Chabuki watch #1
With the election season upon us, Hugo Chávez is going to try to convince voters that he is not the fire-breathing socialist leviathan that we’ve come to know, but rather a meek social democrat wishing to make society simply more humane, pretty please.
We’ve seen this theater before, most notably in his infamous "I do it all for love" messages from the 2006 campaign. It’s a blatant attempt to try to convince voters he’s more of a centrist than those mean escualidos would have you think.
Right on cue, like some sort of macabre, never-ending kabuki, he’s at it again.
So, we thought it would be fun to keep a close tab on this strange ritual, and document it with a recurring section we call "Chabuki watch."
The first entry came yesterday, with Chávez saying that (gasp) he actually does believe in private property.
"I respect private property. It can co-exist with socialism, as long as it’s not monopolistic."
Let the games begin.
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