Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has modest goals. He wants to rule forever (term limits were ended last year). But he also wants to rule Twitter. His head of communications said as much a few days ago. Or, at least, those around him think he will rule Twitter. “I’m sure he’ll break records for numbers of followers,” Diosdado Cabello told Bloomberg. Of course, at the time, he didn’t yet have a Twitter account set up. Now he does. And he’s gaining users fast.
Chavez’s account (freshly verified) is here. As you can see he already has over 100,000 followers after just two days of tweets — and just two (rather mundane) tweets. That’s pretty solid considering that it took famous Americans Conan O’Brien and Bill Gates months to reach just 800,000 followers. Still, Chavez has a ways to go before he gets anywhere near the top of the Twitter mountain. Ashton Kutcher and Britney Spears are currently racing to be the first users to 5 million followers.
Meanwhile, Chavez is following just 5 people. One, unsurprisingly is the one tied to Cuban leader Fidel Castro (though someone else tweets for him) Chavez’s mentor. The others Chavez follows appear to be fellow Venezuelan political leaders. As his background he appears to have chosen the same red found on the Venezuelan flag. His bio reads, “President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Bolivarian Soldier, Socialist and Anti-Imperialist.” And he’s tweeting using UberTwitter which means Chavez (or whomever is handling his account) may well be a BlackBerry user.
The best part though is his Twitter username: chavezcandanga. “Candanga” apparently literally translates into “the devil” — though, I’m told, people also use it to describe someone who is strong-willed, or fearless.