Electoral update in Venezuela

I was busy today and the Rice/Kerry/Chavez caught my eye first. But of course elections are in everyone's mind, whether we vote or not. Tonight just a quick update.

Upcoming attractions

I will be covering through the week end. I am trying to put together a few pictures of the Yaracuy electoral scene for the local flavor. On Sunday I will be voting and I have no idea how long it will take, and how much I will cover, but I will cover as much as I can, and providing that there is some excitement in the air, which might be happening after listening to the threats of the Jesse Chacon today. But I will write more on that tomorrow.

Meanwhile you can add to the already detailed motivations of the electoral campaign and the local predictions and an interesting photo gallery from El Universal, dedicated to all the problems that we face us who live in the provinces. Highly recommended!

Ouch!

Well, it looks that the Kerry statement hurt, deep. The Venezuelan ambassador in Bogota wasted no time in criticizing the FARC connections implied by Kerry. The defense minister, Garcia Carneiro, one of the dimmest bulbs in the chavista luster, said that Venezuela was independent since 1811, supposedly as an excuse to say that Kerry could not meddle, and I suppose as an excuse not to really answer the charges of Kerry. "Shoot the messenger", the usual tactics of chavistas. The Rice statement seems to have had quite an effect too. I saw on TV that the foreign minister called upon the US for Condi remarks, and only one link so far from Venpres, a link that might change.[added next day: Papers carry the reactions of the Jesus Perez, our foreign minister. El Universal but also a provincial paper that does a better job than the Caracas ones of that piece of news, El Impulso. I wish I had more time to check some of the provincial papers who also do an outstanding job at exposing the miseries of the regime, but there are only so many hours in a day. For those that are interested I recommend EL Impulso from Barquisimeto, El Carabobeño and Notitarde from Valencia which I all read on occasion as they sort of cover the Yaracuy area. The Yaracuy papers are pretty much worthless.]

Costa Rica

Now we are by the third Costa Rican ex-president, in jail, about to be jailed or under investigation. Ah! Imagine one day CAP, Lusinchi and Chavez in jail together! One can always dream! If one Latin American country can do it, maybe there is hope for the others, ours in particular!