Capriles, Maduro at each other's throats in Venezuela election

I do not like to say this but I think Henrique has very little chance of winning. The majority of us (Venezuelans) are poor and seem to like it that way. So Maduro will keep it that way because he isn’t as smart as Chavez was and he was not exactly brilliant.

It’s obvious, as it always is when Reuters reports on Venezuela, where their sympathies lie.

(lie may be the key word here).

This is such a wonderful opportunity for the US to mend a few fences in Latin America – and already, we seem to be blowing it.

How would it have hurt us to send VP Biden or Secretary Kerry to the funeral, rather than a couple of Congressmen?

And what good does it actually do us to propagandize for the Opposition, if the Opposition has such a slim chance of winning this time around?

Gradually winning back the hearts and minds of Venezuelans would go a long way to winning back the hearts and minds of all the other Latin American and Caribbean countries which consider the Venezuelans popular heroes, not villains.

We need to get all the “carrot” programs we utilize with so many other developing nations around the globe going full speed again. Student exchanges. Tourism exchanges. Small business promotion. And Yes, trying to open up what has been a very closed – and often hostile – media sector to more international influence.

Because if instead, we promote the “stick” side of the equation and continue with the merciless bullying, we are bound to make things worse – and entrench the hardest of hard core Chavistas even further.

That won’t bring the change we want any time soon.

I think we need to let the Venezuelans stew in their communist juices. Apparently, there aren’t enough smart ones to counter the nanny-nature of communist rule. They are little more than 15th century dumb beasts.

This is the country where serious competitors may have seriously deadly ‘accidents’.
The destabilisation caused by the death of the Chavez = ‘warlord’ … in this ‘democratic dictatorship’, is likely to make accidents more prevelant.
Venezuela and Caracas could become something more like Somalia and Mogadishu, where ‘merciless bullying’(see Vulnerability, above) comes progressively from the ‘government’ more than from outside agencies with whom import/export fluxes continue to favour Venezuela.

The Venezuela people have made their choice, they can live with it. The liberals in Venezuela are just like the liberals here, they give out other peoples stuff, to those not good enough to earn it themselves. There is no reason whatsoever for them to vote for a conservative or capitalist party.

What do those behind Capriles want? Simple. They want to reverse the gains that the people have made in the last 14 years. Then they want to take away what little they had before that. This is the cold unvarnished truth. Guess who’s helping them? The entire US political establishment, liberal and conservative. That is why Obama’s policies are the same as Bush’s. In 2002, the US conspired with these reactionary elements in Venezuela to organize a coup. It failed because the people stood up. Chavez at this point should have decisively crushed the fascists, confiscated their media mouthpieces and sent the plotters and their supporters to prison for a good long time. He was too liberal with them. When dealing with fascists, there can be no quarter.

Capriles is sending a team up here to ask Obama how his people can vote two, three, or four times for president. It is rumoured that Acorn is setting up an office for Maderas in Caracas.

Capriles has the appropriate look to be the leader of the return-to-apartheid party.

One thing is certain. The US government and every secret agent is baking Capriles. He is the the CIA’s candidate, for sure.

capriles seems like a good man to run venezuela. too bad the venezuelan people are stupid enough to vote for a retarded communist leader. oh well is their choice. not for us to judge. let them keep talking

It is really encouraging that so many commenters have a clear understanding of events in Venezuela and the terrible role being played by all the political players including both political parties and the AFL-CIO too, of all people. The old establishment labor organization which the AFL-CIO recognizes as the labor movement there is hopelessly corrupt and in the pockets of the ologarchy, which all the workers down there know too.

While I agree with @bearfoot that Caprilles won’t win, mainly bc of how the previous “elitist” governments treated the poor, but Socialism won’t work either and will only worsen the lot of the poor in the long run. Yes, in the short run, it will make the poor and uneducated feel better, like the poor and uneducated die-hard communists in Russia and China, but in the long run, it will ruin the economy and take away incentive for innovation and lead to even more “elitist” classes of those connected to the party. Truth is though, life under a dictator type government like Putin’s Russia is no solution either. Hopefully Caprilles understands that going back to the way it was before Chavez, is not the solution, but a progressive social minded democracy, is.

Democracy and justice under Maduro will be as safe as they were under Chavez. That is guaranteed by the Attorney General Celia Flores, better known as Mrs. Maduro.

Is Obama going do anything to elicit a more positive U.S. reponse from the

Is Obama going do anything to elicit a more positive U.S. reponse from the

Where in the name of god did you get such idea about Chavez working to improve the standard of living of the Venezuelan poorest people??? His plan was to keep them where they were and to feed them with crumbles to keep them happy but submitted to his hand downs. The poorest people of Venezuela remain in the worst conditions. They haven’t got any improvement at all. They still lack of security, lack of social assistance, lack of schools, lack of health services and personal security remains among them. So please, don’t be so naive. All what Chavez did was for the media, for TV for looking good. Poverty remains as bad or even worst than 14 years ago. So, please stop being this naive.

“It’s obvious, as it always is when Reuters reports on Venezuela where their sympathies lie”

Yes, let’s review how the Presstitutes view the World:
Chavez=bad
Iran=bad
Cuba=terrible
Austerity = good
Oil wars = excellent
Genocide =great (as long it’s not us)
People who disagree: Bomb them! Countries who disagree: Bomb them!
Solution to wold crises: Bomb them!

How will they distribute the $2 billion Chavez stole form the people?

The majority of Venezuelians are too poor and dumb to realize that they are that way because they will elect people like Chavez and Maduro. Chavez the thug died with over $2 BILLION dollars he stole from the Venezuela people. We have the same problem here in the US where in every major city the blacks have elected thugs, crooks and incompetents to ‘redistribute’ wealth instead of creating more wealth. Sooner or later the money will run out.

@Trailfan1 Tell me, how exactly are you supposed to “create” wealth? Do you think it can be magically conjured from the sky? You do realise your country is TRILLIONS of dollars in debt don’t you? Who do you think has all that money? I suppose you probably think that’s all black people too

PS What Republicans refer to as “redistributing the wealth” is what the rest of the world refers to as “paying your taxes”. Maybe if more wealthy Americans did so rather than sending it to the Cayman islands then you wouldn’t be in this mess