Posts tagged #Election

Don’t write off Maduro: why Venezuela is not another Ukraine

By Rodrigo Acuña and Luis F. Angosto-Ferrandez

March 24, 2014

The Conversation

A wave of street protests, some violent, has been sweeping Venezuela. These attracted international media coverage, which often presented protests as the expression of a national crisis that anticipated the fall of president Nicolas Maduro and the collapse of his leftist Bolivarian project.

Several analysts rushed to draw parallels between Venezuela and Ukraine. They suggested the turbulent ousting of Víktor Yanukóvich in the latter foretold that Maduro’s days as head of state were numbered. This comparison was misguided.

So far, 34 people have died and more than 460 people have been wounded. These figures include bystanders and anti- and pro-government supporters.

The Mystery of the Missing Ballots

By Rodrigo Acuña

New Matilda

13 September 2006

This week, one of the largest cities in Latin America is almost at a standstill as tensions rise over what many are calling a fraudulent election. Yet with notable exceptions, the international press have ignored the crisis.

Since the 2 July Mexican presidential election, which was won by National Action Party (PAN) candidate Felipe Calderón under controversial circumstances, the historical Zócalo Plaza and other prominent areas of Mexico City have been occupied by hundreds of thousands of supporters of rival candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador from the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PDR).

Obrador's supporters claim that he was robbed of electoral victory through fraud, while Obrador himself has declared he will set up a parallel government if votes are not recounted in full.