Democracy Fights Back in Venezuela
Ray Walser /
With due respects to Abraham Lincoln, one can say that Venezuela is a “house divided against itself.” The question for the Obama Administration is how long this important nation can remain half free and half a Hugo Chavez fiefdom. A powerful tug-of-war is underway between those who support Chavez’s radical, anti-American program of “Socialism of the 21st Century” and those in Venezuela who have had enough and believe that tyranny, repression, and economic misery take root in the accumulation of unchecked executive power.
Chavez took a pummeling in the September 26, 2010, National Assembly elections.
Rising Venezuelan political star Maria Corina Machado called it right: Chavez “turned the election to the National Assembly into a plebiscite and lost. t is very clear. Venezuela said no to Cuban-like communism; Venezuela said yes to a way towards democracy and now we have the legitimacy of citizens’ votes; we are the people’s representatives.” (more…)