Chávez to have again surgery and names succesor

[el_chavista]

President Hugo Chávez announced Saturday in Caracas that he would have to undergo another operation for cancer, and he designated his vice president, Nicolás Maduro, as his successor if he should prove unable to continue to lead the country.

Mr. Chávez, appearing somber and contemplative, made the announcement in a televised address from the presidential palace. Mr. Maduro sat to his left, and several other cabinet members were also present.

It was the first time that Mr. Chávez had said publicly whom he wanted as his successor:

http://venezuelaaldia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/081212_chavez1_afp.jpg


"Maduro is like the faithful dog of Chavez and the more pragmatic man of the regime"

Born in Caracas, Nicolás Maduro finished high school in the Liceo Ávalos, a public high-school west of Caracas during the 1980s (El Valle neighborhood), but lacks any university or further education.

He began his political career while working as a bus driver by becoming an unofficial trade-unionist representing the workers of the Caracas metropolitan subway system in the 1970s and 1980s - a time when unions within the Metro company were not allowed.

He belonged to the Socialist League, a Venezuelan political party established in 1973 in a split from the Revolutionary Left Movement, and merged into PSUV in 2007. The League was co-founded by Jorge Rodriguez, its Secretary General when he was murdered on 25 July 1976, having been kidnapped and tortured to death by state security forces.

He is considered one of the founders of the Fifth Republic Movement, an activist for the release of Hugo Chávez from prison, and later one of this regional political coordinators during the 1998 presidential race. Maduro was elected on the MVR ticket to the Venezuelan Chamber of Deputies in 1998, to the National Constituent Assembly in 1999, and to the National Assembly in 2000 and 2005, representing the Capital District. The legislature elected him Speaker of the Assembly. He held that position from 2005 until the first half of 2006.

Maduro was appointed as Minister of Foreign Affairs on 9 August 2006 and Vice president this very year.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Hope he's ok. I love Chavez

[l'Enfermé]

If Starfor doesn't like Maduro, that must mean Maduro is at least doing something right.

[Don't Swallow The Cap]

I can't say I am the biggest fan, but I do wish him well.

I wonder how Nicolás Maduro's policies would differ,if at all.

[piet11111]

What do we know about Maduro ?

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

What do we know about Maduro ?

He's a yes man.

[La Guaneña]

http://www.granma.cu/ingles/news-i/12dic-chavez.html

He's in post-op

Official news sources say the operation went as intended.

Get well soon, dude.

[Yuppie Grinder]

who gives a shit if chavez dies

[La Guaneña]

who gives a shit if chavez dies

I'm just worried that after his death one more real nice US puppet government comes up right in my backyard. He isn't my idea of awesome, but he's better that what Latin American governments have been like.

[RedHal]

who gives a shit if chavez dies

Millions of working poor in Venezuela who has benefited much from Chavez. But who cares, the only opinion that matters is some angsty lefty kid from the States.

[Die Neue Zeit]

On the barely plus side, the PSUV gained additional governorships: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-20745262

[Yuppie Grinder]

Millions of working poor in Venezuela who has benefited much from Chavez. But who cares, the only opinion that matters is some angsty lefty kid from the States.

nice one bro

[doesn't even make sense]

lol. "First time Chávez has publicly named a successor"? Maybe because Venezuela is a constitutional republic and not a monarchy and he already had a designated successor in his VP? C'mon...

[sixdollarchampagne]

It's very sad and a personal tragedy that Chávez is sick and needs repeated procedures. Politically, it doesn't matter at all, since Chávez has been in office for fourteen years, and, guess what! Venezuela is still a bourgeois republic, with a market economy. I am sure Maduro can be trusted to preserve capitalist ownership of the means of production, just like Chávez has, for nearly a decade and half, by now. Factually, the reformist Allende had a more aggressive policy of nationalizations and land seizures than the "revolutionary" Chávez does.

[l'Enfermé]

Doesn't Venezuela's constitution call for new elections if the President resigns or dies during the first 4 years of their term?

[Fruit of Ulysses]

Even if Maduro is a yes-man, I find that fact comforting as it means he can most likely be counted on to not completely make a 180 and ruin all of Chavez's work (a la Thomas Sankara). Sure you can say that capitalist relations of production still exist in Venezuela, but the Bolivarian Revolution has united oppressed nations against Imperialism, forged vital solidarity with the Cuban Revolution, and used nationalized resources and industry to subsidize co-operatives and given play to more political power for unions and mass organizations. Sounds good to me

[Yuppie Grinder]

nationalized property is just as bourgeois as private property, people

[Grenzer]

Millions of working poor in Venezuela who has benefited much from Chavez. But who cares, the only opinion that matters is some angsty lefty kid from the States.

Yes, we all need to drop communism and support populist demagogues. This really reflects a strong social-democratic attitude. We don't give support based on who may be "less bad" or even worse, who people like because none of this has anything to do with communism. This is just raw reformism.

It is unfortunate that Hugo Chavez's health has taken a turn to the worse in the same sense that it is unfortunate for anyone has to suffer from cancer, but he doesn't have anything to do with what is in the class interest of the proletariat.

[Ostrinski]

I demand the trotskist, psychorigid Marxists and leftists of this site say a prayer for Hugo Chavez !!

[sixdollarchampagne]

... Sure you can say that capitalist relations of production still exist in Venezuela, but the Bolivarian Revolution has united oppressed nations against Imperialism, forged vital solidarity with the Cuban Revolution, and used nationalized resources and industry to subsidize co-operatives and given play to more political power for unions and mass organizations. Sounds good to me

As far as unions are concerned, Chávez is famous for having said, just a few years ago, that trade-union independence from the (still-bourgeois) Venezuelan state is something that must be done away with. Some years back, in a famous incident, the workers of Sanitarios Maracay, an enterprise recovered and then run by its workers, were brutally attacked by the Venezuelan Guardia Nacional, of which Great Leader Chávez is the commander, according to the chavista Constitution. That attack, on defenseless workers, was so notorious that even the hyper-chavista Grantists (of the IMT) had to distance themselves from it. More recently, Chávez' government handed over at least one Colombian revolutionary to the Colombian regime, and that comrade's chances of survival are probably nil. So I think there is a certain amount of evidence that Chávez is no friend of workers' independent self-organization or of revolutionaries.

Speaking of the IMT, it is an interesting coincidence that the month that Alan Woods, the IMT ideologue, told the world that Chávez "totally" identified with the masses, was the very month that the Guardia Nacional violently broke a workers' strike at Sidor, the giant steel mill on the Orinoco River.

Finally, remembering that it is vital for a revolutionary to be able to look reality in the eye and say what is, and, given that Venezuelan workers are still being exploited by Venezuelan and foreign capitalists, after 14 years of chavista rule, it is pretty clear that the Bolivarian "revolution" is, like the rest of chavismo, b.s. pure and simple, and, since that is so, workers have no interest in the persistent attempts by Chávez-worshippers to pretend otherwise.

[sixdollarchampagne]

I really do not know where this post should go. Perhaps an admin can put this post in the proper thread or the place it should be. Anyway, it appears, from a news report, that President Chávez is "laughing" and "giving orders," from a medical institution in Havana. If that is so, rather than some kind of disinformation from some unknown source, then it is good news, since Chávez, healthy and active, makes a lot of difference in discussing Latin American affairs, IMO.

The news report is to be found at: http://news.yahoo.com/laughing-chavez-gives-orders-cuba-venezuelan-minister-024045495.html Comments are always welcome.