Criticism of Chavez's military strategy: National fragmentation

Authors:
Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri and José Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

No war expert has ever proposed to divide a country to strengthen it, quite the contrary. However, since Chavez came to power in Venezuela, one of his main objectives has been to strictly separate Venezuelans, working to ensure that the population remains divided into two halves that hate each other to death.

Thanks to Chavez, Venezuela is now a fragmented country, protected by an armed force which is no stranger to this national reality, and is therefore also a victim of the chavismo-opposition fight.

Chavez says that one of his intentions is to protect Venezuela from foreign interests, but beyond words, Venezuela is more militarily vulnerable today than in the past, due to the sharp national polarization Chavez has incited among Venezuelans.

Because of the hatred sown by the chavista revolution, with great difficulty an opponent of the current government would go into battle to defend the president, the same who daily takes ruthless measures to destroy the Venezuelans that question him. But also no chavista would be comfortable fighting alongside its hated political opponents.

Defending a country is not simply a matter of spending billions on weapons. A good military strategy does not neglect a key political aspect as national unity.

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Polls for Bolivia's presidential election

Authors:
José Alberto López Rafaschieri and Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

Next December 6, Bolivians will go to general elections in order to elect president and parliament. In this election, according to Bolivia's new constitution, the current president may seek re-election. Something that seems quite possible considering the latest opinion poll.

We refer to the survey conducted by Unitel, which puts Evo Morales with 52% of the voting intentions, while his nearest rival -Manfred Reyes Villa- barely reaches 22%. Then follows Samuel Doria Medina with 10% of the electorate. This study was done from October 29 to November 6, and has a margin of error of 2.4%.

However, while Evo Morales will surely be reelected, two factors that stain his administration are his authoritarian style and his closeness to Hugo Chavez. What has led, for example, to handle erroneously the disagreement with his opponents, and has questioned the sovereign status of his government. Errors that will hurt him in the near future unless they are amended.

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Others consume more electricity than Venezuela, without blackouts

Authors:
Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri and José Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

Leaving out what they say about the phenomenon of El Niño, there are two excuses used by Chavistas to justify the current electricity crisis in Venezuela: that our country is now so prosperous that consumes much electricity, and that Venezuelans are wasteful.

However, if we look at the data -IEA figures- of world power consumption, we will realize the unreality of these Chavez's theories.

Venezuela consumes about 84 billion kwh per year, but the U.S. demands almost 4 trillion kwh per year -46 times more than Venezuela- without US citizens living plagued by recurrent and unexpected blackouts, as the ones provoked by the Chavez administration.

Furthermore, the European Union consumes about 3 trillion kWh per year -34 times more than Venezuela- without Europeans needing to support a strict rationing of electricity, as the one that is in place today in Venezuela.

And even in Latin America, a country like Brazil consumes 402 billion kwh per year -4.8 times more than Venezuela- again without Brazilians having to endure daily interruptions of electric service, as happens in Chavez's Venezuela.

So, it is illogical to claim that the factors causing the electricity crisis in Venezuela are over-consumption and waste, since, as we have seen, others require much more electricity than Venezuela without going into crisis.

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Poll: A majority in favor of the Colombia-US military agreement

Authors:
Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri and José Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

During October 2009, we made the following question to the visitors of our Spanish website Morochos.org:

Your opinion about the agreement that allows the U.S. military to use Colombian bases is:

We gave two options and each received the following percentage of votes...

1) In favor, 57%

2) Against, 43%

Observations:

While this agreement is opposed by several governments in Latin America, the persistent problem of the FARC, and the support that Chavez gives to the socialist guerrillas, could be causing a kindly view of the United States' military presence in the area.

Apparently, this accord is being perceived in some circles as a way to combat guerrillas and hamper the Chavez's plans in Colombia.

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Polls for Honduras' presidential election

Authors:
José Alberto López Rafaschieri and Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

A general election is scheduled, on 29 November, in order to give solution to the political crisis in Honduras. There, the main competitors are Porfirio Lobo Sosa -from the National Party- and Elvin Santos – from the Liberal Party-.

According to a Gallup poll made from 13 to 19 October, 37% of Hondurans favors Porfirio Lobo Sosa, 21% Elvin Santos, and 35% are undecided. Margin of error 2.8%.

It is striking that, according to this survey, the Liberal Party will be punished by the Honduran electorate. Something that is not surprising in the sense that: 1) a representative of that party, Manuel Zelaya, was the one who caused the political crisis by violating the Honduran constitution, and 2) Roberto Micheletti -also from the Liberal Party- was among the main protagonists in the coup against Zelaya.

So, we can just wait for election day to see if the 35% of undecided voters, that shows the survey, will choose one of the leading candidates or simply will not go to vote.

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The sucre and the exchange rate stability

Authors:
José Alberto López Rafaschieri and Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

One theme that emerges from the ALBA proposal to establish the sucre as a common currency, is the exchange rate stability.

From a macroeconomic perspective, the smallest economies are the most vulnerable to domestic and international events. In that sense, a common currency would be beneficial for the ALBA countries as it would be backed by a larger economy, which would allow the new monetary unit to better withstand the impact of the economic problems than the currency of a single nation could resist.

However, that's the theory, because a practical problem for the sucre is that the ALBA is composed of only nine members -of which Venezuela is the only with resources for such a project- and has failed to attract the interest of giants like Brazil and Mexico. This creates an obstacle because those who make up the Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America and the Caribbean are small economies with serious difficulties, that will have many setbacks when devoting resources to support a multinational exchange rate.

Therefore, until the leading nations of the region do not join the ALBA, it will threaten the goal of the sucre to provide exchange rate stability to the countries that adopt it.

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