The 7-0 Election will Determine Both Venezuela and Latin America's Future

from Noticias 24

The evolutionary course of Hugo Chavez's cancer will be one of the hallmarks resonating in the communications media in 2012, not only locally but throughout the region. Or so signalled an article published at web impre.com

Venezuela enters a period of transition in which the health of the First Commander will be the determining facto, given the weight of his will to get re-elected will serve as a factor when he presents himself as a candidate for re-election this coming October and in which the opposition must downselect to a single opponent.

"It will be a central point on the theme of caudillo-ism, if there really is a strong detriment that politically incapacitates him, should he collapse or become unable to respond politically to his duties in office," was the expert opinion of a professor in Latin American Affairs at Javeriana University, Benjamin Herrera, who explained that there is no successor inside the Chavista camp on the horizon who can unite its' adherents.

It proves that the ambient political climate will continue to boil because additionally the opposition will realize for the first time since Chavez came to power, primary elections with an opportunity to confront Chavism at the polls and for dividing the opposition and defining a clear alternative pathway north.

The future of Chavez will be felt regionally and will have special repercussions on the countries of Central America like Nicaragua who receive assistance thanks to the high prices commanded by petroleum, which will prove to be another electoral protagonist.

"One of the things that favours Chavez is the rising price of crude oil which permits him a latitude of action in an epoch of increasing expenses to maintain his position in poorer regional sectors and buy support for certain foreign revolutionary friends," opined Herrera.

Regardless, the prices for crude will depend upon the behaviour of China, which isn't expanding at the same rate as previous years and a world economy which is experiencing political difficulties, and with them, the prices of petroleum.

They are currently offering $100 a barrel, but with a crises in India, the US or Europe, the price could fall," explained professor of Economic Observations Luis Eduardo Amador of the External University of Columbia.