It's official. Hugo Chavez has been re-elected by a wide margin. Polls both sympathetic and run by opposition parties showed Chavez winning the election. With 78% of the votes counted, Manuel Rosales 38% of the votes while Chavez took 61% according to Bloomberg News. Weither or not Chavez won 10,000,000 votes as he predicted he would is unknown, however what is known is that this is the best outcome we leftists could hope for. Chavez's bolivarian revolution has successfully combatted the high poverty rates in Venezula bringing it down from 40 to 30% of the population. Chavez has also created universal and free college education, and increased funding for various social programs. Under Chavez, Venezula has seen the abandonment of many major factories by bourgieousie, and the takeover of those abandoned factories by workers creating co-operative management in which workers are empowered. These actions completely debunk the capitalist notion that, "workers are stupid" and that "workers can't run businesses and a state."
I am enthusiastic about Chavez's win. Although he is not the great labor leader I used to think he was as he doesn't denounce private property, Chavez's anti-imperialist stance and assistance to the last socialist state on earth -- Cuba, make up for that. Plus, Chavez has for a while now, claimed that if he won; he would institute a "new phase" of the bolivarian revolution. In which hopefully, we'll see nationalization of industry and more of the co-operatives we have already seen.
Also, Chavez's victory solidifies the Latin American, "Axis of Evil", which consists of mild leftist, and leftist presidents like Evo Morales, Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro and now maybe Daniel Ortega and Rafael Correa of Nicargua and Ecuador. This left leaning trend can only mean good things for an extremely impoverished and oppressed Latin America.
Several things alienated me from Chavez. Every person from Venezuela who I have talked to warned me not to go down to tour the country because crime rates have severely risen since Chavez too office (he publicly publishes his people's voting records and lets independent factions "take care" of political opponents).
Moreover, Chavez is a hardcore global capitalist. He's obsessed with selling his oil in global markets he so often condemns and then only puts a small percentage of the earnings back into social programs. Believe it or not, oil is cheaper in Venezuela than water.
Chavez is no revolutionary. He looks like one and while I do believe that Venezuela has benefited from the Chavez regime I doubt him as a legitimate leader, and certainly not a legitimate socialist leader.
As you said though, his opposition to imperialism is why I rejoice at his re-election... But even on this note, I can't help but feel uneasy when I see him approaching a terror state such as Ahmadinejad's Iran with a full-on embrace. We as leftists should be as opposed to the Iranian leaders as everyone else is, because he who thinks that reactionary theocrats like that can be made allies of is a fool.
Score one for the good guys!
Dave, I know quite a few people who've been to Venezuela in the last couple of years and none of them report being robbed or whatever.
If you say crime rates have increased I believe you, but let's not succumb to hyperbole.
Chavez is a revolutionary - but a flawed one. As I'm sure we all are. Anmd of course there are contradictions in the from above and below approach of the "Bolivarian" revolution
His flirtation with Iran is a big mistake, but let's remember why he's doing this. He's not a fan of fundamentalist islam he needs economic trading partners outside the US sphere of influence - pure and simple.
Even in the early days of the Soviet Union they traded with anyone who would trade with them - and sometimes were rather soft on people who are despicable.
Let's not hold Chavez to standards that even the best revolutionaries in history would not have lived up to.
I do not oppose state to state relations between Iran and Venezuela. I think Chavez should say something about conditions in Iran and Mugabe's Zimbabwe.
I think the election was Chavez vs Bush. Under Chavez you can atleast agitate for socialism.
I produced a show with local Venezuelan folkloric dancers, who go home often. They all support Chavez but one.