The Politics of Venezuela
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More to come tomorrow. Right now — in the control room preparing for tonight’s show, with only 30 minutes before Brendan’s fly-in mentions this post — I’m going to have to be content with a few lines cribbed from this show’s hastily written promo:
The ex-military leftie Hugo Chavez won big in Sunday’s elections… not having any opponents certainly helped. So: with an embarassing 75% voter abstention, is this the beginning or the end for Chavez? What about Venezuelan democracy?
There’s a lot more to cover, obviously, like oil policy and foreign policy and the freedom of the press. And another one: U.S.-Venezuela relations (remember Pat Robertson?). We’d also like to throw Venezuela’s evolving role within Latin America into the mix.
The hope is that — starting from the lessons and reverberations of Sunday’s elections — we can get to all of this. But, like I said, more tomorrow.
I forgot to mention in the orginal post that this show is partly a response to Flow, who asked, “What’s brewing in Latin America? What’s the scoop on Hugo Chavez?” We can’t promise any scoops, but it should be feisty:
Daniel Hellinger
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Professor of Political Science, Webster University
Co-editor, Venezuelan Politics in the Chávez Era
Ambassador Bernardo Alvarez
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Venezuealan Ambassador to the United States
Miguel Octavio
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Blogger, The Devil’s Excrement
Daniel Duquenal
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Blogger, Venezuela News And Views