Venezuela's Chavez says cancer has returned

[Velasco]

I just HATE Chavez-related topics...

After reading some posts here, I'm starting to feel in the same way. Even when you try not to be a hack, discussions concerning Chávez always turn into a matter of love-to-hate.

[Velasco]

Ok, I'll bite....how do you seemingly know so much about Venzuela?

How much do you know, leaving aside what US media tell us about Chavez? Politicus is somewhere near to be right when points the aggressive anti-Chavez tone of the opposition controlled media. On the other hand Chavez have tried to counterbalance the audiovisual panorama, for example when he didn't renew the radio broadcast license to RCTV (Radio Caracas Televisión). This broadcaster was accused of inciting the failed coup d'etat in 2002. RCTV's signal was replaced by TVES (Televisora Venezolana Social or Venezuelan Social Television), owned by a foundation depending on the Government of Venezuela. Nowadays RCTV is a cable network. Another state-owned channels are VTV (Venezolana de Televisión, producer of Aló Presidente), teleSUR (pan-american channel) or ViVe (cultural network). However, the state television has a very low audience share and the most viewed are Televen (politically neutral until the arrival of Chávez, then in the opposition and finally decided to become neutral again after 2004) and Venevisión (openly anti-Chávez). Needless to say that the most successful products are telenovelas or soap operas.

[Velasco]

Regional elections were held in Venezuela on Sunday. The outcome was a Chavista landslide: PSUV won 20 out of 23 regional governments. Half of PSUV's governors are loyal military men: four former ministers of defense, comrades in arms and disciples. Low turnout, specially among the middle classes - I'm transcribing a press information and I don't know what's considered 'middle class' in Venezuela, I just know that it's a limited quota and tends to favour the opposition in a more or less overwhelming way.

On the opposition ground, the traditional parties have been defeated and Henrique Capriles retains the state of Miranda, turning into the only possible candidate against Nicolás Maduro. "Today the people has given a great gift of love to the Comandante. The people will not let Chávez down", stated the Vice-President and heir. The other states still in the opposition's hands are Lara and Amazonas. Proyecto Venezuela, AD, COPEI and Un Nuevo Tiempo have lost influence in the MUD (Democratic Unity Roundtable) due to the defeats in states such as Carabobo, Táchira or Nueva Esparta.

In the oil-state of Zulia, the incumbent opposition governor, Pablo Pérez, suffered a major defeat against the oficialista Francisco Arias Cárdenas, one of the comandantes who led the 1992 coup d'etat attempt besides Chávez. Cárdenas governed Zulia between 1995 and 2000.

The state of Bolívar, in the SE, is disputed between the incumbent PSUV governor and the MUD challenger.

[Velasco]

It's possible that the low turnout associated with a certain demobilization among the MUD's base has played a role. Certainly one might not reject a certain wave of sympathy towards Chávez either. There would be necessary to see what the analysts say in the press - the Venezuelan is not in the habit of being very impartial, in one way or another.

[Velasco]

Maduro is pretty eloquent in his statements, isn't he?

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(From Democracy Now, not exactly the Democratic Party's News Agency nor the Cuban one)

[Velasco]

Maybe this stuff should be better in the International Elections board, but I feel a bit lazy about opening a new thread for this. According to wikipedia the results in the regional elections were:

PSUV 56.22% and 20 governors; MUD 43.78% and 3 governors. Turnout 53.94%.

Also, there were elected state legislators, but I haven't data for them (perhaps I could try in the Venezuelan electoral site later).

There's a map in the Spanish wiki. Credits: WikiAnthony. Apparently the colour scale is related with population density, not with vote percentages. In colour grey the city of Caracas; there weren't mayoral elections (foreseen on April 14, 2013). The striped area belongs to Guyana and is reclaimed by Venezuela; ignore it.

Also, you can see the results in the gubernatorial races in this infography provided by El Universal.



There are interesting maps and data for the 2008 regional and municipal elections in the wiki:

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anexo:Resultados_de_las_elecciones_regionales_de_Venezuela_de_2008

[Velasco]

The Concertación, a coallition where Socialist Party is a major force, governed Chile from 1990 to 2010 and the current centre-right administration doesn't seem to do very well.

Indeed, Chile is much more than Pinochet.

There is one stat missing from that image though - income disparity. I would suggest that pre-Chavez, post-Pinochet, it would have been worse in Venezuela, but now, I suspect Chile may be worse.

The Gini coefficient measures the income disparity. Chile has a coefficient of 0.503, the highest among the OECD countries. South Africa has the world's highest with 0.7. According to the map below, Venezuela has a coefficient between 0.45 and 0.49, like USA and China.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient

I could post photos of high income areas in Venezuela or photos of Chilean poor districts, but I don't like demagogery. In my opinion the policies followed by Chavez have a strong component of what in Spanish is called asistencialismo, a definition used to describe politics of subsidies to the low classes like those developed in Argentina under Perón, for example. This explains the popularity of Chávez among the popular classes, of course. I have some doubts about the success of the 'bolivarians' in reducing the structural poverty and inequality.