http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/976/snip
Caracas—Just minutes after the official results of Venezuela’s August 15 presidential recall election were announced at 4 a.m., a gathering of Hugo Chávez’s supporters outside the presidential palace chanted “home run.” Days before, President Chávez predicted he would hit a home run that soared over Cuba and landed on the White House.
Speaking to the crowd from the balcony that morning, Chávez directed his words at Washington: “This election did not decide whether a man stays in power. Rather it was a triumph of a political model that is confronting savage neoliberalism.” Chávez, who favors a strong government role in the economy and is an ardent critic of the Bush-promoted Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), is clearly at odds with U.S. policy for Latin America on a wide range of issues.
Indeed, the 58 percent vote for the Venezuelan president is as much a defeat for Bush as it is a victory for Chávez. The pro-Chávez campaign largely centered on the contributions made to the Venezuelan opposition by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which is financed by the U.S. Congress. A number of the top leaders of organizations that received NED funding signed the proclamation decree of the short-lived government that overthrew Chávez in April 2002. Chávez even accused the NED of bankrolling the National Consensus Plan that opposition leaders presented just weeks before the recall election in reaction to criticism that they lacked common goals. Chávez called the plan “Consensus for Bush.”
During a February 29 rally, Chávez, incited by mounting evidence of NED interference in Venezuela’s elections, accused the organization of direct involvement in the April 2002 coup and announced his government’s initiation of an “anti-imperialist” stage. But Chávez’s anti-imperialism is a far cry from that of Lenin. Rather than lashing out at foreign capital, Chávez has concentrated his fire on Bush. Chávez is particularly sensitive to remarks from the White House holding him responsible for all decisions, even those made by the national electoral commission and the courts.
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