Chavez’ cheese slides off cracker

Venezuelan half-pint strongman, Hugo Chavez, is slowly losing support for the referendum to rewrite Venezuela’s constitution. Caracas Chronicles has the details;

[Referencing the chart] As you can see, there are two clearly different sets of answers here. When you ask voters in general if they favor or oppose the constitutional reform, you get a clear, consistent majority against it:

But, at the start of the campaign, most people who opposed the reforms were saying they wouldn’t vote. So, until the last few weeks, the “Sí” camp had a majority among likely voters.

From Venezuela Politics;

Luis Ignacio León from the Datanálisis market study group said last Saturday that if the elections were today (actually the day before yesterday), the people would oppose the constitutional reform would obtain 55.4% of the votes against 44.6% of those who favor it. And that only includes the people who said they were going to vote (i.e. absenteeism). 

So Chavez does what pint-sized tyrants do when they start losing. From Venezuela News and Views;

Repression is now a given. Today we were treated to the students of the Simon Bolivar campus in Caracas pushed inside their campus by the Metropolitana police. Since the police cannot enter the campus, they kept throwing canisters of tear gas above the fences and shooting rubber bullets by passing their guns through the chicken wire that circles the campus. I can hardly think of any thing more cowardly risible than what the Caracas police did today, shooting defenseless students from afar while perhaps this very same week end the police failed to stop as many as two dozen murders in Caracas alone. But when did fascism worry about current crime?

Unfortunately today student repression was not an isolated incident. It has been going on steadily for a couple of weeks now, even including torture for some Barquisimeto students. Not to mention the Monte Avila students dragged on the streets of Caracas…

And to rally his troops around him, he decides to alienate his neighbors, too. From A Columbo-Americana’s Perspective;

The Venezuelan president, speaking on television, described Mr. Uribe’s attitude as the equivalent of a “brutal spitting in the face,” and called him a “liar.” Mr. Uribe, the Bush administration’s top ally in South America, responded by accusing Mr. Chávez of legitimizing terrorists and advancing ambitions of “assembling an empire.”

I watched the tape last night on Telemundo of Chavez’ speech and it was much more inciendiery than it reads. You can see the video on YouTube (it’s all in Spanish but Chavez’ arrogance transcends language) as well as Uribe’s response. Chavez’ demeanor and the thuggish way he spoke didn’t translate well into the print media.

Fausta quotes an Investor Business Daily editorial;

In theory, a mediator should persuade two sides to each give up something to achieve a common end. The only one who gave up anything, however, was Uribe, who watched Chavez cavort with terrorists before TV cameras, giving them a legitimacy in Caracas they never had known.

Even worse, Chavez proved to be acting as an agent of the terrorists. Uribe’s sudden cutoff of the mediation effort at a hastily organized press conference last Wednesday suggested disturbing new information.

On Sunday, Chavez confirmed it: “I think Colombia deserves another president, it deserves a better president,” he said.

Hot Air predicts a war between Columbia and Venezuela, but I don’t think so – for two reasons. There is a fairly large US military and law enforcement presence in Columbia. Chavez wouldn’t want to risk making the first move entangling US military in a shooting war and destroying his victim facade.

Attacking Columbia would give Uribe an excuse to start eradicating FARC – FARC killed Uribe’s father twenty years ago and he has no compunction to prevent him from turning the Army lose on them – and Chavez will need FARC for their money and connections for his imperialist plans in the region.

Western Hemisphere Policy Watch recommend we add Venezuela to our State Sponsors of Terrorism list;

WHPW Editors believe that there is ample evidence to, at least, warrant further consideration of the inclusion of Venezuela on the list. It will be a tough call. Are we prepared to stop purchasing Venezuelan oil for a time being?

If we could drill in Alaska and off our coasts we are prepared.

Category: Economy, Foreign Policy, Hugo Chavez