Do you think he is ambitious for his own self or for his political cause?

OswaldTheOsprey

People seem pretty divided about his real motivation.  He gained sympathy after fighting his way through the early problems and because of the economic disadvantage and historic abuses of South American countries by oppressive nations he is an underdog, which also affords sympathy.   

I agree that based on his recent actions a play for dictatorship is still possible, the jury is still out.  It could be suggested that the substantial social improvement reforms offered might have been a carrot proposed to allow him to push through the re-election reform. This failed, but he has in any case gained credibility by his actions.  Astute, from any angle.  Time will tell if this was random or calculated and whether he IS astute or, as one poster suggested, an idiot.

I would not, however, expect him to tailor his actions to suit the views of the international community, for example as suggested in your last sentence, if he genuinely believes there is no one capable of pushing through the reforms he views as essential to his country's welfare.  He may feel the time to do this is after an effective political system is established.  I do not say this is correct though...

Is your own affiliation to capitalism?  For example, what are your views on Castro?  I am trying to establish if your views are biased by influence deriving from your own culture.

There is a very large community of spanish inmigrants in Venezuela. Most of them come from the Canary Islands, that they left in the sixties heading to Venezuela. I've got two cousins living over there that I met for the first time a couple of years ago. One of them is married to a dentist. Her husband has been investing money for years in his business for years.

Now Chavez says that as Health is a very important aspect of life and many venezolanos are poor, prices of private doctors has to be fixed. Now dentists or doctors are not free to charge the amount of money they decide for their services. And this is communism, folks.

There are a lot of poor people in Venezuela. Don't you think that these people would live a better life if Chavez would use the money he is getting from the venezuelan oil in the poors instead giving it to Cuba or Bolivia in order to achieve his nasty socialists plans?

Saludos

That's very very true OswaldTheOsprey. He's always saying that foreing countries -former spanish PM Aznar among others- are insulting Venezuela when they are only talking about him. But Chavez believes he is Venezuela.
My cousin and her husband are plannig to leave Venezuela to live in Miami, where they hope to create richness, to employ people and for sure to earn as much money as they can, but I'm confident that they would rather prefer to stay at home, to contribute in their own country, Venezuela, but Chavez is ruinning the country.
What a pity!

I support a Capitalist system accompanied by an advanced welfare state, and am a strong believer in parliamentary democracy. Therefore I am very opposed to Castro's rule, and dislike anything remotely dictatorial.

Well, admittedly even moderate Socialist governments typically nationalize health care. A larger problem is that Chavez is nationalizing heavy industries.

I suspect I should research Chavez myself to find the answers I seek.

Jabato, is the idea of nationalizing medical care not to improve the lot of the poor?  Is it only your relatives who should have a comfortable lifestyle?   

Seriously, I understand people wanting to make money and reach a level of comfort, but it is not more important to provide accesible healthcare for the population?  In the UK we have both private and national health dental care.

Hmm. Perhaps Sweden. All Scandinavian "social democracies".