Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles easily won a primary election on Sunday to become the unity candidate against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, vowing to end 13 years of socialist rule that he said has left the OPEC nation in crisis.
Capriles’ candidacy had a firm start as unexpectedly high participation of nearly 3 million people in the primary vote signaled the opposition can mobilize supporters ahead of the Oct. 7 presidential election.
The 39-year-old, center-left state governor’s bid was further bolstered by a show of unity among other candidates from the opposition, which for years suffered from internal disputes that ultimately benefited Chavez.
Chavez RIDING HIGH
Yet with Chavez riding high in polls, still popular among the poor and spending massively on welfare projects, Capriles will need to go beyond the vague promises and feel-good factor of his primary campaign if he is to unseat the president.
“This is about the unity of all Venezuelans that want progress,” Capriles told thousands of cheering supporters gathered outside his campaign headquarters on Sunday night. “We have a country in crisis and a government dedicated only to partisan politics.”
His strong showing, winning 62 percent of the primary vote, will likely lift Venezuelan bonds, which react well to any news suggesting a change from Chavez’s state-centered economic model.
Capriles says he will maintain the best of Chavez’s welfare policies, while only gradually dismantling controversial measures that include price and currency controls plus nationalizations of everything from farms to oil service companies.
Hard sell
However, it will be a hard sell to convince voters in Venezuela’s rural backwaters and urban slums won over by Chavez’s potent combination of fierce nationalism, abundant charisma and huge welfare programs.
State media immediately began describing Capriles as a “right-wing” candidate, with one prominent late-night commentator questioning the opposition’s figure of 2.9 million participants.
Heavy on generalizations and in a hoarse voice, Capriles’ acceptance speech showed his public style is still far behind the smoothly loquacious Chavez, who recently spoke for a record-breaking nine-and-a-half hours in a speech to Congress.
“The guy may have won the primaries, but he’s so lacking in charisma, it’s not going to be easy for him,” Venezuelan Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Temir Porras said via Twitter.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS