A photographic dossier

The above picture was taken in September in Circunvalación 1, a busy Maracaibo street. It shows chavista Maracaibo mayor Giancarlo Di Martino and Pres. Chávez, the former conveniently dressed in red-hot chavista electoral gear. Nominally, it is an ad paid for by Maracaibo City Hall to advertise the 2007 America's Soccer Cup. The sign says "For 10 million hopes", as in 10 million votes for Chávez, the President's electoral slogan. Notice also that Chávez, his slogan and the color red appear much more prominently than the actual Soccer tournament. It's nice to see Maracaibo City Hall worried about promoting a Soccer tournament, we all know how under-advertised those tend to be. I guess the cleanup of Lake Maracaibo was simply not a priority.
This ad is prominently displayed in the Ducolsa building in Ciudad Ojeda, Venezuela. I did not know what Ducolsa was, but no need to Google it, since the ad says "It is (sic.) the Venezuelan State's entity, an appendage of the Ministry of Energy and Oil, positioned nationwide as the leading Production and Social Welfare Enterprise in the area of building and equipping integral habitats (sic.), in harmony with the policies of justice and poverty abatement that Our Bolivarian Government (sic.) is spearheading." It also shows Chávez dressed in his red campaign uniform, and prominently says "With CHAVEZ, the people govern". Boy, was that a mouthful to translate!



This one is a bit harder to read since the angle is not the best. It is from the Miranda tower, a PDVSA building in Maracaibo, taken in September. The banner says something like "Sowing oil for integration and for life.", and it shows a three-story high Chávez (yikes - hide the children!) looking yonder a la Chairman Mao. Notice Chávez conveniently attired, yet again, in electoral red.




The above picture was taken in mid-July at Sabana Grande Metro station, in the heart of Caracas. It is an ad paid for by CASA, the government entity in charge of administering, among others, the government's "Mercal" chain of supermarkets that sell ultra-subsidized groceries, courtesy of the Venezuelan taxpayer.

The ad refers to "10 million opportunities" for Venezuela, in reference to the Chávez re-election slogan, "10 million votes"...

One is left wondering: why would CASA run an ad without referring to its low prices? Or, then again, why does CASA need advertising at all? It is, after all, nothing more than a bureaucratic pitstop.



The above is a picture of an office inside the Labor Ministry in Western Venezuela, taken in mid-August.

As is clear, the Labor Ministry proudly shows a poster of Chavez with the electoral slogan "10 million", as in 10 million votes, a goal that has now been scaled down. Details on the reader or the exact location of the office shall remain, like the person in the photo, confidential.



This picture was taken in the first semester of 2006. It shows the facade of a PDVSA engineering office, PDVSA being the Venezuelan government's enormous oil company. The huge advertisement on the front wall reads "toward 10 million", as in 10 million votes for Chávez. The two hands and the slogan are an integral part of Mr. Chávez's re-election campaign.