Understanding the political moment

I have been back for two weeks now and events are just unfolding too fast for me to write about them, considering the depression that arises from coming back to what has become a hell hole. Let's just order our thoughts together, shall we?

L'air du temps:
Borges getting his nose broken

One way is to look at the main hard data and its effects. The reader on its own will be able to draw the general picture after the fact.


Jail for you

The driving force in this mega crisis is that under the concept of world justice and transparency a few dozens of the higher up in the regime know they will never be able to find peace and solace once out of office. Their fate for them is jail, tomorrow, in a decade, it does not matter. If they do not die first they will end up in jail. They know that.


See, they have stolen too much money, abused too many human rights, played too much on the drug traffic front. They are doomed and thus under no circumstance they can surrender power. Period. They will do what it takes to remain in office. Whatever. Second period.

I am not asking you to understand this, I am asking you to get this. If you do not get the implications of the above you cannot make sense of what is going on in Venezuela these days. Might as well stop reading now.

No food while we wait for oil price to rise

The awful economic crisis that is now open comment world wide has not its origin in the low oil prices. After all Venezuela has had downfalls in oil price before and we managed. For that matter the first two years of Chavez rule had oil price way lower than they are today and yet shelves were full of food and he did not need to create food distribution systems like those of today which reek of corruption and political apartheid while being ineffective, even in their political goals.

The real, the only reason for the food and medicine shortages today has been a more than dismal management of the economy over the last 17 years, not to mention its willful destruction to the profit of the new corrupt oligarchies of military origin. The productive apparatus of the country has been destroyed through a system of price controls, political harassment to business and corrupt importations to sabotage local production. Today, even if magically all restrictions were lifted, if security was magically restored to producers and workers, it would take at least 5 years for Venezuela to be able to insure food for its people at subsistance level. Period.

There is a clear understanding now that this situation can only be solved with a removal from office of the current leadership. The proposed means may differ from the opposition to radical left of Marea Socialisa, but all agree that as long as Maduro is in office he is unable/unwilling to take any real measure to face down the crisis. In fact, Maduro's political faction is trying to use the crisis as a way to control  the country by deciding who gets food. The social explosion risks are worrying the army while at the same time they risk to wipe out the remnants of the private sector that will be needed to rebuild.

The saddest thing is that the regime puts its salvation on a return to high oil prices, which are at best for late 2017 when it would be too late for the country. But see if they care.

International paralysis

What is complicating the crisis is the inability of the rest of the world to come together to put adequate pressure on the regime. Or to support it for that matter.

During his tenure with a deep oil check book that Chavez had no problem using cash for corruption and waste on political patronage overseas, Thus we have, for example, small shitty island nations of the Caribbean which have no problem letting Venezuelans starve for their petty gains (note that neither Europe of the US have the will to help and put pressure on these islands, hypocrisy everywhere).

But countries that should know better are mired in contradictions. Let's start with the US which amazingly think that helping a Castro transition is less costly in the long run that to put pressure on the Venezuelan regime. Why? Because the US hopes that Venezuela will foot the bill for Cuba's regeneration. That this, a now turned idiotic policy may create two problems for the US where it had only one. This seems not to flicker in the outgoing administration who seems now resigned to let whoever is sworn in in January 2017 deal with it.

That or the US business hopes to pick clean the bones of Venezuela after the debacle. All is possible.

Another pathetic case is the fast unraveling of Argentin's Mauricio Macri support for the Venezuelan cause. 6 months ago Macri was dancing on his election victory stage with Leopoldo Lopez wife Lilian Tintori. Now for reasons that are not clear to any one, and probably not even to Macri, it is Argentina who seems to sabotage any bite in possible OAS resolutions/sanctions against the regime. Whatever reasons Macri may have, they are so far failing him badly and he is looking like a fool. Heck, even Susana Malcorra were his mistress in addition to his foreign secretary could not explain the blunders.

