Is Venezuela a democracy?
By Daniel Duquenal
Thursday 10, June 2004 - A post in progress... With the announcement of a Recall Election in Venezuela we are witnessing a certain metamorphosis in some of the pseudo opinion makers around the media. For some of them, the fact that Chavez has accepted to run in a Recall Election is a proof that he is a democrat. Never mind that he had been forced into accepting such a thing, that the road to reach such an election is paved with violence, corruption, blackmail and what not. Never mind that August 15 is still far away and that a lot of water will go under that democracy bridge, enough water to sweep it away. Still, this does not stop the publication of ludicrous articles such as Weisbrot accusing the Washington post on lying about political prisoners in Venezuela when every body here knows that a couple of dozen people are sought or held with no trial in sight just because they acted on political grounds. Is he that ill informed? Is he lying himself? Then again he would not be the only one.
Thus I have decided to make a little table where I compare what a democracy should be, what Venezuela currently is and what an authoritarian regime is. The reader will be able to decide where does Venezuela falls. >>
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