Latin America
Related: About this forumIs Hugo Chávez Preparing Venezuela for His Departure?
Get your personal affairs in order. Its the hardest thing doctors have to tell cancer patients who are as ill as media reports suggest Hugo Chávez is. With an election looming in less than five months, the 57-year-old Venezuelan President would also need to get his political affairs in order and many believe the socialist leader took the first step last week when, before going to Cuba for more treatment, he named a council of state as a presidential consulting body. But the councils murky role is now as much a source of morbid speculation as Chávezs health is, and that has raised the level of tension and uncertainty inside the home of the western hemispheres largest oil reserves.
When Chávez announced the council on May 1 its eight members, including Vice President Elías Jaua, are all loyal Chavistas he only ordered it to draft a plan for withdrawing Venezuela from the Inter-American Human Rights Commission. (The commission, an arm of the Organization of American States, or OAS, has often butted heads with the often authoritarian President and his left-wing revolution.) But since then, pundits across the hemisphere have surmised that the councils real purpose is to steer Venezuela and Chávezs United Socialist Party (PSUV) through a chaotic transition after his death. That includes picking his replacement, if need be, on the October 7 presidential ballot. Chávez is setting up a mechanism for the final phase of his presence in this world, one anti-Chávez analyst breathlessly told the Miami daily El Nuevo Herald.
Read more: http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2012/05/10/is-hugo-chavez-preparing-venezuela-for-his-departure/#ixzz1uWPjl05H
bitchkitty
(7,349 posts)It reads like a Helen Gurley Brown editorial:
"...one anti-Chávez analyst breathlessly told the Miami daily El Nuevo Herald." Breathlessly? Ooooooooooooooooh! Breathless!!!
I sure hope it's not your job to post this kind of bullshit. Talk about a demeaning profession! LOL
Zorro
(15,740 posts)Got any complaints about the content?
bitchkitty
(7,349 posts)Judi Lynn
(160,526 posts)The vulture is going to be looking for someone else to obsess over when its target's all gone. What a life!!
bitchkitty
(7,349 posts)that particular thorn in their side will be around for a while. I know he's ill but people do survive cancer all the time (speaking as someone who had it twice).
When the Miami Herald "breathlessly" reports that Chavez is worse, I have to assume that they're full of shit.
Judi Lynn
(160,526 posts)People DO survive cancer now in large numbers. It's so much different from when we were kids, isn't it? We also hear news of changes and potential breakthroughs regularly, as well.
Sure glad you bounced back. You have always sounded like a very focused person, and I'll bet that has been a real asset in your return to health.
The Miami Herald is a joke for the last couple of decades or more. McClatchy's Spanish version of the Herald, El Nuevo Herald, has been caught making ridiculous image statements by magically manipulating a picture of women in Havana, showing alleged hookers calling out to tourists while standing within a few feet of two Havana cops, making it appear the government was OK with prostitution.
You will notice the shadows at the feet of the cops trail off to the left, and there are NO shadows by the women, standing only a few feet away, according to the photo.
[center] [/center]
DU'er Eugene posted the story in LBN some time ago here:
Spanish-Language Paper Altered Photos
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2420339
El Nuevo is so tricky with its writing that a website was set up originally to serve as a watchdog for the public, and they ran articles on El Nuevo, informing people of how much they were distorting the truth, then pointing out the true information which gets mangled there.
It's http://progreso-weekly.com and it's a good one.
Zorro
(15,740 posts)The article raises some unsettling possibilities looming on the horizon for Venezuela and this year's election, including the real possibility that the election may be suspended by the "council of state". Venezuela's recent decision to drop out of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission may be an ominous step in that direction.
But not to worry, despite Chavez' emotional public pleas to God and ongoing refusal to release information about his true condition and prognosis. Even if his condition is terminal, I'm sure that zombie Hugo could be resurrected by the miracle of modern Cuban medical skills and technology to continue leading the Bolivarian revolution.
If he was openly talking about his condition, he would be criticized for politiclly exploiting his illness in a populist manner... even if he wasn't doing so. This is just systematic opposition to everything related to Chávez and it is irrational.
There are few things as cruel as speculating about death when a person is ill.
ChangoLoa
(2,010 posts)Why do the chavista create so many new institutions, councils and an "anti-coup commando" for assuring a transition of power, when the elections are scheduled in october and the rules are clear and have been accepted by everyone in the country?
If Chavez can't present himself, they can simply pick a different candidate. If he can, everything will go as expected. They'll have to decide in July, I think.
IMHO they believe Chavez is not going to be able to be the candidate and are divided in two groups: a democratic one that wants to maintain the election agenda whatever happens (they could take the election to december as a maximum), and a radical one that's not willing to face the eventuality of losing. And if their candidate is not Chavez, they are looking more and more like they will lose.