Venezuelan Election Day: Channel 4 Selects Pro-Opposition Viewpoints

[Judi Lynn]

Venezuelan Election Day: Channel 4 Selects Pro-Opposition Viewpoints
The Editors, 7 October 2012

British news is today (07/10/2012) much concerned with the elections underway in Venezuela. The election will be the 'closest since Hugo Chavez took power' (The Guardian), or the 'the country's most tightly contested presidential election in a decade' (BBC).

To begin with, it should be noted that the above assertions are themselves misleading to a UK readership: even if the election is 'the closest' since 1998 in Venezuela, polling figures are such that if similar results were to be found in a UK election, the race would not be considered close. Furthermore, figures show that the reality of the contest is so far from 'close' that a statistical study by the Center for Policy and Economic Research, using polling data from Venezuelan elections from 2004 – 2010, has shown that Henrique Capriles has just a 5.7% chance of winning the election.

Yet the image painted by the UK media about these elections is almost hopeful of a Capriles win, having consistently pitted Capriles as the candidate most in touch with the Venezuelan people (Capriles ‘promises to govern for all Venezuelans’). Misleadingly referring to Capriles’ supporters as ‘Venezuela’, the BBC coverage of the closing rally for Capriles stated that 'Venezuela rallies for opposition's Henrique Capriles', yet when Chavez supporters gathered on Thursday in Caracas in support of the President, in what was reported to be the largest election campaign rally in the history of Venezuela, with up to one million supporters, the event was underplayed by the BBC’s Sarah Grainger who reported that ‘tens of thousands of supporters of the United Socialist Party braved the rain’ to attend the rally.

Some commentators appear to be almost rejoicing at the prospect of an election loss for current President, Hugo Chavez. The Guardian’s Rory Carroll has written recently on the Venezuelan elections in articles entitled ‘Hugo Chávez: a strongman's last stand’ and ‘Hugo Chávez: people's hero in final showdown’.

More:
http://www.newsunspun.org/article/venezuelan-election-day-channel-4-selects-proopposition-viewpoints

[dipsydoodle]

1. The UK media are publishing what they are publishing

simply because they've got fuck all else to publish in the way of news.

Polls have been banned in Venezuela since 7 days back under their own electoral rules and no notions of a winner can be declared until a point is reached at which it would be irreversible.

[sabrina 1]

3. And those are good rules. We should take a lesson from how Venezuela conducts

elections. Here all we hear about are polls and very little about issues.

The Western media has been destroyed by Corporations. I don't use any Western media much as sources except to see what they are saying every once in a while and when it gets to the point that you can predict what they will say, it's kind of sad. The Murdoch invasion of the Western Media destroyed it as rather than remain independent, they ended up trying to compete with the Murdoch tabloid version of the news.

Our media here is so bad I wonder if anyone watches it anymore for anything other than entertaiment. Eg, when the formerly worth while Sunday Morning News shows, stoop to the level of having morons like Ann Coulter on as political pundits, what can you say?

[Peace Patriot]

4. The BBCons and the Guardians-of-Nothing are off my list of reliable news sources...

...because of their coverage of Venezuela and the Chavez government. Their coverage of this country and its leader has been AWFUL. As bad as anything here (and I'm talking ba-a-ad). Biased in the extreme. Disinformative. Snide. Sneering. Contemptuous of facts. Stupid-making. Might as well be Faux News.

The BBC!

The Guardian!

Total fail!

[dipsydoodle]

5. I think the actual answer

is , assuming the information to be provided , to see who exactly wrote the article / was the source for anything printed / published online by our UK media and then check out their background to see whether or not sound and unbiased.

Aside from that you may never have realised that in the case of the BBC you cannot access our true home page. I realised that when I was in OH a couple of years back - I exactly know what to look for and http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ defaults to another link for world use.

I just check out of curiousity to see what the Mail had to say. Couldn't find anything at first because for some loony reason they've got under US. See here : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2214434/Hugo-Chavez-Venezuelan-president-retains-power-election-victory.html

And also the Telegraph which is regarded as being RW here : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/venezuela/9593189/Hugo-Chavez-wins-re-election-bid-in-Venezuela.html

Of course what I don't is what either said prior to the event.

[joshcryer]

2. Good reporting.

[SESKATOW]

6. "Weisbrot noted that Henrique Capriles had done better than previous opposition candidates partly

" because he ran as a “center-left” candidate, pledging to preserve some of the major social gains of the Chávez era."

What would have been the vote if the wolf took off his sheeps clothing and revealed the neo-liberial laissez-faire capitalist ideologue that he really is

[naaman fletcher]

7. How do you know that is what he really is? nt

[SESKATOW]

8. internal MUD documents, belonging to the ultra-rightist group Tradición, Familia y Propiedad

(Tradition, Family and Property) and dubbed by the corporate capitalist class as "business friendly" being code for corporate welfare, privatisation, de-regulation and globalsation policy agenda

[naaman fletcher]

9. I thought,

those documents, to the extent they are legit, were just one of the many groups that comprised MUD, as opposed to being MUD. Is that incorrect?

[SESKATOW]

10. a coalition of?? And the rest we just ignore?

[naaman fletcher]

11. No,

What I am saying is that the opposition, which is numerous parties, united around one candidate. The documents you are talking about are from the party of the most extreme right part of the coalition. Capriles by the way has a record of elected office. How did he govern? Not like the documents you site.

What you are doing is the same as when the right-wingers scream about that Reverend in chicago they are always trying to tie Obama to. Just because that guy supports Obama doesn't mean everyone who supports Obama holds those views, and it doesn't mean Obama holds those views.

[SESKATOW]

12. Once again you ignore the other points made

What is the ideological thread that keeps these parties together?

[naaman fletcher]

13. Which points made did i ignore?

I addressed the only point that I made.

[sabrina 1]

14. Exactly 'what would have been the vote if the wolf took off his sheeps clothing and revealed

the neo-liberal laissez-faire capitalist idealogue that he really is'.

The fact that the Right had to find a candidate who was willing to pretend to support some of Chavez's policies shows how successful Chavez has been and how popular his policies are with the Venezuelan people. They can no longer just attack him, they have to pretend to be something they are not in order to even try to compete.

So in a way, the fact that they chose to try to deceive the public this way, is a sign that it Right Wing policies are acknowledged even by them, to be a losing proposition.

But Caprile's many statements about 'marrying public and private' institutions were a giveaway and the people were not fooled fortunately.

But had he revealed who he really is, his loss would have been far bigger, which in itself only shows the popularity of Chavez's policies and the unpopularity of the Far Right with whom he is closely associated.