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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| Chavez Urges Socialism on Unreceptive Venezuelans |
| 2005-07-19 |
| President Hugo Chavez urged Venezuelans on Sunday to embrace his "21st century socialism," while poll results showed less than one-third of the population supports the economic model. Speaking during his weekly radio and television program, Chavez called on Venezuelans to "leave behind any confusion or any type of fears, phantoms," regarding socialism. Chavez has repeatedly called for the expansion of state-run cooperatives and increased volunteerism under a socialist political and economic model. He has directed billions of dollars in oil revenues toward public and social programs. In Sunday's program, Chavez urged his countrymen to work "to build this road: Venezuelan socialism of the 21st century." Since taking office in 1999, Chavez has forged strong relations with communist-led Cuba. Numerous cooperation agreements have been signed between the two Caribbean countries. The Venezuelan president has become a sharp critic of the Bush administration, accusing it of trying to topple his government and criticizing the U.S.-backed Free Trade Area of the Americas, or FTAA. Chavez often tells Venezuelans that "being rich is bad" while calling capitalism a "savage" economic system used by the world's most powerful countries, including the United States, to "dominate and colonize" poor nations. Many of the president's opponents fear he is flirting with communism while becoming increasingly authoritarian. The results of a poll published Sunday in El Nacional daily showed that 28 percent of Venezuelans support the "socialist" model leftist Chavez is moving toward while slightly more than 28 percent said they favored a capitalist system. Others interviewed did not respond or said they were undecided. The survey questioned a sample of 1,300 Venezuelans and had an error margin of 2.7 percentage points. 28% vs. 28%. I would not say they were unresponsive to socialism, just unresponsive in general. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #1 28% for capitalism, and 44% have no opinion? The first percentage is too high, and the second is suprisingly low, considering that not having the pro-socialist opinion but still expressing an opinion could cost you your job, your business, your house, your farm... |
| Posted by: Abdominal Snowman 2005-07-19 22:04 |