Venezuela's torn PSUV holds first congress post-Chavez

[Zorro]

The United Socialist Party of Venezuela appears anything but, as it heads into its first congress since the death of founder Hugo Chavez torn by power struggles and economic woes.

The populist firebrand's hand-picked successor, President Nicolas Maduro, faces internal dissent over his leadership at the PSUV's third congress this weekend, and deep rifts have emerged over economic policies that some members blame for the severe shortages racking the country.

"At first it seemed like the strategic objective for the congress was to consolidate Maduro as political boss and unify the chain of command," said social psychologist and political analyst Colette Capriles.

"But that objective changed. The congress is going to be a confrontation between the party base and the halls of power," she told AFP.

http://news.yahoo.com/venezuelas-torn-psuv-holds-first-congress-post-chavez-020334498.html

[Marksman_91]

1. Oh, by the way, there's one more thing you should know

Last Sunday the PSUV held elections among its militants to choose the new regional delegates of the party. And out of the little more than 7 million people registered to vote in the party's commissions, only between 10-15% of its voters participated. These are not numbers I'm making up, these were said by one of the most pro-Chavista bloggers in one of the most pro-Chavista sites, Aporrea.org. His name is Nicmer Evans. Here's the link to the article: http://www.aporrea.org/poderpopular/a191879.html The title reads "The Abstention in the PSUV party." What's interesting is that different chavista big-heads have all given different (but all unofficial) numbers regarding how many voted. Some said it was around 2 million, while other analysts say it was less than a million. Either way, the PSUV has sure taken its sweet time to release any official numbers regarding how many voted. It's been already almost a week since then, and we still got nothing. Even during the elections for the new representatives in the National Assembly the numbers were given in less than a day. Hell, in any developed nation those numbers would've surely been released surely in less than a week. I think the level of abstention is so bad that the PSUV is too embarrassed to show them any time soon, and probably wants to give them a make-over before they do, so that they don't look THAT bad.

[MADem]

2. Some PSUV quietly crossed over and demonstrated with the students not long ago.

Toilet paper and dishwashing liquid know no political party.