I listened to some commentators talk about the Hugo vote, and they said something along the following lines:
This shows that Hugo is a human, and not a dictator. It is not that bad, etc, etc, etc… How conciliatory he is… He will not change… He will do more of what he is doing now, and will not change…
I kind of had a feeling something like this might happen. I did not blog about it because I was completely unsure. My sister told me about the Chavez situation, and she is there front and center living in Ecuador. Note that Ecuador and Venezuela have very close ties. Last week she said to me that Chavez is not as popular as he used to be, and that there is some discontent.
After the vote I talked to her and told her what the Western media is saying. Her reply was as follows
Conciliatory? Are you kidding me? This is Chavez, where conciliatory is not part of the vocabulary. Chavez is stunned, and speechless. Remember this is the man that spoke at the UN and talked about the devil.
She then continued and outlined the following things.
- This is great news for democracy and sends a message to leaders like Morales, and Correa who will tone down the rhetoric for fear of loosing power.
- Democracy is alive and well, and people when confronted with the question of democracy or no democracy will choose democracy. What is important here is that the poor voted against themselves because they would have received many benefits from the modified constitution.
- Chavez’s camp and his Chavezista’s has become completely splintered. The low vote indicates that many Chavezista’s would rather sit out this vote then decide on whether or not to support Chavez.
- Chavez’s opposition became organized and managed to motivate people to stop Chavez.
On the future?
It’s a good day! Chavez will change because he has to…