic, the millions in Iranian streets are just destabilizers that should be shot at and scared to death until they stay home. Such is the regard this Government has for freedom and human rights.
Maybe Venezuelans will watch what is happening in Iran closely and realize that when your rights are in play, you have to take all possible risks to defend them and next time we will not leave the streets, or the media, or our rights flailing in the wind.
The Devil's Excrement 
June 18, 2009 at 1:55 am
the number of vetted persian candidates varies with every election.
presidential elections, candidates vs. those allowed to run:
2009: 475; 4
2005: 1014; 8
2001: 814; 10
1997: 238; 4
prior to elections for parliament (2008), 4476 candidates were allowed while 7600 aspired to run. moreover, some members of parliament were banned from running for a re-election…
contraloría may not be able to show similar absolute numbers, but the mechanism itself is the problem doesn’t matter if one or one thousand candidates are banned without proof.
also, iran: 73 million citizens, venezula: 27 million inhabitants… measuring the *relative* volumes of banned candidates for both countries would be more informative.
June 17, 2009 at 6:35 pm
If my memory serves me, something like 2 thousand candidates were vetted by the mullahs prior to the election. This would be like putting Clodosbaldo on steroids.
June 17, 2009 at 3:38 pm
ali khamenei and the guardian council hand picking the few “allowed” presidential candidates is a bit like disqualifying candidates in venezuela thanks to an infamous law allowing to ban candidates only because contraloría opened “investigation” (and not through a proper porcess or judge’s verdict), isn’t it?
June 17, 2009 at 2:20 pm
@zamuro … obviously we have to put up with a lot more shit before venezuelans become more “iranian”…
Heh, if we were in an Iranian type situation, we would be participating in an election and selecting our candidate from between the likes of Diosdado and Jesse.
Thanks, but no thanks!
I suppose things would be far worse if Venezuelans were in a theocracy.
June 17, 2009 at 1:01 pm
I feel as if I have been watching a decade-long train wreck. As a US citizen who used to work in Venezuela, and who worked with Venezuelans here in the US, I feel concern, but also helpless to effect anything.
With Chavez, every time you think it can’t get worse, you just have to wait for his latest shenanigan. It can get worse- and it does.
June 17, 2009 at 12:58 pm
juancho, obviously we have to put up with a lot more shit before venezuelans become more “iranian”…
we better blame us more than chávez and his entourage. la “revolución” only develops so well because they had and have enough time and space to do so. or saying it with joseph de maistre’s words: every nation has the government it deserves.
June 17, 2009 at 12:14 pm
How much further does Venezuela have to descend before touching the bottom and bouncing back up? How much more shit do Venezuelans have to put up with before reacting?
June 17, 2009 at 11:29 am
Alek:
One thing we can learn from the recent “election” in Iran is to try to get our people off their asses and start standing up for themselves.
WE should as a soceity observe what is happening there and apply whatever lessons we can learn. Not copy, because we are different. Learn and adapt.
June 17, 2009 at 8:14 am
I for one cannot bring myself to perpetuate the myth that Chávez won the 2004 recall referendum, at least after having read and re-read the paper “The Systematic Annihilation of the Right to Vote in Venezuela” (google for it if you haven’t read it) and the papers quoted therein, including: statistical analyses by Febres-Cordero and Márquez; discrepancies between exit polls and official results by Prado and Sansó; results seen through the lens of the Benford Law by Pericchi and Torres; the suspicious behaviour exhibited comparing yes votes and petition signatures analysed by Delfino and Salas and the data transmission log analyses carried out by Mr Malpica and his group. The evidence of generalised fraud is just mounting up and given sufficient time will receive sufficient exposure to percolate from the academic world into the rest of the world.
As far as I can tell, Chávez’s recent (since the “consultation” held in February of this year) rash assault upon the rest of the country has more to do with his intelligence showing beyond a shadow of a doubt that Chavistas are now a minority group and thus he has to prepare the groundwork so as to be able to continue wielding power in Venezuela ad infinitum.
In 2 or so years –a long time given the current state of events– if his deranged rush to smother all opposition works out and is not overtaken by the rapidly advancing restlessness and disaffection, we will probably not be seeing elections at all, at least not in the sense that Venezuela was used to before, but more like those in pre-war Iraq or, not to take things too far away geographically, Cuba.
