Michael Rowan // Chávez in a corner

Opinion
Today's probable election of Barack Obama in the USA changes a lot of politics in the world but nowhere as much as Venezuela. Obama's skin shade may resemble Chavez's but in every other respect the two are opposites. Obama's moderate, tolerant, pragmatic and hopeful approach to government could not be more different than Chavez's radical authoritarian dogmatism of the absurd. Obama's focus on jobs, health, education and economy presents a stark contrast to Chavez's calamitous failures in each of those areas after ten years and tons of money that he has spent everywhere but on the desperate needs of Venezuelans.

Chavez is scared. Like John McCain at the end, he's doing everything in his power to change the subject from his dismal performance in Venezuela. And what better subject-changer is there than his assassination? That is a bugaboo he has used time and again since 1999 to mesmerize the voters. Chavez's culprits this time include Zulia's "Don Corleone" Manuel Rosales, Luis Posada Carriles, Miami Cubans, disgruntled Venezuelan military officers, the CIA, the FBI and maybe the ARENA party of El Salvador — a motley crowd you may think— but the president believes they presented enough of a credible threat to cancel his appearance at the Ibero-American summit of presidents meeting in El Salvador.

Is it coincidental that Chavez's candidate in El Salvador's March presidential election, Mauricio Funes, fears that association with Chavez's corrupt money could sink his chances as happened to Lopez Obrador in the last Mexican election? A recent poll in El Salvador shows that 77% of voters there oppose Chavez's influence over their presidential candidates. The last person Funes wants to see in El Salvador is Chavez.

Never discouraged, Chavez will launch another change-the-subject routine next week, this time with the historic visit of Russia's President Medvedev, along with Peter the Great, the largest nuclear-armed battleship afloat in the world. Chavez's hope is that when Venezuelans vote for mayors and governors in late November they will focus on Russian nuclear weapons and a re-heated Cold War with America and not the calamities of inflation, unemployment, poverty, corruption, homicide and crime that have worsened so severely during the decade of his reckless rule. Can he get away with it again?

michaelrowan22@gmail.com