Hugo Chávez, Wake up and smell yourself, you reek of fear and failure!

Every once in a while we are offered the opportunity to see the clear contrast between the leading candidates for the presidency; one such situation arose today and I have been itching to get to my computer and share a few thoughts with my readers.

As you may know Hugo Chávez and Manuel Rosales were busy campaigning today, while the president chose Avenida Bolívar in Caracas as the venue for his campaign team swearing-in ceremony, Manuel Rosales’ campaign tour took him to south-western Táchira state where he addressed a massive crowd assembled to hear what he had to say (see picture in the upper left corner of this post), my post today will attempt to summarize what each candidate said. I believe their speeches were so transparent that any analysis on my part would only serve to state the obvious.

I took the liberty of paraphrasing excerpts from the candidates' speeches; notice the lack of quotation marks!

Manuel Rosales:

a) Terrorism & Crime

My government will be an enemy of terrorism; we respect life and will design and implement policies to counter crime, a government that does not guarantee the right to live is absolutely worthless.

Hugo Chávez gave away US$100 million to Bolivia so they can build military bases within their territory; in the meantime our police departments, National Guard and Army are not being taken care of, they lack adequate infrastructure, earn low salaries and operate with poorly designed logistics and worse equipment.

This regime is preparing for a war, which war? I wonder. We don’t want a war; they are spending our money on planes, machine guns and tanks, in the meantime no one has heard our president talk about the only war I would fight, the war on poverty, hunger and drugs.

Neither a single oil barrel nor a single dollar more will be given away to foreign nations once I am elected president!

b) Defense of the national industry (or what’s left of it)

They are importing subsidized beans, coffee, meat, milk, rice and sugar from foreign countries to gain their sympathy in detriment of our domestic farmers; this move has driven down the prices and has bankrupted our agricultural entrepreneurs. I will subsidize our own farmers and will not give away any more money to foreign nations.

My government will implement whatever subsidies are necessary to keep prices low because our farmers have the right to live well, work their farms and raise their cattle, to produce for Venezuela!

c) Fascism will be a thing of the past and the armed forces will be apolitical

We are not going to hold grudges against anyone; my government will be free of hatred, the current wave of persecution against people, including the military, for the crime of political dissension will be stopped.

The military will recover its dignifying institutional role and will defend our national sovereignty as it should have always been the case, they will once again be the paradigm of dignity and Venezolanism.

d) Debunking the myth of chavismo’s social programs and redefining social assistance

They speak of social programs that have always existed: PROAL has been renamed as MERCAL, the milk distribution program for children and pregnant women and food stamps are now misiones, these programs will be kept and improved upon.

We will further some key productive sectors within the economy that generate jobs and attract investments; this will empower families to raise their standard of living.

I am going to distribute one-fifth of our oil wealth among the population as unemployment insurance and other direct subsidies, we are going to dress and feed our people to get them back on their feet so they can get a job.

One of the dinosaurs within the chavista regime (Vice-president José Vicente Rangel) said that my social programs and wealth distribution schema through a debit card was populist, I guess it is OK to give this money away to foreign nations but it is wrong to invest the same money among the Venezuelan people.

e) Housing deficit

I will engage in a massive construction effort that will be implemented with the help of the domestic and foreign private sectors, I will open the doors to the foreign capitals so they invest in Venezuela, generate jobs and improve our productivity, at the same time all guarantees will be given to protect private property and offer judicial fairness.

Hugo Chávez:

a) Threats

If the oppositionist forces withdrew from the elections, cowardly saying that I am a tyrant and this is an illegitimate regime, I can’t be held responsible for what I will do.

You will regret it for as long as you live, I swear, you will regret it and so will your imperial overlords.

I am devoting my time to plan a counter-attack that will annihilate the oppositionist movement, I won’t have mercy.

You may take it as a warning, that permissive Hugo Chávez you have dealt with before is long gone.

b) A one-party revolution

All we need to complete our regeneration is unity, I insist comrades: we must seize this opportunity to further the idea of unity among our political parties, their electoral apparatuses and their militants.

I have always harbored the idea that we should walk toward a one-party structure within the frame of the Bolivarian revolution, the only party of all Venezuelans that will prevent the dispersion of forces.

c) Our true contender: The United States of America

We are not facing them (the oppositionist forces), don’t you forget it; this battle is against the North American empire, that’s out true contender.

I won’t allow that Venezuela becomes a North American colony once again, Venezuela freed herself. As it was written in our national anthem, we have broken the chains that made us a prisoner of the North American empire. Venezuela is and will always be free.