Amanecerá y veremos …
June 17, 2009 at 7:45 am
Chavez won the 2004 recall referendum by a slim margin and then padded the vote through various means.
Lars, there is no conclusive evidence that Chavez won that election, for no one was allowed to count the votes as previously agreed with opposition and international observers, no one was allowed to audit the machines as previously agreed with opposition and international observers, therefore accepting CNE’s results as valid takes a leap of faith.
June 17, 2009 at 7:39 am
Well folks, I must tell you that the more I read about our contemporary history, the more skeptic I am that Venezuela will ever become a progressive, free and advanced nation. Chavismo is just the latest chapter into an encyclopedia of failures, of treasons, of missed opportunities, mind you there is nothing back there, beyond the 40 years that gave birth to the actual disaster, that could prompt hope.
The past century was fraught by transitions: from one caudillo to another, from dictatorship to “democracy”. But we must never forget that the enemies of democracy are plenty and powerful, we must never forget what the Romulos did, and what was done to them, we must never forget how difficult it was for the concept of democracy to take hold, and even then, how can we possibly ignore the people’s contentment in 1992 when Chavez tried on the life of our democracy?
Our history is not Iran’s, there are no moral or any other values in our society, beyond “quitate tu pa ponerme yo”, those who care have never been the majority, ever, so how can we rejoice at what happens in Iran, or Ukraine, beyond the gain of a bit of solace by the fact that some collectivity, somewhere, is actually fighting for freedom?
June 17, 2009 at 7:16 am
We have another 2+ years to wait and see whether the Venezuelans will react differently in the next presidential election….unless Chavez decides to do an autogolpe before then.
June 17, 2009 at 6:58 am
agree with Daniel, Chavez won the 2004 recall referendum by a slim margin and then padded the vote through various means. Not to mention that the campaign was unfair all the way. Chavez won because of the missions and the handouts specifically designed for that purpose. In an even and fair election, Chavez loses.
My understanding is that both Iranian sides will pursue military nuclear program and they are both different sides of the same coin. The winner is in firm and absolute control of the country through the military, the revolutionary guards (parallel military) and the Basij (paramilitary) to name a few… it’s a similar structure and tactics to that used by Chavez with thugs on motorcycles and whatnot. The Venezuelan opposition should be taking notes of the Iranian methods and tactics.
June 16, 2009 at 10:57 pm
Miguel
Every hour I see ourselves mirrored into Iran, all proportions guarded of course.
In 2004 it was not enough for Chavez to win the recall election, he needed to win it big, with more votes than his 2000 election. That is where the fraud came, at least in my point of view: they needed Chavez to get more than 55% for image purpose. And it worked, not only on the shock value but as so many felt defrauded and the opposition leadership so dead about it, it created that abstention feel that served so well Chavez for the following 5 years.
With all the international pressure suffered by Iran it was essential to show a public determination and support. Thus even a second round ballot victory was not enough: Ahmadinejerk needed to win by more than 60% on the first round. Unfortunately for their strategy the opposition after 30 years of oppressive theocracy were not as willing to drawn their frustration by going to the closest Sambil…..
Just like in 2004, Chavez and Mahmoud won, but they needed to cheat to make it look like a big victory. For Chavez it paid off handsomely, for Mahmoud and his nuclear combo the jury is out.
June 16, 2009 at 10:25 pm
Off subject but very serious:
Perla Jaimes Jorge while executing her mandate to protect the legal rights of her principal and acting as their lawyer/attorney had every right to demand court documents authorizing search/seizure.
I find it a “little difficult” to understand how one female person could obstruct the entrance of two never mind more than fifty armed persons – “I find that I can’t call them police”.
I did watch the intrusion video.
However there are much more serious outcomes from those events.
1./ Lawyers may not act on their clients behest without personal jeopardy.
2./ If Perla Jaimes Jorge is found guilty then any property in Venezuela is no longer private ( did Chavez say something about this ) but owned by the state where the authorities may enter and search at any time without due cause.
*** ‘Lawyers/abogados’ get your shit together or you are lost. You still have a lot of clout – but it is yours to loose.