Chavez lost, for now

Since I wrote several articles on Venezuela and its President Hugo Chavez I decided to have my last blog entry about them. The article that I chose was about Chavez’s defeat on his proposed changes to the Venezuelan constitution, and how people around the world took it. The changes Chavez wanted to make to the constitution were lowering the work day to six hours, and perhaps the most important one to Venezuelans was the removal of term limits so Chavez could run as many times as he wants. After the vote on Sunday that resulted in Chavez’s proposals losing, the U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said, “…people spoke for democracy and against unlimited power.” Comments such as these make me wonder why the Bush administration feels it has to say with pride how the people of Venezuela said no to Chavez but in the other elections which Chavez was the victor they said barely anything, the truth is that the Bush administration does not like Chavez. To me Chavez represents a true form of democracy and it seems that this true form of democracy in Latin America threatens the Bush administration. I feel this way because of a documentary I watched about the coup attempt on Chavez, which shows evidence of the U.S. interfering with the internal affairs of Venezuela. I will not ignore the situation that Chavez lost, he himself said, “Venezuelan democracy is maturing ... There is no dictatorship here.” Comments made by news media like Fox in reference to Chavez being a dictator is very up surd to me when I read comments like Chavez’s. The truth is I am sort of sad about the voting results on the constitutional changes because Chavez in my opinion is a blessing to Venezuela and I would have wished he could stick around longer than the end of his term in 2013.