Where the voters are

All of this is enough to create a potent crisis brew. But the debacle of the pre-recall election maneuvers was a wake up call for a regime that has grossly overestimated its real support. Actually, make that a dramatic wake up call for a regime that has lost its political flair. Apparently the regime truly thought that in the country of Tascon extortion records, official blackmail and indentured social programs the opposition would have all the trouble of the world to gather 1% of the electorate to sign up for a recall election. It got 8 %. In three days. And could have gotten 20% with a couple more of days and advance notice.

This has been the trigger for the current paranoia. Since early May the regime has realized that they are electorally doomed, for the time being at the very least. No elections whatsoever can be held in what was under Chavez a plebiscitary system. In fact, as far as Maduro is concerned, we probably cannot even have elections for dog-catcher, ever.

All the regime maneuvers since mid May are designed to avoid an election until next year, in particular a Recall Election. In fact the regional elections are probably going to be annulled any time soon as the regime is certain to loose way more than half of the state houses. The Army certainly cannot accept that so many ex-military now turned corrupt governors may be democratically unseated. But I digress.

While the regime finds a way to ease our transition into fully developed election free dictatorship it needs to avoid a Recall Election on Maduro this year. All excuses are valid, even the stupidest ones. I am not going to narrate what the electoral board CNE is doing in detail. Suffice to mention the latest incident where the CNE has voided the signature of 600.000 folks on absurd technicalities. The perversity and outright provocation was clearly underscored by the discovery that many opposition politicians who signed on camera had their signature annulled. Capriles, for one, the main promoter of the recall election, had his form annulled because it was not clear whether the form spelled Maduro or Madoro. You cannot make up things like that. And to add insult to injury Capriles cannot fix the "mistake" while the regime got yet another week prolongation for those who wished to have their signature taken away. And with the Tascon method of blackmail you can be sure that a few are going to blink and revert their name while those who want to add theirs cannot do so.

Prognosis

I personally hope, for charity, that the CNE intention was provocation rather than sloppiness. But it may well carry a steep dose of sloppiness in the methods chosen to void a recall election. The regime feels so cornered, so weak, that it is acting on reflex, on survival instinct. Thus the legality, or even basic common sense of its measures do not matter anymore. We are past the time of fig leaves.

The fact of the matter is that the economic depression has been getting worse and this week we saw major riot trouble in Petare and Catia, two zones which should be, on paper, chavista strongholds. But people are hungry. And I mean, hungry. And no matter what Argentina as a fool, or the shitty Caribbean island states may try, the OAS may be about to apply the Democratic Charter. That or Venezuela being booted out of Mercosur. Whichever comes first, for starters.

The truly big question here is whether the army will accept to pay the price of political repression, the last remaining option for the regime.

Some, like general Zavarce seem ready. He deliberately had his men push Representative Borges toward a crowd of colectivos on the pay roll of Caracas mayor Jorge Rodriguez. They did not kill Borges but they did break his nose, probably for lack of time. All is now in the open on the Thursday assault.

Others like Cliver Alcala are not on board anymore even if his name is linked to narco traffic.

The decision on a recall election rests there, in what the army will decide. And for that matter the decision whether Maduro remains president. See, the problem is not how to remove Maduro, this is actually quite easy once a political agreement is reached and he is made to resign. No election needed. Maduro is not ruling anymore, he is the front man. Thus the problem is truly not how to get rid of Maduro but who to put in his place.

That is the Gordian knot.

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Additional material

Observe the goonery look of the colectivos on chavista payroll. Again, such things cannot be made up. Do not accuse me of profiling!

Para que se rechace de verdad la violencia y se haga Justicia, 2 de los agresores: Roberto Marcano y Franklin López. pic.twitter.com/xPOaYDqUaP

— Julio Borges (@JulioBorges) June 11, 2016

Somebody home?

I wonder if anyone is aware of the chasm ahead. From what I can see it would seem like no, nobody is taking notice. But then again I may be wrong. Hopefully.

