It could be the cover of a romantic ballad album, a man in a blue shirt with a soft gaze and a heartfelt paean that begins: ”Always, I did everything for love.”
Meet Hugo Chávez, Venezuelan President, socialist revolutionary, globetrotting firebrand, Washington nemesis and now, in election campaign mode, a lover. Newspaper adverts have done away with the beret, the red shirt and the martial rhetoric and introduced a poet, against a leafy background, with a ”message of love for the people of my Venezuela”.
In a 13-line poem, Chávez says he became a painter, a student, a soldier, a president and a champion of the poor out of love, and asks to be re-elected in December. It concludes: ”There is a lot more to do. I need more time. I need your vote. Your vote for love.” The tone is designed to appeal to the undecided voters to give him another term.
Opposition newspapers published a riposte, signed Venezuela: ”Using all your lies I fell in love/ But throughout these eight years/ I realised you deceived me/ Don’t ask me for another opportunity/ You did not value my vote or my trust/ I will search for my own happiness/ Venezuela.” —