World elections since 1900 every 4 years: Who would you vote for to be international president?

[SevenEleven]

Apologism for Chavez and his thugs is not acceptable. This man murdered hundreds, imprisoned hundreds of thousands of opposition politicians and voters, slaughtered journalists and priests, rigged elections, and got in bed with the most corrupt politicians and vilest cartels in Venezuela. Very nasty man. He makes Vladimir Putin look like an angel by comparison.

Chavez was not a man who rigged elections. You are thinking about Maduro.
Chavez, while imperfect, was a fundamentally good man whose economic policies were ultimately unsustainable if rather well-intentioned. Maduro is more the degenerated form of Chavez, as much as he was his heir.

https://infodio.com/content/study-shows-how-hugo-chavez-rigged-elections-venezuela

Please don't try to defend Hugo Chavez. He was an innately evil man and Maduro is merely following in his footsteps.

[SevenEleven]

A populist autocrat with anti-democratic tendencies fully reliant on charisma and cultism has never been a good thing, anytime or anywhere.

https://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/News/ways-chavez-destroyed-venezuelan-economy/story?id=18239956

Chavez is directly responsible for Venezuela's current situation. Venezuela is indisputably worse off than it was pre-Chavez.

I really don't need lectured to about Latin American race relations. There were problems then and still many problems now. If you're idea of "helping the poor" is to create more poverty, then sure, Chavez is a good man. But the millions of suffering Venezuelans today dwarfs the number of suffering Venezuelans when he took power.

Hugo Chavez is simply the other side of the coin to Donald Trump.

[SevenEleven]

It bears mentioning that previous Venezuelan governments were so corrupt (and even more entwined with organized crime) that it is not really credible to use the corruption card against Chavez,

Bothsidesism is not really credible to use.

and it was clear that people were fed up in 1999.

Yeah, and they should have been. But "anything else" doesn't mean better, as we saw in US in 2016.

At least Chavez put oil revenues into welfare programs as opposed to just singularly focusing on looting it and dumping it in bank accounts in the Cayman Islands or somewhere else.

Oil revenues themselves are a form of looting anyway, there was no way for the structure of this economy to realistically work to benefit the most people of Venezuela. The grass isn't always greener.

[SevenEleven]

It bears mentioning that previous Venezuelan governments were so corrupt (and even more entwined with organized crime) that it is not really credible to use the corruption card against Chavez,

Bothsidesism is not really credible to use.

and it was clear that people were fed up in 1999.

Yeah, and they should have been. But "anything else" doesn't mean better, as we saw in US in 2016.

At least Chavez put oil revenues into welfare programs as opposed to just singularly focusing on looting it and dumping it in bank accounts in the Cayman Islands or somewhere else.

Oil revenues themselves are a form of looting anyway, there was no way for the structure of this economy to realistically work to benefit the most people of Venezuela. The grass isn't always greener.

Would you rather have corruption with a side serving of trampling the poor or corruption with the side serving of helping the poor? Because half a loaf is better than none and corruption is normal. That's just par for course in Latin America...

The results of Chavez's policies have not helped the poor in the long term. The entire country is worse off.

Is five years of the poor doing better worth the current state of Venezuela? A Venezuelan would say no.

[SevenEleven]

It bears mentioning that previous Venezuelan governments were so corrupt (and even more entwined with organized crime) that it is not really credible to use the corruption card against Chavez,

Bothsidesism is not really credible to use.

and it was clear that people were fed up in 1999.

Yeah, and they should have been. But "anything else" doesn't mean better, as we saw in US in 2016.

At least Chavez put oil revenues into welfare programs as opposed to just singularly focusing on looting it and dumping it in bank accounts in the Cayman Islands or somewhere else.

Oil revenues themselves are a form of looting anyway, there was no way for the structure of this economy to realistically work to benefit the most people of Venezuela. The grass isn't always greener.

Would you rather have corruption with a side serving of trampling the poor or corruption with the side serving of helping the poor? Because half a loaf is better than none and corruption is normal. That's just par for course in Latin America...

The results of Chavez's policies have not helped the poor in the long term. The entire country is worse off.

Not really, when you consider that welfare levels skyrocketed for over a dozen years, bankrolled by oil revenues. This was an extraodinary and in fact excessive investment, which should have included more efforts to diversify beyond oil. "In the long term" includes the oil boom and not just the oil bust.
The old establishment in the country would never have gone to these lengths to provide for the poor.

Yeah, because populism doesn't work. The quick fix never does (see: stock buybacks and now COVID). Chavez was more interested in maintaining power than building a better future for Venezuela. He's a Donald Trump when Venezuela needed a Barack Obama.

[SevenEleven]

It bears mentioning that previous Venezuelan governments were so corrupt (and even more entwined with organized crime) that it is not really credible to use the corruption card against Chavez,

Bothsidesism is not really credible to use.

and it was clear that people were fed up in 1999.

Yeah, and they should have been. But "anything else" doesn't mean better, as we saw in US in 2016.

At least Chavez put oil revenues into welfare programs as opposed to just singularly focusing on looting it and dumping it in bank accounts in the Cayman Islands or somewhere else.

Oil revenues themselves are a form of looting anyway, there was no way for the structure of this economy to realistically work to benefit the most people of Venezuela. The grass isn't always greener.

Would you rather have corruption with a side serving of trampling the poor or corruption with the side serving of helping the poor? Because half a loaf is better than none and corruption is normal. That's just par for course in Latin America...

The results of Chavez's policies have not helped the poor in the long term. The entire country is worse off.

Not really, when you consider that welfare levels skyrocketed for over a dozen years, bankrolled by oil revenues. This was an extraodinary and in fact excessive investment, which should have included more efforts to diversify beyond oil. "In the long term" includes the oil boom and not just the oil bust.
The old establishment in the country would never have gone to these lengths to provide for the poor.

Yeah, because populism doesn't work. The quick fix never does (see: stock buybacks and now COVID). Chavez was more interested in maintaining power than building a better future for Venezuela. He's a Donald Trump when Venezuela needed a Barack Obama.

The old establishment of Venezuela was filled to the brim with Donald Trumps who loved gimmicks and short-term fixes in order to keep the wool over people's eyes.

Yes, this a typical function of corrupt governments.

Only Chavez had a long-term plan to actually make the country more successful, unfortunately it relied on oil prices being high enough in perpituity to keep it funded.

Relying on oil is the exact sort of short term fix gimmick mentioned above. The real reform needed was never an option given the prevalence of Chavismo. This is the same trap that all "populist" (read:Cultist, anti-democratic) leaders find themselves in.

If you think Venezuela's current state is ambitious, by all means defend Chavez. Those of us with a functioning brain and an empathetic heart will continue to decry you ad Venezuelans experience abject poverty we will never have to face head on. Congrats.