Thanks, but no thanks
For those not paying attention, Chávez has refused to recognize "president elect" Felipe Calderón in Mexico. Bravo. I think the same is the case with Evo Morales in Bolivia. Not surprisingly, the Mexican government is less than pleased. Perhaps more surprising is the reaction from the Mexican left. A spokesperson for AMLO recently said, "I would say [to Chávez], don’t help me, compadre." This seems to be something that needs to be said for political reasons, but also may reflect the ambiguous role of Chavez’s impact on elections. Some claim that association with Chavez harmed both AMLO as well as Ollanta Humala in Peru, but I’m not so sure (given my views on the electoral merits of antagonism).
Bolivia has said it won’t recognize Calderon either. Chavez, in MEX and GUAT anyway, enjoys a kind of pariah status among the ‘respectable’ left. the crass rationale for this, from what i gleaned, is twofold: 1. the ‘respectable left’ tends to be representatives of the bourgeoisie y los blancos anyway and 2. he says and does the things that many wish they could but can’t for reasons of either bad faith, strucutral dependency, and etc.
…although even the NYtimes noted that there was some applause in the UN general assembly when chavez called bush ‘the devil’ and crossed himself today from the rostrum…
Comment by donaldinho — September 20, 2006 @ 5:40 pm