And the 2006 electoral campaign has started!

Last Thursday Chavez made a big “celebratory” event to commemorate his seven years in office. I suppose that those that cashed in where happy. The attendance lot seemed quite prosperous, far from that starved look of revolutionaries they harbored 7 years ago. They have learned how to wear the classic suit.

The speech through the unavoidable cadena lasted for hours. Apparently all the high feats needed to be recounted. And all the decibels, vulgarity, threats and bad jokes that accompany Chavez speech where there as this brilliant cartoon of Weil illustrates.



And while he was at it, Chavez launched his reelection campaign, several month before the official date. I would like to point out that next door Uribe has not really launched his own campaign. Actually, they have saddled him with all sorts of restrictions, something that Chavez in spite of the electoral law seems immune of. We know as of February 2 that any electoral restriction that will try to create a fair field for a presidential campaign will be broken through and through by Chavez. Why? Because the head of the Venezuelan Electoral Board, CNE, Jorge Rodriguez was in the attendance for all the speech and applauded as much as he could the pseudo achievements of Chavez.

You mean to say that the umpire of the electoral process was cheering the Chavez program and his new electoral bid? The umpire was witnessing all of these electoral violations and did not stand up and leave? An umpire? What umpire?

Today’s editorial of Teodoro Petkoff does not mince words. Spanish version here. I will only translate choice parts.

This was an act of clear electoral goals, where all speakers from Rangel [the V.P.] to anyone below did nothing else but to suck up to Chavez and where the key word of the festival (“Seven Years… For the time being”) obviously alluded to the reelection intention. Again: What was the president of the CNE doing in an event that was starting the Chavez campaign?

The president of the CNE _ just as from any public service _ not only must be honest but he must seem honest. It is clear that the participation of Jorge Rodriguez in this event and the posterior silence of the CNE in front of all the electoral violations of the Electoral Law that has perpetrated the Great Continuator [Teodoro knows how to coin expressions], does not go along in inspiring confidence to the electors as to the impartiality and honesty of the organization in charge of our elections. To the contrary, a CNE so visible partial is not even good for the government.

It is not that we are worried by the early start of Chavez campaign. It is evident that he is violating the law because he feels the ground shifting under himself and that the popular support is fraying. To ask from Chavez, this perpetual transgressor, to respect the law would be an exercise in naïveté. But the one we should demand to respect itself and the laws and the electoral calendar is the institution in charge of the elections.

This road can only increase the mistrust of the population. They are wrong those in the government who believe that only the opposition will abstain in front of an electoral process so perverse. The pedestrian chavismo will not want to win cheating. This chavismo also wishes for a clean game.