This article explores how over the past decade Venezuela’s National Electoral Council has transformed Venezuela’s electoral system to the point where the opposition who spent years trying to discredit the country’s national electoral body now ask it to organize their own internal elections.
By Correo del Orinoco International , Jan 27th 2012
This week Venezuelan opposition forces demonstrated a false showing of unity against President Hugo Chavez in preparation for next October’s presidential elections.
By Correo del Orinoco International, Jan 22nd 2012
As governor of Zulia, Perez has been accused of helping Colombian paramilitary forces enter the country as part of destabilization plans aimed at toppling the Chavez government. Earlier this year, neighboring Apure State Governor Ramon Carrizalez accused Perez of using his role in office to “make frequent trips into and out of Colombia” and “making agreements to bring in paramilitaries to sow anxiety and violence in the region”.
For the sector of society that has it all and no one has taken it from them, the real problem is that a “zambo” [a person of mixed African and native American origin] governs them.
Venezuela's opposition once again appears to be withering on a vine that has not taken root since President Chavez was first elected 12 years ago. The men who would be president this year are little more than plastic media candidates, reading scripts written by their funding source in the U.S. State Department. They offer no real challenge to the Chavez administration for several reasons. The first is due to the success of the Bolivarian Revolution or in a word, socialism.
Leopoldo Lopez Mendoza comes from one of Venezuela’s wealthiest families and is known for his “good-boy” looks and extreme right-wing agenda. Lopez has been an anti-Chavez media favorite for his “heroic” negation of a decision by Venezuela’s Comptroller General barring him from holding office until 2014 for acts of corruption committed while he was mayor of Caracas municipality Chacao and during his time as a state employee of PDVSA.
"One of the most visible, vocal and controversial leaders in Latin America" (according to the BBC), Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez receives much attention from the British media. Frequent news reports, alluding to government 'attacks' on democracy and press freedom, and discussing the nationalisation of assets, create an impression of a 'regime' which asserts too much power.
By Correo del Orinoco International , Jan 8th 2012
Caracas-born Henrique Capriles Radonski is one of the opposition candidates most likely to make it through the primary selection process and face Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in next year’s presidential election.
By Correo del Orinoco International, Dec 26th 2011
Maria Corina Machado, possibly the most right-wing conservative voice within the Venezuelan opposition, is the anti-Chavez minority’s only female candidate. Lacking a political party, per se, Machado maintains close ties to the United States and has depended for years on her Washington-based financiers and advisors.
In 2002, the AFL-CIO’s international arm known as the “Solidarity Center” was greatly embarrassed when it came to light that it had been supporting actors in Venezuela who participated in the short-lived coup against President Hugo Chavez.
By Correo del Orinoco International , Nov 18th 2011
On Monday, Venezuela’s anti-Chavez minority remained sceptical as a proposed “debate” between their pre-presidential candidates went no further than a series of grand promises each candidate would implement if he or she somehow beats Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in next year’s presidential elections
By Joe Emersberger and Jeb Sprague , Nov 14th 2011
In this piece, Joe Emersberger and Jeb Sprague discuss filmaker Edward Ellis' documentary "Tierras Libres". The documentary explores the assassinations of peasant-activists killed by hired assassins for trying to implement the government's land reform project and their families' quest for justice within a judicial system that is still controlled in large part by the national elite.
We’ve seen in previous articles how political manipulation of the issue of security attempts to show an increase in murders as a specific factor of the Bolivarian revolution. However, we can see how violence has been dramatically increasing for a long time now, since the opposition of today was the government
Yesterday I spoke about the time when Venezuela was an ally of the US empire and the country where Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch carried out their plans for the brutal in-flight bombing of a Cuban plane that caused the death and disappearance of all people aboard, including the youth fencing team that had just won all the gold medals at the Central-American and Caribbean Championships held in Venezuela...
By Rachael Boothroyd - Venezuelanalysis.com, Oct 18th 2011
Despite the fact that he still had a possible ban from holding public office hanging over his head, presidential hopeful Leopoldo Lopez chose to take his lead from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights last Sunday and get started on his electoral campaign.