Chavo-madurismo in overdrive

I write "chavo-madurismo" because including all of chavismo is not accurate at this time. There are enough voices inside chavismo that have decided to speak up and who think that genuinely and strategically it is better to acknowledge the electoral defeat and rebuild first chavismo before attempting to counter the opposition. Note: these are not democratic voices, these are people that are aware that they have lost a majority and who are simply surprised by the result and think that it is a mere historical accident and that a little bit of polish will be enough to return to full power for el pueblo.

The chavo-madurismo is as such a faction inside chavismo that has no time nor intention to change anything. Thus they are in an overdrive to conserve their power, privileges and legal immunity. The last one, legal immunity is the motor of that group (by the way, General Reverol may be officially indicted in US courts this week). Too compromised in corruption human rights violations and drug trafficking they know very well that their future will flounder fast with a mere cursory audit of their tenure in office. Thus for them it is out of question to allow that a new assembly can audit them. Period.

All what chavo-madurismo is trying to do to avoid its fate (rigging of high court, creating para legal structures and what not in the three weeks before January 5) will not stand legal review and will lead to an inevitable confrontation that will play in international arena. See, if the gained control at the National Assembly is voided by force, then it is enough for the new chair of the Assembly to demand to the OAS to apply its Democracy Chart. This time around, with heavy weights on board like Argentina, the Venezuela crisis will be made a world crisis. Add the humanitarian side and there you go.

Because while castro-chavo-madurismo fights recklessly for its survival, at all costs, this happens:

Tras la muerte de niños con Cancer este titular enajena: "Quimioterapias que trajo el gobierno son ineficaces" pic.twitter.com/qVZg9rIEJo

— Nelson Bocaranda S. (@NelsonBocaranda) December 16, 2015

The chimio treatments imported for children ARE NOT working. Anyone home to answer for that?

The opposition seems preoccupied elsewhere

While chavo-madurismo is in overdrive the opposition does not  seem in a hurry to take charge.

On one side we have a Capriles who thinks his strategy was the one that allowed the opposition to win a majority, namely that the Assembly was elected solely to solve material problems for the people. Thus he places himself squarely as the rightful spokesperson for the new majority. A strategy equally wrong since 1) the new assembly cannot be the direct actor in improving the fate of el pueblo,  the gouvernement is still in charge of that no matter what as even the new laws application will depend on the good will of the regime, 2) that even if it could do so, the solutions to be written down are not of easy or fast application, 3) not all agree in the priorities that Capriles demands and 4) his demands are possibly unrealistic in the actual context where the regime is applying brute force.

The fact of the matter is that the opposition victory is born on many parameter that include the unrest of early 2014, the discredit of the regime since the 2014 repression, the economic crisis and the protest vote as a reaction, and also the offering of Capriles. But by far not alone by the non confrontational offering of Capriles, the more so that the regime is getting into open confrontation mode.

This explain why the newly elected representatives are more worried about deciding who will chair the coming assembly, and who will hold such and such commission rather than mounting an effective platform to reply to the regime recent attacks. Never mind starting to explain to the country that there is no money for anything when there are people inside chavismo that blithely state the the new assembly will refuse to vote the constant special credits that the executive demands for its social programs.

One is also allowed to wonder whether there is somebody home in charge. Some are noticing this early absence of leadership in the opposition.

And yet the opposition immediate priorities are simple. Considering that a confrontation is inevitable the opposition must from now announce that all measures current mesures taken by the regime will be voided on day first, that the CNE renewal will be conducted immediately and that the amnesty law will be the first law voted. If the regime seeks confrontation, we will give it in our terms, in an area where the opposition is unimpeachable, at least overseas.

In short, the opposition must take a grip of the only defensive tools it can get: fair elections (if needed soon), political leaders free on the streets from jail or exile, partial recuperation of freedom of information and press. Or is it that the political agenda of people like, say, Capriles is more important than the national agenda at a time where we need to find a side that will be able to negotiate the import of food and medicine that are required in 2016 for us not suffer more than necessary?

