Michael Rowan
Special for El Universal

There are two stories to explain what Venezuela's 2006 presidential election choice will be about, one foreign and one domestic. The foreign story is about a strategic alliance of Venezuela with Iran, and Iran with Cuba, nuclear power or nuclear weapons, Russia versus France on Iran's nuclear intentions, the United Nations' concern, and whether Venezuela is safe to sit on the U.N. Security Council. And it is about Jews, Israel, Palestinians, Hamas, terrorism, Iran and Hamas wanting the destruction of Israel, and more war in the Middle East. And it is about North Korea, the proliferation of nuclear arms, and how China thinks about that, and selling oil to China. And it is about the United States, the Evil Empire, Mr. Danger, imperialism, genocide, terror, war, invasion, assassination and the Venezuelan defense of the fatherland against all that.

The domestic story is about poverty that affects more than half the population, unemployment and underemployment that affects more than half the population, increasing malnutrition, the re-emergence of epidemic diseases conquered in the past, inadequate housing for 1.6 million families, three times as many murders as a decade ago, collapsing infrastructure, official corruption, a failing democracy and abuses of property and human rights.

The two stories collide in government subsidies in Venezuela's barrios and its subsidy of home-heating oil in the slums of the Northeast United States. The standard of living conditions in Venezuela's barrios continue to rank among the worst in the world. In the United States, the poverty rate is set at $18,000 per year, Bs 48 million at the market exchange rate, or Bs 4 million per month, which is about ten times the minimum wage in Venezuela, and which millions in the barrios would die to have - some do so every day. Everything is relative, including poverty. A Venezuelan making Bs 48 million per year is in the lower middle class here. An American making $18,000 per year is poor there.

So what is the presidential election of 2006 all about? Is it about foreign affairs, or is it about Venezuela? And if it's about Venezuela, why aren't we reading every day about solutions to its endemic problems of poverty and corruption, rather than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? mrowan@cantv.net

Michael Rowan's column is published every Tuesday