This is why Chavez is driving them crazy.

http://venezuelasolidarity.org.uk/ven/web/2006/articles/driving_crazy_2.html

This is why Chavez is driving them crazy. He enjoys 82% popular support according to the latest opinion poll

Caracas, March 17th 2006. The recent political opinion polls in Venezuela reflect the still growing popularity of President Hugo Chavez as the country heads towards the December presidential elections.

The pollster Seijas which worked with the now opposition Democratic Action party (AD) for many years, gave Chavez 82% popular support.

According to the survey the Venezuelan head of state would easily beat all possible opposition candidates being favoured by 60% of voting intentions against just a total of 10% for all his rivals. However, Seijas fails to explain why there is a 22% discrepancy between “popular support” and “voting intentions”. This is par for the course for opposition pollsters and they usually underestimate voting intentions for Chavez by 10% - 15% based on past experiences, so as to keep “grasping at straws”.

Local newspaper reports highlighted the results of another pollster, Consultores 21, which were similar in results as the Seijas poll and confirmed an “overwhelming favouritism for Chavez in terms of popular support”.

In his daily newspaper column of the national daily VEA, the political commentator Marciano pointed out that against this devastating backdrop, the opposition is reacting in a confused manner, accentuating its internal contradictions and becoming even more isolated from the average citizen.

“The latest antics have been to open a debate about the separation of Zulia state from Venezuela and the incorporation of the eighth star on the National Flag”, wrote Marciano.

Maneuvers by secessionist groups in this oil-rich western state, governed by coup monger Manual Rosales who signed the Carmoma decree of April 12th 2002 effectively abolishing all state institutions and the 1999 Constitution, are looking to divide the nation.

More than four thousand young people demonstrated yesterday afternoon in the streets of Maracaibo, capital of Zulia state, against the proposed separation of this constitutional entity from the rest of the country.

Marciano also observed that the opposition, instead of advancing towards a unified platform, is simply breaking up into more isolated components, thus continuing to weaken its political aims. The opposition is still trying to discredit and disqualify the National Electoral Council (CNE) and promote abstention as they did for the December 4th 2005 parliamentary elections, when they were conclusively defeated by the popular vote losing all their parliamentary seats.

This strategy is based on a losing wicket since Consultores 21 published another poll earlier this week confirming that 64% of Venezuelans “trusted” the CNE despite an all-out aggressive campaign in the bourgeois media to promote the opposite point of view. Another pollster, North American Opinion Research (NAOR) put trust in the CNE at 74% just three weeks ago.

Postulations for presidential candidates will have to be made by early August and so far the opposition is still flailing around deciding what to do. Yesterday, the Minister of Communication and Information, William Lara, informed the country that Marcel Granier, General Manager of Radio Caracas Television (RCTV) would be launched as the “Empire’s Candidate”.

Granier is the archetypal representative of the rancid, xenophobic, US worshipping “Venezuelan High Bourgeoisie” whose political platform is based around arguments such as:
No freedom of expression in Venezuela
Chavez is totalitarian and a dictator
Venezuela’s foreign policy is run by Fidel Castro
Venezuela is being “cubanized”!
The Cuban doctors and sports trainers are in fact an invading force indoctrinating the population with Castro-communist ideals
Other assorted clap trap ideas

For Chavez it would be another God send if Granier were to run as presidential candidate and it is indeed possible based on the failed track record of both the Venezuelan opposition and their masters in Washington in the last seven years.

The private Venezuelan media has silenced the fact that in April 2002 during the coup, RCTV participated directly in the media campaign to overthrow Chavez. This channel gave orders to its news team that nothing and no-one representing “chavismo” was to be broadcast, misinformed the population of what was happening on April 13th during the nationwide uprising against the coup and for hours showed cartoons while there were 8 million people in the streets of Venezuela demonstrating for Chavez’ return.

And this fascist has the gall to keep on repeating that “there is no freedom of expression in Venezuela”. If there wasn’t, he would not be able to speak out in the media as he does. What a barefaced contradiction!

As Marciano concluded in today’s column in VEA:

“History is repeating itself with the dog biting its own tail”.

Andy Goodall
VSC Coordinator
andy.goodall@venezuelasolidarity.org.uk