Oh, this is rich

In an unfolding scandal over hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal contributions to the campaign of Argentina’s new president Cristina Kirchner, the US Government claims that Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez “uses his country’s oil wealth to illegally meddle in the politics” of other countries.

* cough * splutter *

It is, of course, unheard of in the USA that a government would throw its own resources into meddling in the politics of other countries.

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Orientation flagged

I read in an article this week that Venezuela’s president Hugo Chavez “ordered the horse on the national flag to face left instead of right to reflect his socialist orientation.”

I hadn’t heard this one before (a quick google yields nothing beyond the article cited above), so I don’t know whether this is true or just a beat-up.

The flag represented in my Encarta 2005 edition looks like this:

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While the current Wikipedia entry for Venezuela shows the following:

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There’s an extra star there too!

All very strange. Has Mr Chavez ordered every flag in every state institution, every school, etc., to be replaced with the new logo?

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Voters got it right

To paraphrase former Australian Prime Minister John Howard, Venezuelans are a very practical people whose innate wisdom is demonstrated at the ballot box.

Having twice endorsed their socialist president Hugo Chavez, the people have spoken again.

Venezuelans have refused Chavez’s bid for constitutional changes “that would have scrapped term limits on Chavez’s rule, given him control over foreign currency reserves and boosted his powers to expropriate private property.”

Students, rights and business groups, opposition parties, the Roman Catholic Church, former political allies and even his usually loyal ex-wife all lined up against Chavez ahead of the referendum vote...

Seems that, although Venezuelans have by and large endorsed their president’s socialist program, they were not willing to do away with the opt-out clauses guaranteed under their constitution.

Perhaps Robert Mugabe’s salutary example was one of the influences that guided Venezuelans in their verdict. This is perhaps the sole positive contribution Mugabe has made in his miserable life.

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Benevolent despotism believed in

The Venezuelan legislature yesterday gave their President Hugo Chavez the power to rule by decree.

As far as can be determined, the Venezuelan people are going with it with their eyes wide open. As suggested by J.F. Beck, such an act of collective faith has rarely been seen since 1933 – in Germany, I believe.

One sincerely wishes the Venezuelan people all the luck in the world. And then some.

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