Venezuela’s Boycotted Election Gives Chavez Complete Control

Venezuela’s electorate went to the polls yesterday and elected 167 members to the national assembly. Initial results suggest that not one of them opposes the policies and governing position of President Hugo Chavez. Only 25% of the eligible voters showed up to vote because five of the main opposition parties pulled out of the race saying the poll wasn’t going to be fair. Unfair or not, Venezuela is that much closer to being a one-party state.

Mr. Chavez fancies himself a populist, and he has spent much of Venezuela’s oil wealth on quick fixes and largesse aimed at boosting his own position among the poor. He has failed to invest that money in projects that will allow the nation to move beyond petroleum exporting. At the same time, he must get credit for getting doctors and teachers into the poorer regions of the nation. This does not excuse him for his general incompetence; the Soviet Union produced a huge number of great engineers, many of whom died in the gulag.

The opposition groups complained that the electoral commission was pro-Chavez, and they complained of the electronic voting machines, touch-screens without a paper trail (sound familiar, Ohio?). Mr. Chavez dismissed these claims saying, “The whole world knows a true democracy is in motion here in Venezuela.” Well, 25% of one anyway.

Mr. Chavez’s Fifth Republic Movement held 89 of the 165 seats of the previous assembly, and won 114 of the 167 (there are two extra seats this time around). The remaining 53 seats appear to have gone to parties allied with his – much as the Peasants’ Party in Communist Poland was allied to the Reds. “We are going to have a single party parliament that doesn't represent ample sectors of society,” said Maria Corina Machado of the watchdog group Sumate, which is largely a US puppet-organization funded by the same people who sink money into the anti-Castro crowd in Florida (a less effective bunch is hard to imagine).

This points up the real problem of Venezuela. Mr. Chavez is a blustering, boorish bozo who is undermining the ability of the nation to care for its least able by frittering away the nation’s wealth. Meanwhile, the opposition doesn’t have a single person in it who seems to care about the vast majority of poor people in Venezuela. Given a choice between Red Shirts and Brown Shirts, most Venezuelans will be no better off regardless of which clique of vampires are running their nation. The nation needs a Simon Bolivar, and at best, it’s got a choice between Fidel-Lite and Juan Peron reincarnated. Emigration looks like a good option.

© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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