Elections’ Race Between “Two Lefts”

The official announcement of Teodoro Petkoff’s candidacy turned Venezuela 2006 presidential race on. Since April 20th, when the announcement was made, the Venezuelan political debate has been focused on what the editor of daily newspaper Tal Cual has to offer to the voters. Venezuelan bloggers have been debating Petkoff’s announcement from diverse perspectives:

Rayas y palabras highlights the ability to lead democratic dialogue as the main characteristic that differentiates Petkoff from President Chávez, who leans toward authoritarianism. According to HLP’s judgement, both leaders are not far apart regarding their approach to social policy.

Blog de RomRod points out that Petkoff’s major drawback is his lack of electoral machinery to reach the poor neighborhoods where Chávez’s personal appeal penetrates.

UnoConTodo claim that Petkoff’s candidacy generated hysteria among chavistas. Nonetheless, pro-Chávez blogs have been only copying and pasting a few articles from other pro-government sites in which Petkoff is labeled as neoliberal and accused of being an IMF agent. The best pro-Chávez blogs, such as El espacio de Lubrio are avoiding the topic of the country's most famous guerilla fighter, Teodoro Petkoff, running for President.

The strongest criticisms against Petkoff come from abstentionists, who characterize the socialist democratic leader as a Trojan horse, infiltrated by chavismo in order to break the opposition boycott against the elections. Meanwhile, libertarian bloggers regard Petkoff—as well as the others presidential candidates — as Little Chávez, populists, who are not going to promote the country's economic development.

English posts that contain "Teodoro Petkoff" per day for the last 30 days.
Technorati Chart

~

tag: /

1 comment

  • It amazes me that the oposition in Venezuela seeing that the ship is sinking is incapable of uniting against a common foe therefor they will get what they deserve that is in the end a military dictatorship that is the ultimate expresion of nationalism the way they know it
    Good luck Venezolanos

Join the conversation

Authors, please log in »

Guidelines

  • All comments are reviewed by a moderator. Do not submit your comment more than once or it may be identified as spam.
  • Please treat others with respect. Comments containing hate speech, obscenity, and personal attacks will not be approved.