Look at the picture above. Do you see the red circle on the left upper side? Those are the People's Fingers. Yes, that is right, the People's. I'll explain.
Hugo Chávez Frías did not like the opposition had won several states and municipalities during last November's elections (accounting for 45% of the population). Consequently, he and his regime proceeded to decree in a rush all kinds of "laws" to take away the control of most revenues, schools, hospitals and much more from those regions. They diverted millions of dollars from the exiting governments to the national one so that the incoming opposition governors and mayors would have less to work with.
Still, Caracas was a problem: its people, including those of one of Latin America's largest slum, Petare, had elected Antonio Ledezma, an opposition leader. What does Chávez and his Chávez Assembly do? They decide to create a figure that completely circumvent the post of Ledezma and takes away almost all of the budget that he had to manage. Chávez selected Jacqueline Faría. Do you know what she said now?
Well, here the article in Spanish. When non-Chavista journalists managed to approach her (that is getting more and more difficult to do) and asked her what she thought about her being elected by one person and not by more than 700000 as Antonio Ledezma, she said "Chavez's fingers are the People's fingers, his fingers want the best for Caracas". Her followers chanted "the one who rules here is Chávez and the revolution". Further, she said her direct election by the president (and replacement of Ledezma, basically) was valid because the national government is in Caracas. She added "it would be uncomfortable for the president to have opposition leaders around". She also said she was going to work side by side with the pro-Chavez mayor of Libertador (another part of Greater Caracas) to build a socialist Caracas (the other mayors can bugger off, I assume).
What are the European socialists saying about this? Hello? Shame on you if you do not speak up.
Well, if you speak German or French I can give you two examples, here (admittedly, extreme left) and here (so-called social-democrats or PS from French-speaking Belgium).
You would not be better than the right parties that tolerated and even flirted with equally fascistoid governments of the right in Latin America.
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