Uncommon Sense

Ecuador votes today

Here's hoping the people get it "right," in more ways than one.

Same for next Sunday, in Venezuela, where the masses are already taking to the streets.

Peru's leader bitch-slaps Chavez

This was an enjoyable read:

Peruvian president rails against Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's foreign policy

Peruvian President Alan Garcia railed against Venezuela's foreign policy and the country's president, Hugo Chavez, saying the leftist leader has used a mix of petrodollars, blackmail and insults to divide rather than unite Latin America.

Garcia told the Venezuelan daily El Universal in an interview published Sunday that Chavez "exercises power with a club or bag of money, blackmail and seduction."

Chavez — a sharp critic of U.S. President George W. Bush and Latin American leaders close to Washington — says his government's foreign policy is based on solidarity and denies Venezuela is using its immense oil wealth to buy influence abroad.

Opponents say Chavez — a close ally of Fidel Castro — is trying to spread his revolutionary agenda beyond Venezuela's borders by offering oil at preferential rates and spending billions of dollars (euros) to fund projects ranging from hospitals to highways throughout the region.

Venezuela has divided South America by using a carrot-and-stick approach to foreign policy, while trying to ostracize any country refusing to adhere to Chavez's leftist, anti-American political agenda, Garcia said.

"When the continent is split with a sword — 'you are with me or with the United States' — a simplistic, offensive and anti-integrationist vision is expressed," he told El Universal.

Chavez and Garcia traded verbal barbs earlier this year after the Venezuelan leader openly backed leftist candidate Ollanta Humala against Garcia in Peruvian presidential elections. Diplomatic relations between the two countries have been tense ever since.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro on Saturday called Garcia's government a puppet of the Bush administration, which he said is working behind the scenes to undermine efforts toward Latin American integration.

"They are a piece that the empire tries to use to create intrigue, divide (and) destroy the new South American and Latin American integration project," Maduro said.

For more on this flap, and the latest on the upcoming Venezuelan elections, check out Publius Pundit.

Ortega is not like Castro

After all, unlike his dying hero in Havana — and as disgusted as the freedom-loving world should be by the prospect — Nicaragua's former dictator Daniel Ortega now has actually been elected by his own people.

Election observer and former Georgia peanut farmer Jimmy Carter was impressed.

"He's a smart man and a shrewd politician, obviously," Carter said.

Which is exactly why the United States and the rest of the world must keep a close eye on Ortega, whose other friends include Venezuela President Hugo Chavez, to make sure his true colors don't cause more trouble.

Et tu, Nicaragua?

Chavez, Ortega

The 1980s were not a good time for the people of Nicaragua.

The deposing of the dictator Somoza was followed by years of dictatorship, lead by Daniel Ortega, repression and civil war, all proped up by the Sandinistas' benefactors in Havana, Moscow and the rest of the Eastern bloc. The regime was a mortal threat to its people and to its neighbors.

Eventually, thanks in part to U.S. support for the contras,, democracy prevailed, and Ortega was booted from office in 1990. Subsequently, he has failed in two attempts for the presidency.

But if they are not careful on Sunday, the 1980s is to where Nicaraguans risk returning their country.

Nicaraguans on Sunday will election a new president, and almost inexplicably — you can thank a divided opposition — the front runner is former leftist dictator Daniel Ortega. He might even get the 35 percent of the vote he needs to avoid a runoff.

The Soviet Union is no more, and Cuba is not what it once was. But Ortega has a new sugar daddy doing all he can to have one of his own at the helm of power in Managua.

His name is Hugo Chavez, the clown of Caracas, who has funneled cheap oil and other bennies to Nicaragua. His goal being to help elect another leader — he failed in Peru and Mexico, but succeeded in Bolivia — that will march lock-step with his leftist, "Bolivarian revolution."

Chavez has been busy with his own re-election campaign — Venezuelans go to the polls next month — but Nicaraguans have a chance on Sunday to reject his buffoonery. And in doing so, perhaps give Venezuelans the courage to the same.

But more importantly, by rejecting Ortega, Nicaraguans have a chance to save their country from an awful return to the future.

For more, read "The Dangers of Daniel Ortega."

A lover's quarrel?

Venezuela's bid for a seat on the United Nations Security Council in shambles, Bolivia's Evo Morales says Plan B is for Bolivia to stand for the seat against a rival, and U.S.-backed, bid by Guatemala.

Not so fast, says Hugo Chavez.

Get a chuckle by reading all about it.

A bad week for Chavez at U.N., in Ecuador

It has not been a good week for Hugo Chavez.

On Tuesday, Venezuela failed to win a seat on the United Nations Security Council. (Be sure to check out The Real Cuba to see who Venezuela is getting its marching orders from.)

And on Wednesday, Spain said it would not sell a dozen military airplanes to Venezuela because of restrictions on the planes including American technology.

But the the bad week for Chavez started Sunday, when his man in Quito, Rafael Correa, failed to win enough votes to avoid a runoff in the presidential election.