From rabipelao courts to public lynching: a day of contradictions in the regime

A regime on overdrive to survive has no qualms exploring interesting ways to reach results and contradict itself as it goes, as often as needed.  If you needed evidence that Maduro is grasping for straws, you get them in the last couple of days.

Let's start with the title.  This morning I was writing that Maduro was proposing/ordering kangaroo courts to send the owners of stores he does not like faster to jail.  But tonight I have to write that he wants now "el pueblo" to take the initiative and seize looters.   There are many problems with this. First Maduro recognizes that the looting problem is big enough to deserve a stronger response when 24 hours ago it was mere isolated incidents.  Second, if rabipelao courts are good enough for Daka's owners why not send looters to the same courts? The answer to these contradictions is that Capriles went on record saying what we already all knew from pictures in twitter: the looters are directed by PSUV operatives. And I add since there is no way to prove it at this point, that this is the way chosen by the regime to pay these operatives in view of the dirty work required from them until mid December.

Todos los focos de saqueos,anarquía,caos,son dirigidos por el psuv para después decir que somos nosotros,alertas!
— Henrique Capriles R. (@hcapriles) November 12, 2013

All flash points of looting, anarchy chaos are directed by the PSUV and then they will blame it on us. Be alert!

Another fascinating contradiction is that after having started the worst wave of looting in Venezuela since 1989, and by far, Maduro today asked people to come and invest in the country.  In a day, by the way, where Venezuelans bond dropped as the international trust in the country is about junk bond status.  Can we assume that Maduro is stupid enough to contradict himself so blatantly so fast?  Well, maybe, but there must be something else too.

As he was saying that, today we also learned that car battery manufacturers were intervened, that stores such as shoe stores were threatened, that looting started to reach small store owners, of the neighborhood quality. What gives? Possibly he wants to convey overseas that the only ones to worry are the Venezuelan businesses who are unreliable and should be replaced by foreign ones.  But even this generous hypothesis from my part rings hollow because Maduro had the chutzpah to ask Venezuelan business people to bring back home the dollars they have stashed overseas, on the week where he mad private business lose millions of dollars that cannot be recovered ever. No, what Maduro was truly announcing was his economic vision, believe it or not: no more private business in Venezuela besides the big ones in association with the regime. I will note that someone commented to me today that the regime is going to have to nationalize now Daka and related because the owners are not going to refurbish the stores or the inventory; that this was a logical step because after having ruined agriculture and manufacturing the last stand of private business was commerce and banking. And banking he does not need to move against because the regime is the main driver of cash through the system and thus banks will not rise against the regime.

And yet there is another major contradiction but of a more subtle nature to understand. Today finally the Nazional Assembly managed to get rid of one of the opposition representatives which through the viciousness of Venezuelan politics will be replaced by a safe pro Maduro vote (though rumor has that he has been extorted though his properties in Monagas to make sure his future votes are the ones wished for; such as the two other opposition votes brought to chavismo though due extortion).  This beyond undemocratic maneuver is to get Maduro the wished for enabling law to deal with corruption and economics.  But does he need it? And this is where the contradiction lays because this week with the looting and the announcement of the kangaroo courts, and that he will limit what a business can make in earnings, Maduro is doing already what he would do with the enabling law. Clearly he does not need it. Or does he?

Let's read two of Leopoldo Lopez tweets today:

El conflicto interno del gobierno no solo es politico. Hay un enfrentamiento entre mafias de poder, narcos con chapa de altos funcionarios.
— Leopoldo López (@leopoldolopez) November 13, 2013

The internal conflict inside the regime is not only political. There is a confrontation between mafias fo power and drug traffickers with high public servant badges.

Quienes son los cadiveros? Publica la lista Maduro. Quienes son los directores d esas empresas? A quien responden en el gobierno?
— Leopoldo López (@leopoldolopez) November 13, 2013

Who are those that who benefited greatly from CADIVI [currency control]? Publish the list Maduro. Who are the directors of these businesses? To whom where they linked inside the regime?

