Chavez ex wife runs for mayor
...The Guardian reports that one of Chavez current methods of dealing with opponents is to tape their conversations and make them public.Marisabel Rodriguez, 43, an attractive blonde former television anchor, has emerged as one of her ex-husband's fiercest critics and is running for mayor in her home city of Barquisimeto in next Sunday's municipal elections.
Mrs Rodriguez played a key role in opposing her former husband's proposed president-for-life constitutional reforms last December, contributing to his embarrassing and unexpected defeat in the referendum he called to rubber stamp the changes.
In an apparent fit of pique, Mr Chavez filed a lawsuit in May for better visitation rights to see their daughter Rosines, 11, dominating headlines nationwide.
But he dropped the battle after Mrs Rodriguez, now married to a tennis coach, accused him of harassment and made him look like a selfish father using their child as a pawn in a messy family dispute.
Mr Chavez is also faced setbacks beyond his control. For he has long been able to use his country's glut of petrodollars to secure the support of the slum-dwelling poor with the medical and free meal programmes on which they depend to survive.
But as world oil prices plummet, his scope for pursuing such projects will have to be curtailed.
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Barquisimeto's outgoing mayor, Henry Falcon, a Chavez ally is stepping down to run for provincial governor. The polls suggest that either opposition contender – Mrs Rodriguez or Alfredo Ramos – would defeat the pro-Chavez candidate, Amalia Saez. But if they split the vote, Mrs Saez could hold the city for the president's side.
Mrs Rodriguez is gaining much of her support from female voters turned off by Mr Chavez's testosterone-pumped politics. When she arrived in the slum of El Bombonal, a gritty neighbourhood of narrow streets and simple buildings located next to a highway, women and children flooded the street.
She demonstrated a natural touch as she entered homes and chatted with women about their lives. About 225 miles southwest of the capital Caracas, Barquisimeto may be a city of a million people but in many ways it feels like a small provincial town.
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...Despite the unethical tactics, Chavez appears to be losing popularity and his candidates may lose several elections. The dropping price of il will also make it harder for him to buy votes.
President Hugo Chávez has filled the airwaves with tapped conversations of his political foes to embarrass and apparently intimidate them in the run-up to regional elections. State TV has broadcast the recordings, enhanced with comic sound effects....
...The prime target has been Manuel Rosales, an opposition leader who is tipped to become mayor of Maracaibo, Venezuela's second city. One advert features him discussing buying expensive jewellery, along with sound and visual effects of rings and a Cartier watch.
Another advert plays a conversation with Rosales negotiating the purchase of cattle, to a backdrop of mooing sounds and cartoon pictures of coins.
Other politicians, as well as journalists and diplomats, have found private conversations, as well as photographs and video images, broadcast on state TV.
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Much of the information is believed to be intercepted by the Cuban-backed intelligence services. The government passes selected excerpts to state networks.
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