A Conversation with President Hugo

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In the same way that we and many countries have passed campaign finance laws, we must have some kind of regulation of the amount of air time candidates can buy or be given. We're basing our law on an Ecuadorian precedent that sets a time limit on how much air-time can be given to political candidates.

M: Yes, Brazil has laws like that too.

H. Yes. It's about time for a regulation of this type in Venezuela, passed through the legislative branch.

M: Can you talk a bit more about what your government has accomplished?

H: We've had 1,500 days in government, almost 4 years. Let's take the balance of that time.

In the health sector, we have dramatically reduced infant mortality. It was at 24 per 1,000 when I came to power, and it is now at 17 per thousand. We should put that into human terms and scale, because sometimes these numbers seem cold. Going from 24 to 17 means a 30% reduction, which translated into real numbers means that thousands of children's lives have been saved and they have survived, where previously they died just for being poor, or not having access to health services. Before, many expecting mothers did not go to the hospital, or their baby wasn't vaccinated after birth. We have greatly improved pre-natal care, and expanded the capability of hospitals. We've carried through a successful immunization plan, in order to really get at the causes of mortality.

For the first time in Venezuelan history, a president has advanced massive child immunization campaigns against hepatitis B. We've brought down the infection rate by 15%. We've reduced school truancy, and school enrollment has gone up 30% -- that's 30% over what it was. With this increase, we have brought 90% of truant children into the school system. It's a tremendous accomplishment. We've built schools all over the place. We've hired thousands of new teachers. We've raised the teacher salaries to their highest levels ever.

We've initiated the Bolivarian Schools program. We have one of the first Bolivarian high schools opening this afternoon. It's in Amazonas state, where I traveled two and a half years ago. While there, I was approached by a group of teenage boys, who complained about the lack of money for their school. It was a dirty school without running water or clean bathrooms. Today, it is a beautiful school! I'll update you on our progress up to today. We've created hundreds of schools across the country. Schools that were operating at a third of their capacity, we've invested millions of bolivares into these schools; we've made them like new. School districts that used to serve only 3,000 kids now serve thousands more. We've reduced school absenteeism from 10% in 1998 to 3% today. For the first time in Venezuelan history, anyone can be an athlete. I suffered my whole life from lack of access to baseballs and other sporting equipment. There was no equipment; there were no baseball diamonds. We've redone all the sports facilities across the country. We have the most and the finest sports installations in all of Latin America. The focus of our investment [in these installations] is at the school level.

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