So, are we invaded or not?

One maddening thing about being overseas is dependency on tweeter to try to follow what is really going on in Venezuela. Except for the honorable mention of El País in Spain the rest of the world has, understandably, more important matters to deal with than a suicidal asshole of a country. And yet even French TV, the all news channels that is, find time between the ridiculous "Nuit Debout" with their spoiled trade unions protests and Egyptian  mystery planes to cover recent Venezuelan events.


The point here is that no one seems to believe anymore what the regime says. True, there are some like PODEMOS in Spain who unable to hide their past financing by Chavez are still defending the regime or at least remain silent. But the fact of the matter is that Venezuela is an embarrassment for all, for having let it go so far or for having supported it so long. All want it to go away. At least this is the impression I get.

And why would it be otherwise?

Maduro publishes a super-duper emergency decree controlling everything under the sun. The National Assembly turns it down. The high court TSJ declares it constitutional, which it is not, and the way it was turned down by the Assembly was so constitutional that even the TSJ could not directly assail it. So now, for the love of the deity, I am not sure whether the decree is applicable or not. Though apparently there is a state of commotion or something at play....  You tell me.

Saturday the military exercises to defend Venezuela took place. We saw pictures of soldiers? militia? wearing Cuban flags, wielding sticks in lieu of rifles for a gran total of "troops" larger than D-day operations, if we are to believe tweeter wits. Meanwhile no one nowhere reported of any troop concentration unless you count an AWACS doing its routine drug traffic control over the Caribbean as the preparation of massive US Marine landing. If Uribe is raising an mercenary army against Maduro he learned well from the FARC on how to hide it.

But the cherry over the cake of ridicule was added by Maduro himself who with anti invasion military maneuvers, threat of coups, internal commotions, left Saturday to promote scientific and commercial exchanges with Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.

Huh?

These islands have not much to offer Venezuela, and Venezuela even less back. However Maduro goes there for one and only one reason, to start a campaign to ensure he will retain at least a third of the OAS vote he needs to stop the application of the Democratic Charter on Venezuela. If Jamaica and Trinidad vote for the sanctions the small islands will follow and Venezuela will be an official pariah state. Brazil and Argentina lost there is only some cash left to buy these island votes, cash coming from killing a few Venezuelans from malnutrition and lack of medicine. But who cares?

That much we can understand. Coups, revolt and invasion  are all smoke screens to distract the Venezuelan hoi poloi. What really matters is revolutionary respectability, and places where to hide when the time comes.

The Hague is starting to look too good for some in the regime........







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The developping coup

You need to keep following closely what is going on in Venezuela. Any distraction, the more so if you are overseas like yours truly these days, and you may miss the gran finale.

As expected, a cornered regime has started its moves to abolish the national assembly and establish a bona fide dictatorship. It has no choice: elections are not an option for them, they cannot win them even with massive fraud. And lose they cannot because a change of government means that too many of them will go to jail. Thus in front of the perspective of a recall election on Maduro that all indicate will be a sure defeat for Maduro there is nothing else left but to block the drive for recall election.  This is underway at great risk as the mood of the country is clearly set for change. Not necessarily in favor the opposition  but most definitely to kick out Maduro.

Meanwhile there is the financial question that the National Assembly controls and the impossibility to annul each and every single law the assembly votes. The OAS is getting ready to apply the Democratic Charter and time presses. Using the silly excuse that a foreign ex-president can by himself raise a mercenary army able to defeat the Venezuelan one last week end Maduro decreed a state of emergency with wide ranging attributions for Maduro. One of the worrisome ones is that PSUV committee for food distribution control, CLAP of recent creation, will have power to collaborate with army and police for public order. Translation : civilians from Maduro political party will become gauleiters directing armed folks to control non chavista folks, in particular those demanding a recall election. From denial of food to outright repression is how it will work.

Sure enough a few minutes ago the National Assembly exerted it's constitutional right, and duty, to reject the said decree established to defend, allegedly, the fatherland. Now we are left to see how Maduro and the rubber stamp cum private regime attorney high court TSJ rules out such a momentous and necessary Assembly vote. Beyond constitutional considerations just on ethical parameters, the decree of Maduro cannot be accepted. Period.

And thus we are now on the "my way or the highway" moment we were all awaiting eagerly.

Is Maduro going to be allowed to "defend" the country at any price, including democracy, human rights and parliamentary representation?

Is the Assembly to be allowed to control an executive clearly going bonkers?

Time's up

UPDATED: unknown to me as I was typing this overseas, Maduro was in cadena announcing a new emergency decree rendering moot the National Assembly and annuling Recall Election efforts for all practical purposes. In short confirming all that I wrote below.
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I have the feeling that the fall of Dilma in Brazil is going to speed up the conclusion of the Venezuelan farce. For the Narko-Cubano-Colonial regime action is required before the Temer presidency gets a chance to settle in. Not that the odds are with Temer, but Raúl and Maduro simply cannot take the chance.

