Category Archives: Hugo Chavez

Evidence shows Venezuela’s election was stolen – but will Maduro budge?

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Analyses indicate Nicolás Maduro lost the presidential election, but country’s leader shows no signs of stepping aside

It is not new for Nicolás Maduro to be accused of attempting to steal a presidential election – the US described his claim to have won re-election in 2018 as an “insult to democracy” – but the evidence for such allegations has never before been quite so overwhelming.

Analyses carried out by the opposition, academics and media organizations have offered strong evidence to suggest that the Venezuelan president lost – by a landslide – to the main opposition candidate, retired diplomat Edmundo González.

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Venezuela protesters target Hugo Chávez statues amid disputed election

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Opposition supporters shout government ‘is going to fall’ while tearing down monuments of Maduro’s mentor

As protests over Venezuela’s disputed presidential election spread across the country, opposition supporters have focused their fury on president Nicolás Maduro’s predecessor and political mentor, Hugo Chávez.

At least seven statues of the former leader have been attacked, some beheaded with sledgehammers, and some completely torn down.

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Venezuela votes in election that could end 25 years of socialist rule

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Edmundo González Urrutia could upset Nicolás Maduro’s run for a third term – but several obstacles can prevent a regime change

Venezuelans go to the polls on Sunday against a backdrop of hope and fear in a presidential election that could end 25 years of socialist rule – if a free and fair vote is allowed.

Opinion polls suggest that the president Nicolás Maduro, 61, who is seeking his third term, could be defeated by the opposition coalition candidate, retired diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia, 74.

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Could Venezuela’s softly-spoken opposition newcomer end 25 years of Chavismo?

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Hopes rise that Edmundo González Urrutia can beat Nicolas Maduro on 28 July and lead the country out of a wretched decade

The road from Caracas to Guatire is lined with propaganda billboards glorifying President Nicolás Maduro and likening his political rivals to gangsters from the country’s most infamous criminal group. “They won’t defeat us,” the slogan declares.

But with less than a month until the economically fractured South American country holds its long-awaited presidential election on 28 July, some people are not persuaded.

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Venezuelan opposition defeats Maduro candidate in Chávez’s home state

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Regime suffers symbolic blow as little-known Sergio Garrido secures victory in Barinas governorship election

Venezuela’s opposition has claimed a rare and highly symbolic victory over Nicolás Maduro’s regime after defeating the government candidate for the governorship of Hugo Chávez’s home state of Barinas.

Maduro had hoped his former foreign minister Jorge Arreaza would win control of the region, which is considered the cradle of Chávez’s “Bolivarian revolution”, in Sunday’s election.

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Former Venezuelan spymaster arrested by Madrid police on US drugs charges

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Gen Hugo Carvajal, who had defied a Spanish extradition order and disappeared, was arrested on Thursday night

Police in Madrid have arrested a former Venezuelan spymaster on US narcotics charges nearly two years after he defied a Spanish extradition order and disappeared.

Gen Hugo Carvajal, who for over a decade was Hugo Chávez’s eyes and ears in the military, was arrested on Thursday night at a small apartment where he had been holed up.

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‘Latin America will never be the same’: Venezuela exodus reaches record levels

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Country at a ‘tipping point’ that could affect wider region, experts warn, as ‘donor fatigue’ causes aid shortfall

The continuing exodus of millions of Venezuelans is reaching “a tipping point” as the response to the crisis remains critically underfunded.

More than 5.6 million have left the country since 2015, when it had a population of 30 million, escaping political, economic and social hardships. It has become the largest external displacement crisis in the region’s history, and the most underfunded.

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¡Populista! review: Chávez, Castro and Latin America’s ‘pink wave’ leaders

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BBC reporter Will Grant has produced an excellent look at the group of strongmen who came from left field

If there was ever a surreal start to a trip to Cuba, it was the one that coincided with the news Fidel Castro had died. That was what I woke up to on 26 November 2016, hours before my husband and I were due to fly to Havana. A day later, we found ourselves in what seemed like an endless queue under a blazing autumn sun, waiting to enter Castro’s memorial at the Jose Martí monument in the Plaza de la Revolución.

Related: Sisters in Hate review: tough but vital read on the rise of racist America

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Former bus driver Nicolás Maduro clings to wheel in Venezuela

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Lack of charisma and luck have hurt the ‘fumbling showman’ who succeeded Hugo Chávez

Nicolás Maduro has ruled Venezuela without two of the greatest assets possessed by his mentor and predecessor, Hugo Chávez. He has not been lucky. And he has no charisma.

Chávez enjoyed an oil bounty and sublime political talents that secured his power at home and reputation abroad.

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To deserve our respect, politicians must drop their populist rhetoric | Cas Mudde

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Talk of ‘the people’ and ‘elites’ is everywhere, Guardian research has revealed. It’s time to drop this simplistic discourse

Interactive: the rise and rise of populist language

An exciting new research project by the Guardian and Team Populism shows empirically what many have asserted and felt: the world is getting more populist. Professor Kirk Hawkins, from Brigham Young University in Utah, and 46 researchers analysed 728 public addresses by 140 presidents and prime ministers in 40 countries, in Europe and the Americas. This is the largest comparative project of this nature I am aware of, and a treasure trove for academics and journalists.

