Today marks Day 3 of a four-day television marathon hosted by President Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, surpassing anything the loquacious leader has ever done before. Chávez first went on the air this week on Thursday to commemorate the 10th anniversary of his Alo Presidenteprogram which first aired after he took power in 1999. “Hello President” has long been Chávez’s media vehicle for maintaining his popular base with the Venezuelan people, and countering what he considers one-sided attacks from the country’s privately-owned media. The program has proven so successful that other Latin American leaders have emulated the effort in Mexico and Ecuador, and none other than the notoriously long-winded Fidel Castro of Cuba praised Chávez for spending 1,536 hours over the past decade promoting his revolution on TV.
“The case of Hugo Chávez is exceptional in the history of politics,” Castro wrote on a Cuban website. “Others have gained fame through the written press, radio and television, but never has a revolutionary idea made use of a communications media with such efficiency.”
Critics of Chávez insist the reason for the four-day marathon has less to do with the anniversary of Alo Presidente and more to do with his overreaching for power in recent months. Since winning a key referendum in February that removed limits on how many times he can be re-elected, Chávez has ordered the seizure of assets from about 70 oil companies, the taking of a rice-processing plant from Minnesota-based Cargill Inc., and the nationalization of the hot-briquette iron industry and other metals companies. He’s also been accused of manipulating the courts and legislature to undermine political opposition.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Comments