Excerpts of column "Runrunes" (Rumors) of July 19

High

ISOLATED IN UNIFORM. It is not only about changing colors in his outfit. The script of Brazilian advisor Santana is fully observed. For this reason, we will stop seeing him "red, very red," as usual, to mix up with voters as he did with bishops- and try to deceive them and us, just as he did in previous elections. A bad loser gaining the upper hand, he would practice gerrymandering and rush at the people's will by means of rulemaking powers conferred under a tricky enabling law and capitalizing on a pseudo-majority at the National Assembly.  In view of the mightiness displayed by the opposition candidate and his steady rise in opinion polls, the old candidate who pursues reelection to complete 20 years in office  looks increasingly "lonely, fairly lonely." These days, surrounded by buffalos, tractors, soldiers, and storehouses, the impatient patient's loneliness has come to the fore. With successive obligatory simultaneous broadcasts, he purports to show off among his military counterparts. There, he feels at leisure. There is the need to continue paying for the transport of attendees at rallies. Incidentally, as they envisage another horizon, they show up, stamp their signatures as proof of attendance and walk away. (...) As the campaign goes on and the skinny (opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski) makes headway, the caudillo prepares a secret trip to Cuba for the requisite checkup...

Intermediate

LIBERTIES? It is a serious, painful election promise. The political-ideological expectations of President Hugo Chávez concerning the media, surpass the understanding both of his campaign team leader, (Caracas Mayor) Jorge Rodríguez and his operational Minister (of Communication and Information Andrés Izarra) Rizarrita. A line of argument in page 11 of Chávez's government plan for 2013-2019 is "to keep on working on communicational hegemony so that in Venezuela all voices are heard." President Chávez rounds off in a clearly dictatorial stance, that is, in the event of renewed government, he will "counter the production and valuation of prevailing cultural elements and historical stories, spread on several media and institutions." (...) Add to this, the confession of Minister of University Education Yadira Córdoba to her nearest at the Higher Education System. She avowed to them that in the event of Chávez's reelection, government intervention in universities would be fait accompli. The most serious aspect in her confidence is that the programs of study will be adapted to the 21st Century Socialism and that research "will be, as in the case of sports, supervised by Cubans." They plan to replicate the handbooks of Cuba and the extinct USSR, not even found in Russia, for that matter.

21st CENTURY CAPITALISM. The numbers released by the US Department of Trade show that from 2011 to 2012, Venezuelan imports from the United States have jumped by 44%, more than USD 5 billion in January-April, 2012. Last April, we smashed a record with imports from the very empire for the amount of USD 1.38 billion. (...) Even gasoline is purchased from Uncle Sam.

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