Guyanese Online

By the time today’s edition of Sunday Stabroek lands on the breakfast table, thousands of Venezuelans will be queueing up to cast their votes in what is by far the most important poll in this hemisphere, bar the US election next month.  In fact, news agencies and media houses around the world will be monitoring it closely, since there is no South American leader – not even in behemoth Brazil – who triggers such strong emotions in politicians and ordinary citizens alike as the garrulous and mercurial Mr Hugo Chávez.

In this region particularly, a great deal hangs on the outcome of this poll, and it would send seismic shock waves throughout almost all the Caricom countries if he loses. For Cuba, of course, it would be less a seismic shock wave than a full-blown economic earthquake, but they are not the only ones who would feel the financial tremors. Leaders of other nations too have been the beneficiaries of President Chávez’s liberality, such as President Kirchner of Argentina, President Ortega of Nicaragua, and even the odious Bashar al Assad, to whom the Venezuelan head of state has been sending diesel fuel to keep his killing machines rolling through the towns and cities of Syria.   Continue reading →