The study shows not just that the number of populist leaders has doubled, but that the average populist content of political leaders’ speeches has doubled too. Where political speeches were on average “not populist” in 2004, they are approaching “somewhat populist” today. To be clear, most of the political leaders studied were “not populist”, but that is to be expected of this particular subset of politicians, ie national leaders. Even today, populism is still primarily a feature of political challengers, who were not included in this study.

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The Breadmaker: on the frontline of Venezuela’s bakery wars – video

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In the midst of Venezuela’s spiralling economic crisis, Natalia and fellow members of a Chavista collective have stepped in to take over production at a local bakery, La Minka. Authorities had suspended operations when the owners were accused of overpricing their loaves and hoarding flour. In March 2017, with the tacit support of the government, the collective began selling affordable bread. This is the story of their fight to safeguard the bakery’s future and keep the Chavista dream alive

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Recognising Juan Guaidó risks a bloody civil war in Venezuela | Temir Porras Ponceleon

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Maduro’s rule has created a crisis but he still has millions of supporters. The country needs democratic dialogue, not sanctions
• Temir Porras Ponceleon is a former chief of staff to Nicolás Maduro

The latest troubling events in Venezuela are the most recent episode in a political crisis that has been festering since the death of Hugo Chávez six years ago. Following President Nicolás Maduro’s inauguration for a disputed second term in January, the speaker of the opposition-dominated parliament, Juan Guaidó, declared himself “interim president” of the country. Guaidó was immediately recognised by the US, Canada and a group of Latin American conservative governments, who called upon the Venezuelan military to rise up against Maduro. And today the UK, France, Spain, Germany and other European countries recognised Guaidó after Maduro refused their demand to call fresh elections.

Since Guaidó’s declaration, the Trump administration has imposed new sanctions on Maduro’s government, seized billions-worth of Venezuelan oil-related assets on US soil, and started making barely veiled threats of military intervention. Few would disagree that the country is in a disastrous economic and social situation, but before other governments take similar actions that could exacerbate Venezuela’s political polarisationand end up provoking a bloody civil war, we should first understand how it reached this state of crisis.

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Only Venezuela can solve its problems – meddling by outsiders isn’t the solution

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The whole world waded in after Juan Guaidó declared himself interim president, but the global tug-of-war is dangerous and unhelpful

All crises are global, all solutions are local – and Venezuela is the latest case in point. No sooner had the young pretender, Juan Guaidó, declared himself interim president last month, ostensibly supplanting the corrupt old revolutionary, Nicolás Maduro, than the world piled in. The Trump administration insisted all countries must “pick a side” and back the “forces of freedom”. Russia denounced a US-backed “coup”. China, Latin American neighbours, Britain and the EU all scrambled for position, in accordance with their particular interests and prejudices.

In the past week, this international tug-of-war over Venezuela’s future has grown increasingly dangerous – and unhelpful – as protesters and security forces face off on the streets and the political impasse deepens.
John Bolton, the US national security adviser, is threatening “serious consequences” (meaning military intervention) should Guaidó be harmed or opposition supporters attacked. Maduro warns that the US could face a second Vietnam.

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We Can See Venezuela From Our House

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One moment you're being bombarded with the EneMedia babbling about the great state of Mejico being no different from ours and not a concern at all and how DARE you xenophobic NAZIS worry about the border, and the next Hugo Chavez the II is elected head of their dysfunctional shithole's junta, promising pardons to the drug cartels that have made living close to the border a decidedly risky business, promising nationalization of Meeeejico's only sources of income and declaring that moving up Norte to remove a line item on Shitsico's failing budget while milking the stupid gringos of their tax dollars is a human right.

Nicaraguan socialist Daniel Ortega turns tyranta Why does this keep happening?

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It's never a good sign when your socialist President sends his police and unofficial goon squad into the street to start shooting protesters against his regime. We've seen this playbook recently in Venezuela under President Nicolas Maduro and now something very similar in Nicaragua where former socialist revolutionary Daniel Ortega seems intent on ruling for life.

Venezuelan president expels top US diplomat Source: AP

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President Nicolas Maduro on Tuesday expelled the top U.S. diplomat in Venezuela and his deputy for allegedly conspiring against his government and trying to sabotage the country's recent presidential election. "The empire doesn't dominate us here," Maduro said in a televised address, giving charge d'affaires Todd Robinson and his deputy Brian Naranjo 48 hours to leave the country.

Protesting students force Oxford Uni to remove Theresa May’s portrait

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A portrait of British Prime Minister Theresa May has been removed by Oxford University following a protest from students and academics who complained that she was a "contentious figure" who failed to show compassion towards migrants. May's photograph had been mounted at Oxford's School of Geography and the Environment last week as a part of a celebration of the department's female alumnae.