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Hugo Chavez Calls for Twitter Witch Hunt on Currency Traders

by Amar Toor on May 17, 2010 at 11:00 AM

Hugo Chavez on Twitter
After finally taking the plunge and joining Twitter, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has wasted no time in using the micro-blogging service to blame others for his country's economic woes. During his weekly radio and television address this weekend, Chavez urged his followers to use Twitter to alert government authorities if they run into any currency speculators, whom Chavez blames for Venezuela's rampant currency inflation. Calling the speculators "thieves," Chavez asked his followers to send him messages about any they may know, and promised that, in the meantime, police raids on illegal traders would continue as scheduled.

As the Huffington Post mentions, many experts argue that Venezuela's bolivar has inflated so drastically simply because of uncertainty surrounding Chavez's own policies regarding the black market trade of American dollars. With consumer prices skyrocketing by 5.2-percent in April alone, though, Chavez is clearly taking no chances. Assuring his fan base that his "Twitter account is open" for the denunciation of currency speculators, the President went on to add that his police force has "already launched some raids, thanks to the complaints from the people."

Truthfully, we all should've seen this coming, right? Given his egomaniacal public history, and his unique propensity for hearing his own voice, it's no surprise that Chavez would take an inherently pluralist tool and twist it for the advancement of his own agenda. Calling for a nationwide witch-hunt is hardly progressive, but you can't really blame El Presidente for using everything at his disposal to spread his message. For the sake of democracy, we just hope his inordinately noisy voice doesn't completely drown out the others in the room. [From: Huffington Post]

Tags: bolivar, currency, CurrencyMarkets, CurrencyTrading, Hugo Chavez, HugoChavez, inflation, politics, socialnetworking, top, twitter, venezuela, web

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