Leopoldo says on twitter what no air-wave media will allow him to say because such is the extent of censorship that the regime has gone out to ask that the word "looting" is not pronounced. And with that he puts his finger on the true pressing concerns of Maduro, concerns that he can only solve with an enabling law that gives him powers to deal with his internal enemies, not the democratic opposition that he is already screwing fine without any extra law, thank you!

To get rid of any opposition muscle it is enough to apply Marxist theories of end to private property. Now the private sector has been so weakened that a reaction like 2002 is not only impossible but the victims of governmental abuse remain silent, will not even publish a bland press communique least the regime damages more than their properties: their families and their lives.  But to get rid of tribal factions inside chavismo.........

These contradictions and actions of some of the regime spokespeople (Cabello is strangely subdued in an occasion where he should be giving a declaration a minute) mean something else: Maduro has allied with the radical wing of chavismo and he is trying to make a legalistic coup against the other factions of chavimso. The coup is not against democracy and the opposition, that one was done in 2010. The coup in progress is one against a chavista group which will imply by force that Venezuela will become a Marxist country where oil revenue makes life somewhat mess miserable than in other Marxist countries like Cuba or North Korea.

Then again the coup may be coming from Maduro's own entourage who is pushing him to make such idiotic decisions so as to get rid of him sooner than later.

How to hold an electoral campaign under Venezuela neo-fascism?

For long time readers of this blog the title should not come as a surprise. It has been long that I have rejected the democratic pretense of the regime as well as the one coming from those that still pretend to comment "objectively" on Venezuela. That is those who try to find a fig leaf of democracy, be they foreign journalists, bloggers or actual Venezuelan journos. As far as I am concerned we are in a military regime since at least late 2010, a regime which is turning openly fascist since late 2012.  If you do not agree at least in part with me, then you have been wasting your time reading this blog.

On the fig leaf front there is an incipient electoral campaign for local elections this December. Indeed, there will be massive abuse and cheating from the regime. And yet there is little else we can do than go and vote, unless you are willing to wield your guns against the gang of thugs that hold Miraflores Palace hostage. The resolution will come only when chavismo will break up, violently, and self destruct. Perhaps sooner than later, but whatever the time frame is our participation in the election can only speed up the process.

This being said, let's look at the campaign which yesterday has taken a clearly fascist turn.  I am not using the word communist, note, because the inspiration is from Cuba and Cuba is now under an aging fascist system. True communism would have never tolerated stuff like the general prostitution of jineteras at the fake luxury sea front of Varadero. By writing this I do not intend to state that one system is better than the other, merely that their vices are not the same in their quest for totalitarian control and equal meting out of misery.

To help you understand let's start with one of the three things that happened yesterday, the minor one if you will, but one that will help you understand better what happened in Caracas.  The billboard above has showed up first yesterday in San Felipe, in at least three locations that I have noticed. It is Chavez heirs electoral strategy: Chavez. That is right, in the last 10 months Chavez heirs have NOTHING to show for their tenure so once again they resort to the only thing that has worked in the past, the image of Chavez.

The billboard deserves a speedy semantical analysis.

First, they use the "martyrdom" picture of Chavez, in his last 2012 campaign appearance, when he stood under the rain to inspire pity and maximize his appeal. His Che moment of sorts though it probably cost him a few days of life which I am sure he did not mind paying in his narcissistic egotism.

Second, it is addressed to ¡CHAVISTAS! Not you or me. They are not trying to get new votes due to their track record. They know better: they need to motivate the chavista lumpen that has been battered by inflation, scarcity, crime, lack of jobs, etc... to go and vote for them yet one more time.  And thus the second line: to honor Chavez memory. Period. No other argument.

