CARACAS -- Just months after losing his race for the presidency, Miranda Gov. Henrique Capriles, may get a second shot at the top-spot and take on the anointed successor of the late Hugo Chávez.
Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic)
ST JOHN’S, Antigua – Venezuela Ambassador Carols Perez Silva is dismissing claims in international media that the late President Hugo Chavez wasted state resources on charity for Antigua and Barbuda and other Caribbean states.
He says mischievous media, both in Venezuela and internationally is responsible for spreading that misconception.
Perez Silva says he expects Chavez deputy and now acting president, Nicolas Maduro to be successful in the upcoming by-election.
ST JOHN’S, Antigua – Former Prime Minister Lester Bird labelled the recently deceased Venezuelan president a “despot” and questioned the inner workings of Venezuela’s $200 million loan to the nation.
In an interview played on the Big Issues yesterday, Lester Bird said Hugo Chavez did not carry out “normal processes” of loaning money to Antigua & Barbuda through PetroCaribe and the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (ALBA).
WASHINGTON, CMC - With the death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, a major think tank here is querying the future of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) and the Petrocaribe oil agreement with Caribbean countries.
Chávez died last week after a long struggle with cancer.
The Washington-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) noted that the ALBA bloc is made up of a number of Caribbean and Latin American states, whose leaders were “friendly to Chávez, such as Ecuador’s Rafael Correa and Bolivia’s Evo Morales.
CARACAS -- Hundreds of thousands of President Hugo Chávez’s followers waited hours in a three-mile-long line Thursday to file past the late leader’s coffin as Cuban leader Raúl Castro and other presidents arrived to attend Friday’s state funeral.
Castro’s unexpected arrival in the early afternoon at the Simon Bolivar International Airport was broadcast live by the official Venezuelan television network VTV. He was greeted by Foreign Minister ElĂas Jaua and a small military honor guard, but did not make public comments.
KINGSTON, Jamaica - Readers of these columns are well aware that we have always been critical of the undemocratic actions of late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. For we hold firmly to the view that democracy demands the co-existence of opposing views, and people should not be punished for dissent.
No one can deny that President Chavez is loved by Venezuela's poor and working class because his wealth redistribution policies have helped many of them.
CARACAS -- President Hugo Chávez won an additional six-year term in October but was never sworn in. When he died Tuesday, after an 18-month battle with cancer, it revived questions about exactly who should be in charge of this oil-rich nation until new elections can be held. The constitution says that if a president dies before taking office, then the head of the National Assembly, in this case, Diosdado Cabello, should take charge and oversee elections within 30 days.
St. John’s Antigua- The country is to observe three days of mourning for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez who died after a two-year battle with cancer on Tuesday. Flags across the nation will also be flown at half-mast in tribute to the flamboyant leftist leader, described by the Prime Minister as a “positive symbol of hope” for the region. PM Baldwin Spencer, in making the announcement last night, said the Caribbean owed Venezuela a “debt of gratitude” in return for Chavez’s generous fiscal policies which pumped money into several struggling nations.
Hugo Chávez was a perpetual thorn in the side of the United States, sounding a constant drumbeat of anti-U.S. rhetoric and urging his Latin American compatriots to forge an independent, Washington-less path. And he drove home his points by force of personality and generosity with Venezuela’s oil wealth.
He formed and was the driving force behind regional alliances, was an ideological wellspring for the Latin American left, and exchanged regional influence for oil subsidies, favorable financing and outright donations.
Hugo Chávez’s folksy charm and forceful personality made him an extraordinary politician. His enviable ability to win a mass following allowed him to build a powerful political machine that kept him in office from February of 1999 until his death on Tuesday. But as a national leader, he was an abject failure who plunged Venezuela into a political and economic abyss.