Pablo Navarrete, Caracas: A programme presently airing on the state TV station Venezolana de Television (VTV) is discussing the opposition's strategy in light of their boycott of today's parliamentary elections.
Education Minister Aristóbulo Isturiz said the country needed a credible opposition and speculated on the next phase of the US goverment's strategy in its bid to discredit Venezuelan democracy internationally. He said that the US had already employed the "Chilean plan" and the "Nicaraguan plan", both of which failed. The present phase to discredit the Venezuelan government, he said, is based on the "Haitian plan" in which the US used the opposition's refusal to participate in Haiti's electoral process as a justification to oust the country's democratically elected president Jean Bertrand Aristide in February 2004. Presidential elections in Venezuela are scheduled for December 2006.
The worst thing that the US can do is to pay attention to the Venezuelan buffoon. Chávez craves (and needs) that attention almost as much as Fidel Castro.
The ability to play the anti-yanqui card is very important to Chávez's continued popularity.
Posted by: Henry Georget | December 07, 2005 at 05:32 PM