Chavez Launches Presidential Election Campaign

Steve Mather, Caracas: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez launched his reelection campaign at the weekend calling on his supporters to unite against the enemies of the revolution, namely the opposition media and U.S. imperialism.

The Venezuelan President speaking after the march. Credit: MCI

‘We have to unite. This year will be one of the most difficult years of the revolution.’

The speech, clearly intended as a rallying call to motivate his supporters, came after a march to commemorate the attempted military coup in 1992 against the former President Perez, a coup which a then Colonel Hugo Chavez led.

Referring to El Universal and El Nacional, the two leading opposition newspapers, he said, 'They will tell lies and attempt to manipulate the people in order to reduce popular support for the government, as part of the destabilization strategy. They [the media] lend themselves to the imperialist strategy'.

Conspicuously absent from his list of enemies were the opposition parties.

Given that they have lost the previous 10 elections this may not be so surprising.  Behind in the polls, they withdrew from the elections to the national assembly last December making allegations of electoral fraud.  Those same allegations were made after President Chavez won the recall referendum in 2004, even though international monitors, including the Carter Centre and the Organisation of American States, said the result was 'fair and transparent'.

President Chavez says this is his biggest fear; that with the media they will try to delegitimise his election victory.

That he puts the opposition media and the U.S. government at the top of his list of enemies may not be so surprising either.

In 2002 President Chavez was temporarily overthrown in a coup in 2002 which the U.S. was widely acknowledged to have supported. At the same time the opposition media spread misinformation throughout the period claiming that President Chavez had in fact resigned. They also failed to report that the streets of Venezuelan cities had filled with Chavez supporters demanding his return.

Relations between the Venezeulan and U.S. governments have been deteriorating further recently when Venezuela expelled the naval attaché of the US Embassy for alleged spying. The US responded by expelling the chief of staff to the Venezuelan ambassador in Washington .

This, on top of the U.S. diplomatic intervention to prevent Spain selling Venezuelan government military hardware and U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's not so subtle attempt to draw comparisons between Chavez and Hitler.

The Venezuelan government says it is worried about a U.S. military invasion and has a campaign to recruit and train 1 million army reservists to defend the country.

President Chavez said, 'We must prepare ourselves and remember the old adage that if you want peace, prepare for war.'

'We will continue strengthening military and popular power'

The U.S. government has a long history in Latin America of destabilizing governments that govern against their interests and has sponsored attempted coups and coups all over Latin America including the left wing governments of Chile and Argentina in the 1970s and El Salvador and Nicaragua in the 1980s.

Comments

[Henry Georget]

It's never too early to begin a presidential campaign. Let's see if Chávez can lower abstention from that eye-popping 80% in the elections to the National Assembly.

I'm surprised that a former military officer like Chávez could think that an American invasion is likely, or even possible. Doesn't he know the OOB of American Armed Forces? Or is it just mendacity?

[GWEH]

It's possible in the long-term. Venezuela is a rogue regime and you never know what the future can bring. That's why their military training now is focused on urban warfare. The invasion talk is for domestic consumption by the uneducated. Yes they will lower abstention because they can cook the numbers without oversight (there will be no observation by respectable foreign bodies because the elections will not meet standards of fairness. This article is very biased...checkout venenews.net

[juan pueblito]

Mr Chavez is going to have a big surprise when Uncle Sam decides to reachout and touch someone Remember Mr Noriegua? he has been a guest of the state of Florida for some time now soon we will have another guest como la vez tu?
Juan