In fact, Correa, an economist with an infatuation with the clown of Caracas, finished second to pro-U.S. banana billionaire Alvaro Noboa.

The choice on Nov. 26 is clear for Ecuador, which doesn't make a habit of seeing its presidents finish their terms.

The Associated Press reports:

2 Set for Presidential Runoff in Ecuador

By MONTE HAYES
Associated Press Writer

QUITO, Ecuador — A pro-U.S. billionaire and a leftist economist who admires Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez headed to a runoff campaign Monday that threatens to aggravate political instability in Ecuador, where the last three presidents have been driven from power by street protests.

Alvaro Noboa, 55, a banana magnate who is Ecuador's wealthiest man, and Rafael Correa, an outspoken critic of U.S. policy in Latin America, will face each other in a Nov. 26 runoff after neither won an outright victory in Sunday's election.

Noboa won 26.7 percent of the vote to 22.5 percent for Correa, based on 70 percent of the ballots counted so far. Eleven other candidates split the rest.

The totals were based on a computerized "quick count" of paper ballots that stalled before dawn Monday due to technical failures by E-Vote, the Brazilian company contracted by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal. E-Vote apologized for the delay Monday and said it was working to resolve the problem. The tribunal has 10 days to complete the official count.

Correa had been favored to lead Sunday's voting and didn't take well to being edged out by Noboa, who had been rising fast in pre-election polls. Correa complained he had been robbed of votes that would have given him a first-round victory, but presented no proof.

Noboa, who is making his third bid for president, said Correa was a sore loser.

"The people have given this kid such a whipping that he is acting like a spoiled brat. They've told him to take a hike," Noboa said, calling Correa a communist and "a friend of Chavez, a friend of Cuba." (emphasis added)

Chavez's man in Quito

If the polls are any indication, Rafael Correa, an ally of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, will be elected president of Ecuador on Sunday.

The only possible good news from that prospect is uncertainity about how the American-educated economist will actually rule.

Will he be a nut like Chavez and Little Evo in Bolivia.

Or will he govern in the real world, like Lula in Brazil?

And does Ecuador have enough time to find out?

Chavez tries out a new partner

They're not Abbott and Costello, or even Marx and Lenin, but Hugo Chavez and his Ecuadorean tag team partner Rafael Correa have their own comedy act they are trying to sell.

Unfortunately, they are not funny.

Just dangerous.

First, Chavez, the Clown of Caracas, goes to the United Nations and calls President Bush "the devil."

Correa, a friend of Chavez and the leftist front-runner in the Oct. 15 presidential elections in Ecuador, says Chavez insulted the devil with his remarks.

"For that comparison, the devil should be really offended," Correa told a local television station, according to a Reuters story.

With friends like these ...

... who needs a crazy uncle?

Leftist Ecuadorean presidential candidate Rafael Correa said Monday he is proud to call Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is a friend.

''I am honored by the friendship. I don't see what the problem is,'' Correa said, according to an Associated Press story.

He doesn't see what the problem is?

Well, even if you ignore Chavez' affinity for dictators, just consider the mess he has made of Venezuela.

Ecuadorean journalist José Hidalgo Pallares reminds his readers:

After seven and a half years as president, with inflation in Venezuela at 15 percent, unemployment at 13 percent as of 2005 (higher than the 11 percent at the beginning of his mandate), and with a poverty level reaching 55 percent in 2003, which according to the most recent data was 47 percent in 2004, Mr. Hugo Chavez seems to have forgotten the reason he was elected: To improve the living conditions of his people, and not to get involved in matters that don't concern him.

Beyond the spectacle that he puts on at every stop of his round-the-world tour -which is all that his presidency amounts to - and the laughter that he elicits by making a mockery of George W. Bush (of course, with no lack of motive), Hugo Chavez has taken upon himself attributes that don't correspond to him, believing himself capable of imposing his will on several Latin-American countries.

Read Pallares' entire column, in English, here.

Ecuadoreans go to the polls on Oct. 15. The latest surveys show Correa leading, but a runoff in November likely will be needed to decide the winner.

Hopefully, Ecuadoreans, like Peruvian and Mexican voters before them, will serve as a roadblock for further expansion of Chavezism.

Idiot Castro lovers

Chavez, Castro, Morales

Hugo "Mini-Me" Chavez of Venezuela and Evo "Little Evo" Morales of Bolivia talked on the phone today about their pimp daddy, Fidel Castro.

This is what they said. (And, no, I am not making it up.)

"This morning I learned that he's very well, that he is already getting out of bed, he's talking more than he should — because he talks a lot, you know. He has sent us greetings," Chavez said.

Morales said he was glad to learn of Castro's recovery, and "what's left is for him to be incorporated into the battle of his country" again. Saying Castro was like an "older brother," Morales added, "We hope to see our friend Fidel soon."

Chavez replied, "More than an older brother, he is like the pope for all of us, the revolutionaries of this continent." Chavez said he will hold a special edition of his program, "Hello President," next Sunday in honor of Castro's 80th birthday. (emphasis added)