Venezuela and the December 2 referendum
The Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez Frías, probably made a few diplomatic errors when he included all the 33 articles in the list of constitutional reforms that his people voted on last December 2. However, by far the majority of the articles were aimed at improving the people's quality of life. The fact that he submitted all these points of reform to a referendum speaks volumes for his determination to let the people be heard in the carrying out of his plans for reforms. However, the reform concerning the appointment of regional governors by the central government instead of by regional vote, seems like a needless challenge to those numerous powers (the U.S. in particular) who see in him a dictator who is set on redrawing all of Latin America in his own image. This image is of course in stark contrast to the way the predators have forever been planning to put Latin America's wealth into their own pockets. This new and quaint idea of making the native people profit from the riches of their own country is against all colonial history, where Latin America was seen as the mountain of wealth that was there for the undisputed profit of the colonial masters.
Hugo Chávez has turned the tables around. The greedy former colonial masters will now have to pay for getting their share of the riches that are bountiful in several Latin American countries. The bourgeois opposition supported by the neocon administration in Washington and the CIA beat the drums loudly to give the entire world the impression that Chávez ' government was in for a bad fall. However Chávez supporters also showed up in huge numbers to defend their man. The privately owned media obviously kept raving against Chávez as the tyrant who was ruining the country, but their vicious U.S.-supported attacks only let them win the referendum with a 'photo-finish' victory of 1%. Chávez took the poison out of the sting by graciously conceding defeat even before all the votes were counted.
The opposition, however, clearly managed to get some of their lies about Chávez' plans for reform to be accepted by large numbers of his own base. People were made to believe that their children were going to be taken away from their homes and be brought up by the state away from their families. The rumor was also spread that private property was going to be attacked and that even poor people were to be deprived of their homes. There was also an engineered food shortage carefully planned by the producers to make it look as if there was a dire shortage of food in the country. Thus, proof of the incompetence of Chávez and his government.
One of the articles in the constitutional reforms was about doing away with presidential term limits. This was of course misrepresented by the opposition as implying a life-long mandate for Chávez. Since all Chávez was asking for was for the people to be able to vote for him to be re-elected after the end of his second term, this deliberate misinterpretation was obviously cooked up to give him the appearance of a ruthless dictator.
And these are just a few examples of the lies spread around before the referendum.
The legally elected President
Hugo Chávez Frías came to power through an election victory in 1998 as the defender of the poor people's right to a decent livelihood. He was re-elected in a landslide victory in 2006. He has been enormously popular among the majority lower income people and has managed to vastly improve the lives of peasants and the working classes in spite of violent opposition from the bourgeois part of the population.
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