Monthly Archives: September 2010

Sep
27
2010
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Venezuela Opposition Pushes Back Chavez in Congressional Vote

This article was originally posted by Buisness Week

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez suffered his worst setback at the ballot box since taking office and lost his two-thirds majority in a congressional vote as support for his rule wanes ahead of 2012 presidential elections.

Opposition candidates, who boycotted the 2005 congressional race, secured 52 percent of the overall popular vote, giving them enough seats to force Chavez to negotiate on key decisions, said Ramon Guillermo Aveledo, head of the Democratic Unity Table alliance. Election officials didn’t provide a tally of the overall vote.

Chavez’s party, while securing at least 90 of 165 seats in the National Assembly after redrawing electoral districts, fell short of the 110-seat threshold needed to be given decree powers, approve the national budget and pass new laws single- handedly. Opposition candidates won 61 seats and non-aligned indigenous candidates won 3 seats according to the results announced at 2 a.m. local time, eight hours after polls closed. Another 11 seats remain to be decided.

“This is a tremendous defeat of the Bolivarian project,” said Friedrich Welsch, political analyst at the Simon Bolivar University in Caracas. “Chavez built his campaign on a vote of confidence in his socialist project and the majority of the people gave their votes to forces opposed to it.”

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Sep
24
2010
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Venezuela: 174 Expropriations in 2010

September 22

The Venezuelan government has expropriated 174 companies in 2010 alone, according to a new report from COINDUSTRIA. At least 129 are related to the oil and energy sector. 15 food companies and supermarkets have been expropriated as well since January. The rate of private property expropriations has now risen 923.5% since 2007.

COINDUSTRIA is a trade association representing the Venezuelan industrial sector. In total, it represents over half a million Venezuelans.

“The Government compensates the companies that have an embassy to claim their rights, while the Venezuelans have no one to defend them,” said Coindustria President Carlos Larrazabal.

Economist Asdrubal Oliveros of Ecoanalitica estimates that the government is spending 11% of its GDP on nationalization alone.

 
Sep
24
2010
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Venezuela’s violent crime challenges Chavez in key polls

This article was originally posted by Petroleumworld

Three years ago, Venezuelan Fabiana Dominguez’s 17-year-old son was shot dead in a botched robbery attempt.

Two days ago, a friend of her son was shot in the head in broad daylight, just days after her husband was mugged at gunpoint in a shopping center.

“Nothing has changed in Venezuela,” the 42-year-old said on a shopping trip in Catia, a district of clumsily stacked slums on the hills of Caracas where gun crime is rife.

Dominguez plans to vote against leftist President Hugo Chavez’s party in parliamentary elections Sunday to protest his failure to address rising insecurity in 11 years in power.

As the elections have become yet another plebisicite on the populist president, the opposition — hungry to return to parliament after boycotting the last vote five years ago — has tapped into concern about crime.

Ahead of the campaign, official figures leaked to the press showed more than 19,000 murders in Venezuela in 2009, making it the most violent country in the region, above Mexico, Brazil or El Salvador.

Venezuela has long had a violent reputation, but the murder rate has more than doubled in the past decade, according to NGOs who provide the only regularly-published figures on the issue, citing leaked police reports.

Caracas streets empty out at night and many live behind barred windows.

Analysts blame the rise on various factors, from a broad gap between rich and poor in the westernized, oil rich nation, to unemployment and the easy availability of arms on a key drug trafficking route to Europe.

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