Aveledo criticizes Chávez for not agreeing to debate

The executive secretary of the opposition alliance Unified Democratic Panel (MUD) Ramón Guillermo Aveledo affirmed that President Hugo Chávez's refusal to debate with challenger Henrique Capriles Radonski is a clear sign that he has nothing more to say to the people, for his time as Head of State is coming to an end.

"The words of the current president only reveal an understandable but bitter truth: he is afraid of the future. He persists with his old harangues and mismatching accounts that are clear indicators that nothing good has come as a result of his 14 years in office. The old expert of recycling grandiose promises does not want to debate because he has nothing new to say," Aveledo asserted.

He added that, in his view, the president is determined to take us to a failed past so that he can justify the current national crisis that he has maintained for years through the absolute control he possesses and his aggressive, threatening rhetoric.

"The president trembles when he imagines a Venezuela of equal progress for everyone a country that confronts its pressing issues without underlying insecurities but with solutions; a Venezuela where everyone can live in peace and prosperity, with security, employment, opportunity, and good education and health services. This is an image that is unbearable to the man who has kept us in crisis for 14 years. That which is a dream to the people is instead a nightmare to our current president; it would most tangibly prove his ultimate failure," concluded the executive secretary of the Unified Democratic Panel.

Translated by Alejandro Osio