1) He says that Chávez was a fully democratic president because he was elected lots of times, well, I would invite him to read about “Democracy” and then he would find out that democracy is not just about elections, but also about the quality of those elections. If the elections are not based in true options, and are not free elections, then you could say that those are not legitimating the elected candidate.
In Venezuela the State is the first employer in the country, this can be explained because of the public policies that have destroyed the private sector and the conditions for new private actors to generate new jobs. He is not only the first employer, but also the first one who gives homes to the poor people, once again, you have destroyed private sector. Now, what is really important is that he uses their jobs and homes to blackmail those people to vote for them. You could say that is impossible because you are all alone when you vote, but there are many photos showing that in many occasions, they are not alone when voting.
The other thing is that he argues that Chavez defeated over 30 parties. That would be an achievement if we had a proportional electoral system and a second round when voting. The first thing is that in a majority electoral system, the big parties have more power than the small parties (That’s the case of the PSUV (government party)), the second thing is that when we vote, the party that wins the first round wins it all, that means that you can win with only 30% of the votes having three opponents with 26%, 29% and 15%. That is the catch.
They also changed the electoral circumscriptions so they could get advantage in the regional elections.
2) He speaks about the freedom of speech, but the leaders of the opposition (the ones who really influence the audience) have lost their programs on TV, in fact Capriles doesn’t appear on TV, that’s the reason why he created CaprilesTV (A Livestream channel). But clearly is impacts less than the traditional channels.
If the media shows images of conflicts, robbery, murders or corruption, they can be closed and their directors jailed. You can see what happened with NTN24, they were transmitting the protests and they were taken away from our TVs, the reporters of CNN have been robbed and their private property was seriously damaged when they were leaving the country because of the decisions of the government.
On the other hand, we see Chávez as the most televised president in the history of our country, and I would say in the whole region. That is clearly not fair because he uses the communicational resources of the State to create an advantage for his campaigns. When we had free TV channels, he used the resources of the State to report block the current transmission when he felt it was necessary to hide an event.
One of the most viewed TV interviewers in Venezuela was fired from his program because he showed Capriles on TV last year for example. He was not the only one, and the other thing is that it violates the same laws that they have promoted, because you can´t fire anybody without a very good reason by law. (A very good reason is that he abandoned his job for a week, he robbed the business, he attacked someone, but if he doesn’t work you can’t fire him, or if he decides to go to work once a week, you can’t fire him)
3) He says that Capriles acknowledged the elections in 2012, that’s true, but I worked in those elections and we lose. That’s the only reason; it was a different story with Maduro.
4) There are no 22 new Universities in Vzla, (There is no big explanation to this, that’s just false)
5) The reduction of poverty is one of the most interesting subjects I like to discuss. First of all, we have to look very closely to the indicators we use to measure “poverty”; we only tend to use the household income and the World Bank measure. But there is a trick in all this; first of all, the measure uses the controlled exchange rate that differs from reality in 1-13. The official exchange rate is 6,30Bs/$ the free exchange rate is about 80Bs/$. So when you do the calculus, we are richer than we actually are.
The second thing is that we also calculate as a part of the household income, all the subsidies that are received from the State (No other country do this, it’s like cheating). But not only that, we also use the lists of the people inscribed in social programs as “Working people”, so we have virtually eradicated unemployment, but wait, we also register the informal sector of the economy as working people (Statistics...).
Now, I would like to speak about PPP, or just about purchasing power. In those terms, we are poorer, because we have less purchasing power than we had before, even if our salary is raised, we can buy less than before, it happens because of the inflation and the dependence on imports and the excess demand.
6) There is no data to say that we eat more than before, but obesity has risen dramatically. That happens because of the scarcity, because you can´t find chicken, you can´t find meat, you can´t find fish, but you find pasta, you find rice, you find (some) flours, and eventually you get fat and sick. In terms of nutrition, our diet has worsened.
7) He says that Chavez was recognized by many intellectuals, I really disagree (Sorry, had to say it, hahaha)
8) The last thing, he says that my government defends gay rights, but years have passed and we haven’t approved the gay marriage, and we have no gay representing people, and we heard Maduro saying that Capriles was “Maricon” (Gay) and then he stopped when Capriles said “Are you homophobic?”
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Eu entendi direito ? É sério mesmo que você ache isso ? Você acredita mesmo que o chavez não tenha influencia/culpa nenhuma na situação atual da Venezuela ?
