In a major boost to his personal popularity and economic policies,
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s party swept the nationwide
elections for mayoralties and local
councils on Sunday. With 60 percent votes counted, the ruling Socialist
Party had won more than 49 percent ballots, while the joint opposition
managed to get support from just 42 percent voters.
Sunday's elections coincided with the anniversary of late President Hugo
Chavez's famous speech last year in which he announced that his cancer
had returned and named Maduro as his successor. As polling started,
Maduro reminded Venezuelans in a tweet to celebrate "a day of loyalty
and love towards Chavez and the Motherland".
The election for 337 mayors and 2,000 city councilors was seen as a
major political test for Maduro, who has tightened state control over
private businesses and retailers in recent months. It was also a big
challenge for the opposition leader Henrique Capriles, who was trying to
double the number of municipalities controlled by his coalition.
In the end, the Sunday election turned out to be a big victory for
Maduro.
“The Venezuelan people have said to the world that the Bolivarian
revolution continues stronger than ever,” Maduro said in a post-election
speech, referring to Chavez's movement named after the independence
hero Simon Bolivar. Addressing a massive rally of his supporters in
Bolivar Square in downtown Caracas on late Sunday night, Maduro mocked
Capriles and urged him to resign. “They underestimate us. They call me a
donkey; there is social racism,” he said. "They said that today was a
plebiscite and that Maduro would have to leave the presidency after
today.”
With his popularity on the surge due to strong price control measures
like forcing super-market chains to sell goods at cheaper prices, Maduro
seems to have passed a big hurdle and cemented his position as a
successor to Chavez.
As the opposition branded these local elections as a
plebiscite on Maduro’s performance and the socialist legacy of Chavez,
the Venezuelan president is now likely to take more stringent measures
against private businesses, whom he accuses of waging an “economic war”
against his government with the help of the United States.
Soon after the election results began to trickle in on Sunday night,
Maduro pledged to deepen his "economic offensive" to force businesses to
cut prices. “This week we are going to deepen the economic offensive to
help the working class and protect the middle class,” Maduro told
supporters at the rally in Caracas. “This week it's going to be the
housing and food sectors. We're going in with guns blazing, keep an eye
out.”
In November, Maduro, who won the presidential election in April with a
slender margin over Capriles, began a crackdown on retail chains,
forcing them to slash prices of electronic goods, automobile parts and
home hardware. As hundreds of thousands of people rushed to stores to
pick cheap LCDs and laptops, Maduro’s personal approval rate jumped
sharply. Within weeks, Maduro extended his economic offensive by
ordering controls on rent of commercial buildings such as shopping
malls.
Since November, Maduro has been ruling by decree, promising to tackle
corruption and control price rises. With inflation hitting 54 percent
and scarcities of basic products from wheat flour to milk spawning
queues around the country, the economic problems had been weighing on
Maduro's ratings. But instead of giving in to the demand of private
businesses to “open up” the economy, Maduro began an aggressive drive to
inspect shops and businesses suspected of price-gouging and arrests of
several dozen retailers.
The opposition accuses him of failing to deal with crime, inflation and a
shortage of basic goods. Some economists say Maduro's price-cutting
measures smack of short-term populism that do nothing to fix what they
consider the roots of economic problems.
courtesy : Subramanian Ramakrishnan
courtesy : Subramanian Ramakrishnan
கருத்துகள் இல்லை:
கருத்துரையிடுக