ISSUES....
Inside, confidential, off the record

What money can buy



There's one aspect about Venezuela's presidential election that's missing from most analyses published these days. Most observers of Venezuelan politics keep referring to this race as if it were a normal contention between two candidates. They keep citing polls as if polling was a scientific absolute. The undeniable fact however is that it is far from a regular election for Manuel Rosales is not facing Hugo Chavez on equal terms, on the contrary he does not have, for example, 4 out of 5 directors of the National Electoral Council on his payroll. Neither does he have the financial muscle to bus thousands of supporters around Venezuela nor does his statements have any repercussions in world's energy markets. Some people in town are wondering why is it that Reuters keeps printing -without credible evidence- that Chavez will win easily by a 30% margin. Could this be a policy of a company that makes most of its money by selling financial information to big corporations and multinationals? I don't know, what I do know though is that, in my book, a man that allegedly has such a large margin over his contender should not need 2500 buses to fill up an avenue with his supporters in a city of 6 million people.

From Aleksander Boyd / Caracas / 27.11.06 / http://www.vcrisis.com/

Petroleumworld 11 28 06

ISSUES....

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