Third, since there is nothing positive to run on, there is the need to make a crass appeal to war, battles, heroism and what not, Chavez style again. And thus the slogan, "Unity, fighting, battles and victory!" empty, devoid of any single new idea. Very fascist if you ask me, where what passes as ideas are artificial constructs designed to polarize society in order not to discuss what could be the true solutions to our real problems.  Or rather, since this is Venezuela, a banal but vicious thugocracy that uses selected simple minded fascisto/communist methods to hold to power so as to avoid the jail they deserve.

The bottom is the Warholian take on Chavez eyes and the party colors to suggest mass and unity (GPP, Great Patriotic Pole). Fluff!

When a "poltical" group has reached such depth of intellectual emptiness you cannot be surprised by the visceral moves they took yesterday.

The first one was a very clumsy attempt by foreign minister Jaua who pretends to be the true governor of Miranda. For memory, defeated by Capriles last December in spite of all the electoral abuse and blackmail and cheating, the regime named him special agent for the Tuy valley of Miranda which meant that he became an appointed parallel governor, probably with more money than Capriles to rule effectively the state that duly voted for him. Again, a neo-totalitarian contempt for democracy.

Sure enough siphoning money from one side to buy votes on the other created financial havoc and the Miranda workers decided to march in protest to force the central government to give Miranda its full share of the budget. Everybody knows of course that the regime will pinch every single penny it can against Capriles even if hardship for innocent follows. When you play dirty it helps not to have a bit of scruples.  So Jaua started an infantile blockade of Caracas access through a pretend pro chavista protest against the "fascist" "coup mongering" march of Capriles.  It was so clumsy that within a couple of hours it seems that Jaua was brought back to heel and the marchers could go present their demands.

That chavista fiasco was accompanied by yet a new scale up of the rhetoric. While Caracas was blockaded for a few hours somebody started placarding the posters below.

Memorize their faces
The trilogy of evil
They take away your light
They take away your food
They take away your peace
Enough violence

Now, this is extremely grave because it calls for the public lynching of the three top opposition politicians today: Capriles, Lopez and Machado.  Any crazed chavista can feel that if he were to kill, or at least hurt one of them, he would not be punished.  And even if we assume that a lose canon took such an mistaken initiative with these posters of hate, there is a video that clearly shows that Maduro is responsible, the inspiration (at the end of this post).

What these posters do, besides trying to imitate horror show aesthetic with the faces of the three, in particular the one of Capriles, is to place the blame for the current economic crisis on them.  That is, a regime that controls everything, from the armed forces to any office regulating production claims that the three guys are able on their own to turn off the power grids of Venezuela, disrupt the general food distribution system, create the high criminal insecurity.

That is exactly what the Nazis did against the Jews after 1933.





Maduro encouraging public violence against opposition leadership. He uses the words "pueblo reconocelos" (9 sec) "trilogia del mal" (4 sec) "enemigos de la patria" (6 sec)

A month and a half to play it out in Venezuela

For some, the local elections of December 8 are the last horizon. Crossing it successfully will mean the end of chavismo, at least as we have known it. For others all will be played as soon as the Enabling Law is published. Some think that a popular uprising is around the corner. Some think that it is all over. All are wrong, on these and other suppositions. That does not make me right because, well, I actually have no position. So, instead of trying to figure out a way out of this mess I should limit myself to try to evaluate the current situation. May the reader think whatever s/he pleases.

The almost daily morning line at Makro San Felipe. It is under the sun, people now carry umbrellas rain or shine.
This a short one. Sometimes it is 4X longer, reaching the main avenue downhill.
It is not the only line in San Felipe, but it is probably the most recurrent because Makro always get some item.

Whatever one thinks, one thing is certain, the next couple of months are decisive. Even if you think all has been played out, the coming weeks will decide the extent of the economic crisis and the extent of the repression we must suffer through 2014.


