Chavez has big stakes in local elections

[JimH52]

Chavez faces test in Venezuela elections - CNN.com

This guy is a time bomb waiting to explode.

 

[Toro]

He's just another blowhard caudillo...

 

[cbi0090]

President Hugo Chavez is asking the military and his supporters to prepare for a showdown with his newly elected political opponents, telling his backers that they must be "prepared to die for the revolution."

Chavez says opposition leaders who captured five gubernatorial posts and the Caracas mayor's office in elections last Sunday "want a confrontation" and are falling back on "the scenario of 2002," when he was deposed by a brief coup.

Speaking to red-clad supporters Friday, he said events including the alleged burning of a state-owned health clinic this week were meant to weaken his government.

Chavez called on Venezuela's military to "prepare to defend the revolution" and said "we won't show them mercy."

Now he's fomenting civil war. He's a maniac.

 

[editec]

Speaking in Carabobo state, Chavez said, "If you allow the oligarchy to return to governing, maybe I will end up taking my tanks from the armored brigade to defend the revolutionary government."

Yeah...that's not good.

 

[JimH52]

I hate to say this but Venezuela's only chance is an assassination. This guy is prepared to pull the entire country down, in order to stay in power.

 

[Epsilon Delta]

I hate to say this but Venezuela's only chance is an assassination. This guy is prepared to pull the entire country down, in order to stay in power.

Please, dude, thanks but keep it. We're done with assassinations down there. Take it somewhere else.

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In any case, Chavez is not a dictator. Chavez is a president. That he wants to remain power, or that he's a statist extremist, that's perfectly probable. But the fact is that he got elected, saved from a coup (BY the people), and then re-elected. They even passed his Bolivarian constitution. What's even more striking is that the second one DIDN'T pass. It didn't pass and I didn't see the reports of tanks storming the streets of Caracas in search of blood. It just failed- the people struck it down. That's much more than many US-backed former dictators and caudillos can say.

Of course, should the will of the voters be defied or should he assume some indefinite control of power, I'd expect the Venezuelan people to be fully capable of bringing him down through mass outrage, like they did for the 2002 coup.

 

[52ndStreet]

Why are Communists and Socialist leaders always ready to impose themselves on their
people? and want to stay in power for life.Who needs, people like Chavez,Castro, and Hitler,they are no better than the capitalists imperilaists.The man Hugo Chavez is a megalomaniac.And he should step down at the end of his term

This man Hugo Chavez is in essence saying that he is the only person in Venezuela that has the capability to run that country. How arrogant can you be.?

I saw a documentary that states the poor people in Venezuela are still not getting the social services and aide that they need.