Chavez's foes decide on primary

[Judi Lynn]

July 17, 2006, 12:35AM
Chavez's foes decide on primary
•Candidates see joint effort as best chance for victory

Los Angeles Times

CARACAS, VENEZUELA - Candidates who will oppose Hugo Chavez in Venezuela's December presidential election have decided to participate in a winner-take-all primary Aug. 13 to decide on a single candidate whom they all promise to support.

It is a measure of the opposition's weakness that politicians from the nine disparate parties decided on the joint primary in a bid to galvanize an opposition that has largely given up hope of defeating Chavez.

Major opposition parties boycotted last December's congressional elections after accusing Chavez of rigging the system. Chavez backers said the opposition merely was acknowledging it probably would lose.

Polls show Manuel Rosales, governor of Zulia state, and Julio Borges, a former assemblyman and TV show host, are the leading opposition figures, but both still trail by a wide margin.
(snip/...)

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/4050749.html

[WCGreen]

1. A leftist government is leading in the polls...

That can't be right...

The polls must be rigged...

They must be cheating...

Why else would these people be in power...

Oh they are so arrogant, the right...

[killbotfactory]

3. Must be a dictatorship.

Hell, The folks at Hardball had a discussion about it and decided it was so. They are never wrong.

[NorthernSun]

2. You mean they are actually going to run this time?

Instead of dropping out and complaining about the (monitored) election.
I'll believe it when I see it.