I do not agree on the way that Dilma was pushed out. The nominal excuse was silly. But that she richly deserved what was coming her way, she did. What sealed her fate was naming Lula minister to protect him from prosecution. Such a breach of ethics makes any sitting president unfit for office. They, Brazilian congress, simply decided to act on what was in the mill and the lack, so far, of popular support for her and Lula show that "o povo" has a hard time to rally, or at least is not convinced that keeping Dilma in office is going to improve its lot.

Temer and his new cabinet are far from inspiring confidence. But if you have bothered reading the hisstory of Brazil you will know that they are used to such shifts and that they will likely give him a few weeks, maybe months. After all there is the technicality that Dilma may win her trial and be reinstated within 6 months though the impeachment tally makes that highly doubtful.

This being said the Castros and Maduro/narco-military have lost their main support. The head of Odebretch is in jail, provisional president Temer may chose, or not, to ventilate corruption cases to silence Lula and Dilma as needed since he is the one with the key to the files now. Even a return of Dilma cannot guarantee the strong support of yore.

What would Brazil do if there were a massive constitutional and human right violation in Venezuela? If Brazil goes against Venezuela it is likely that Uruguay will follow and Mercosur will be unanimous in its condemnation.  Once Peru election is held in June even Unasur would go against Venezuela (and the recent hurried support to Dilma by Unasur secretary, the highly discredited puppet Samper, betray that worry).

Thus the time for Castro to give the order to Maduro, and/or the narco-military to take the initiative to dissolve the national assembly once and for all is now. It is still possible that the OAS could fail to get enough votes to apply the democratic charter to Venezuela after Maduro acts. But once Temer decides to act against Venezuela, with the support of Macri in Argentina, the US and Canada, Mexico would follow. Small countries then will chose the big countries against a flat broke violent Venezuela and game over: Venezuela would be a pariah state and go the way of Cuba out of regional organizations.

But with the narco-military still in charge. Or that is the plan anyway.

And thus it is the time to act for them, the thugs, now, before Temer even has a chance to look at Venezuela. All that has been going on since last Monday points that way.

1%, a world in a number

I have been very distracted by many problems and now I am overseas, among other objectives, to fetch medicines not available anymore in Venezuela for me and my SO (and others). But I could not pass on a brief comment on what should be called the 1 % affair that was held as I fixed to leave the country.

In short, the electoral board, CNE, established fictitious requirements to request for a recall election on Nicolas Maduro. The constitution previews that the requirement to force a recall election  on an elected official is to gather 20% signatures of the registered voters of the given electoral circuit. But the CNE in a crass delaying tactic decided that even though Maduro electoral district is the whole country the MUD alliance needed to get first 1% in EVERY state and THEN it would be allowed to collect the needed 20%. The objective was simple: the regime hoped that in very chavista, very dependent states like, say, Delta Amacuro, the MUD could not manage the 1% holy grail. There is, after all, the infamous Tascón List precedent of the 2004 recall election that affected the lives of hundreds of thousands of folks, including yours truly. If this was scandalous enough by itself there were plenty of other road blocks set by the CNE, quite often of a very childish nature.

To make a long story short, after quite a long arm wrestling the CNE finally released a specific form (la planilla) to collect that 1%. Yet, in a rushed and improvised operation within three days the MUD collected around 8%. That is right, the regime truly thought that the MUD would have trouble collecting in 3 days in all states the fateful 1%. The MUD largely overtook that goal in every state, probably by the end of the first day.

Now, that was a political miscalculation......

Clearly at this stage, in spite of the December electoral loss, in spite of the worsening economical and scarcity crisis, in spite of galloping inflation, in spite of negative unanimous polling, the regime is still underestimating popular rejection of its policies, probably still riding on the illusion that Chavez-dreaming is enough to numb the masses though hungry nights. By putting so many obvious roadblocks the regime only angered further the people, hence the opposition stunning success. The reactions of the regime shows that the wake up call was harsher than in December, at least as I see it.

The problem for the regime is not that the opposition is all but certain to get the 20% signatures it needs. The problem is not that the opposition is all but certain to win the recall election since roughly any signature represents at least two votes considering the fear political context of repression in the country. The problem is that the opposition MUD could well get more signatures than the number of votes that Maduro got three years ago making the recall election a moot point... Such a humiliation would be worse than losing any election and could cause a regime instant debacle.

The problem of the regime has not been Maduro for a while: the military have been the real rulers since the 2014 repression. The problem for the regime if not how to replace Maduro but with what. Now, with that 1% thing it has become an urgent matter.

I see two options for the regime.

The regime "negotiates" a way out through either a recall election or a Maduro resignation where it accepts that a tolerable opposition figure runs to finish the two years left in the presidential term. I do not see why the opposition should accept this or how the narco generals would even bow to that limited amount of real politik.

The regime stalls and blocks the recall election  and Maduro resigns next year letting an appointed transition vice president finish the term.  Very perilous unless it is a national agreement and the said vice president is appointed like, well, now. Again, I doubt Cuba and the narco generals will be on board.

And there is always the option to kick the game board and establish an outright dictatorship.