Re:The Suicide of Venezuela
by pmelendez on Thursday April 28, 2016 @07:37PM
(#11592705)
Because they are not either free nor fair nor open. The list of reason about why is not the case is large but when violent pro-government groups start shooting at poll lines and the police won't do anything then you can't called open or free. When the campaign tv time is limited for anyone else but the president or when other candidates have to resign their positions (like governors or majors) but the president is allowed to keep it, then you can't call it fair either.
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Chavez was elected in 1998 in a clean election[0].
He was re-elected in 2000, in an election the Carter Center found satisfactory[1].
He was once again elected in 2006, in an election EU observers found to be free and fair[2].
After three elections, I'd say the good people of Venezuela deserve to live in a filthy dump.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_presidential_electi...
[1]: http://www.cartercenter.org/documents/297.pdf
[2]: http://eeas.europa.eu/eueom/missions/2006/venezuela/index_en...
More recently, things have been less than free and fair.
https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2013/venezuela
https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2015/venezuela
So what? They sat on an ejection seat for eight years and did nothing.
How can it be clean when opposition newspapers are censored and opposition politicians suffer from oppression? And nevermind nationalization of the media...
People vote for Communism, they get Communism. What's the problem here?
They got communism? I don't see the classless, stateless society in Venezuela.
You never will, there or anywhere else. Communism can never be classless. It always turns out to be an oligarchy in practice or in the case of Stalin, a dictatorship.
Ok, but how is that clean? Or do you mean clean relative to authoritarianism with Marxist values?
What I meant up there is they had three verified fair elections to bail out, they didn't, so now their country is in ruins.
Democracy has its failures, but people getting what they voted for isn't one of them.