[UPDATED] The major problem for Chavez in his quest for eternal presidency is that he has nothing to show for it. And even worse, he has run out of ideas or people to try to solve the problems of the country. In other words: he is impotent in front of the mounting problems of the country because he has no idea on how to solve them and he is surrounded by a group of corrupt and incompetent people.
What to do to try to wing it and get the nod for another 6 years in 2012 without cheating too much? Those are two long years..........
Campaign. That is the only thing Chavez knows how to do, to campaign for elections. In 12 years in power that is the lone thing (along letting the public treasury be plundered) for which he has shown any skill. True, his skills would not have helped him much had not be able to take public money to run his private campaign and buy votes, but let's not be mean: the guy knows how to campaign and it is not his fault that we are basically a wretched country that is willing to succumb to his brand of political trash.
The problem here is that he is already campaigning and alone and the elections are in December 2012. Thus, like any spoiled brat, he demands to be given a playmate so that he can impose his rules and win.
You think I am kidding? That is exactly what he did yesterday, in the most vulgar form, by demanding that the opposition file already its candidate so they can start slugging it off. For two years.
That is the true measure of a political rat: to forget about managing the country and solving its problems, much preferring to create a permanent scandal to distract from the reality. Because there is another reality he wants to evade: the new National Assembly where in spite of all Chavez measures and tricks, the opposition is slowly but surely making political inroads that cannot be hidden no matter how much artful chavista camera shots are attempted in ANTV.
My only question here is why is the MUD taking so much time to hit that easy ball out of the park?
UPDATE
From the comment question with Carolina I actually think I discovered another good reason for Chavez idiotic remark.
Since he has been in office Chavez has made good use of a chronic weakness of the opposition that is used to take its vacation in December like the rest of the country. Chavez never goes on vacation and has used December to make stunning announcements without any one across the aisle available to reply.
This last year as he was making his legislative coup December was not as useful to him as usual because there was in town the newly elected 63 representatives of the opposition. There was a retort to many of his utterances and he did not benefit from the December recess to score points as he used to do.
Since Chavez is a good campaigner, the lone thing as he can do as pointed above, he must have realized that the election of an opposition unity candidate in December, or even a primary campaign through December, will steal all of his thunder in December when he needs it the most for his campaign. I mean, being as usual the only one not in campaign while distributing freebees to buy votes.
Thus his anguish to try to have that candidate named earlier, in addition probably of encouraging people like AD or Copei to postpone the election of a candidate by March or later.
I think I need to make a short entry for this in Spanish......
But, wouldn't simply ignoring his challenge be the best strategy? If they say "No", he paints the MUD as cowardly or in disarray. As long as they don't respond, all he can do is keep on campaigning. Even his supporters will grow war-weary after more than a year and a half of campaigning.
ReplyDeleteI think the time to announce the candidate is four or five months before the election. That is enough time to campaign and build expectations to their peak level. And that includes major rallies in every town larger than 50,000 population.
Meanwhile, the real campaign (against Chavez) continues, further damaging his image and credibility, with major assistance from Chavismo itself, by providing a continuous stream of scandals to work with.
In the same vein this pushing by him for the oppo students to debate the Chavista students is a trap.
ReplyDeleteYou can't discuss things with fanatics, be they religious or political, in any kind of a reasonable way.
This will just turn into a waterfall of propaganda & the repetition of the party line.
They would be well advised to avoid this challenge.
A couple of postings ago you said that the opposition needed to elect their candidate sooner rather than later in order to go out and campaign. Although I agreed with you in many aspects, I also feel that Chavez is just waiting for that candidate to show upto come up with his dirty tricks to discredit the person as much as he can.
ReplyDeleteHe is desperate to do it, as this posting shows. Since last year he has been provoquing the opposition in this regards. He said he would like to measure up with the "sifrinita", always picking and thrusting on everyone that may represwnt an option.
I fear that he will try to crush the opposition candidate with money and a very dirty campaign and he is desperate to do so, and in the other hand, this candidate should start soon.
So, we are hooped.
Roy
ReplyDeleteThe only answer is" we will elect our candidate whenever we feel like it. Meanwhile, please, stop campaigning and start working at solving the country's problems".
It is that simple. Why can't we even get that from the MUD?
Of course, there is a manner to package the announcement but I am no politician. That is their job.
Island Canuck
ReplyDeleteThe beauty of that particular challenge is that it is not an endless loop: just demand that Chavez solve problems instead of campaigning, pointing out to people that there are still two years before the vote. Trust me, in Tocopero it will play.
Carolina
ReplyDeletePicking up a candidate in December as I suggested is not the same thing at all as picking up today-
One of the things about picking up a candidate in December or January if we must, is that the December agenda will be managed by the opposition when it is always managed by Chavez. He senses that and that is why he is trying to either pull earlier the primary or try through third parties inside the MUD to postpone it until Mars.
Actually, now that I think of it I am going to ass this to the post!!!! Thanks!
A couple responses take time: "Perhaps the President should focus less on elections, which are quite a long time from now, and focus more on running the country well."
ReplyDelete"We will choose a candidate through a united democratic process. Perhaps the President has forgotten, but doing things democratically takes time."
That second one is perhaps a bit dangerous, but it's just off the top of my head.
Here's a winner from Chavez's harangue: "Tienen derecho a hablar y a proponer pero no a imponer." Of course not! Only he has the derecho a imponer. It ruffles his feathers just to think that someone else might want to.
"Since he has been in office Chavez has made good use of a chronic weakness of the opposition that is used to take its vacation in December like the rest of the country."
ReplyDeleteNobody can beat Chavez without being conscious of his willingness to cheat in any way he can, doing anything possible in order to win.Knowing that, the opposition has to always be one step ahead of Chavez or it is useless.Why would the opposition take a vacation knowing this gives Chavez a perfect opportunity ? They must not want to win as badly as Chavez does, or else they are not yet conscious of just how much Chavez wants to win.
I really feel unsure of the best course because I know that whatever course is taken Chavez has the power, the will and the gall to mess it up for the opposition( so far)- because so far I think many people still lack clarity of the fact that it takes 2 to tango and a con artist like Chavez can only go as far as we allow him to go.
The most important thing is to realize there is NO LIMIT to Chavez's desire and willingness to cheat to get his way.For him, it is simply" MY WAY OR the HIGHWAY".The question is" is the opposition willing to also do the same or more?