The general context is not too complicated, once you think about it. Chavismo is trying to resolve its internal wars and as such can only agree on the need to silence the opposition. The economic crisis deepens and the regime is unable to come to grips with it, and even less to find a faint solution. It seems that in spite of all of its efforts it cannot replicate previous election miracles of keeping the shelves full for at least the two months before the election so that people forget previous food shortages. But even if the regime were able to put food back on the shelves, the annual inflation for food items alone is around 70% so people will be displeased anyway.  Basically all economic indicators are going red. I am at ground zero and I can assure you that every day it gets more and more difficult to produce anything, ship it, cash it, replenish stocks, meet payroll. I have had to resort to barter with my competition for raw material so we both do not go under.....

In this context chavismo has decided that the December vote is lost and that their hope is the Enabling Law. Through it, it will be able to produce yet more controls certain to fail, settle issues within chavismo that cannot be settled, make a mockery of the December electoral result though new measures to promote "comunas" that will destroy the influence of mayors and local councils soon to reach the opposition hands; and for good measure start jailing a few opposition leaders. Maduro has already singled out Capriles and Lopez, has accused Machado to be the chosen head of an interim regime, which guarantees that she will be cell mate of the first two. And we cannot discard that some last minute commotion will be generated so that elections are "postponed". Already the lengthy list of missed deadlines by electoral authorities, CNE, seem to indicate that they know this will be the case.

The regime is so decided to pass the Enabling Law that it has already started illegal repressive measures against two opposition representatives to remove them from the Assembly and secure a 99 votes vote. Be it in Spain or in Argentina, nobody is fooled: the high court, TSJ, is clearing the way for the regime to approve an unconstitutional law. And yet it may not be enough. The nervousness of Maduro is palpable. He has stopped travelling outside the country, missing the IberoAmerican summit in Panama which would have been crucial to reinforce his international legitimacy. He spends an inordinate amount of time in military barracks, convincing the army of his authority. Not that there is a coup in the making, the military is too fat and too corrupt. What the military wants is a regime able to solve pressing problems, that can avoid a social crisis because the Venezuelan army is no mood to stain its hand in blood for the sake of Maduro and his Cuban masters. Times have changed and they want to be able to travel freely to enjoy their riches acquired through Chavez buy out of the nation's integrity. It is not far-fetched to think that the army wants to retain the power that it enjoys today but through a more capable president than Maduro, a better covering fig leaf for our lack of democracy.

The opposition seems hypnotized by the prospect of the Enabling Law. Some like Maria Corina Machado want an all out defense, at all cost. Some like Capriles and the MUD do not seem to be overly concerned, so certain they are their strategy of winning on December 8. An OpEd person was right in pointing out that when Capriles says he would not recognize a law voted by less 99 he implicitly admitted that as long as the 99 magical number of Assembly votes is reached, even through coaxing and blackmail, he would accept it. His response should have been sterner and once again Capriles projects a wishy washy image that diminish his leadership in a time when clear answers and positions are required.

All in all the opposition seems to have been on the wait since last April. The decline of the country is a given and indeed in a sense it makes sense to wait for Gotterdamerung. But it should also be clear that the regime will not fall on its own, and certainly cannot be left alone to the military and the narco-generals to decide what to do with it. The opposition has a real risk to be irrelevant in the transition for its apparent lack of ideas and distaste for real confrontation.

It is not a matter of communication, of having lost the last critical TV network available, Globovision. The reality of inflation and food shortages is an ever present element of our lives, reminding people that this is not normal and that before Chavez we never had such an episode of recurring shortages. Also, that the opposition is silenced has the unwanted paradox that even the average chavista turns off official news: once the excitement of the insulting match is limited to one side, why bother? The problem of the opposition is that one starts to wonder whether it wants to reach high office, truly.

The lack of airwaves media has had a positive effect on the opposition. Coupled to local elections which take cohorts of candidates stomping the voting grounds, they are making much better and direct the contact with the crowds at a time where the chavista paid electoral help have no explications for the shortages except the ritual ones that have ceased to convince.  When you stand for hours at the Makro of San Felipe, for hours, for at most 4 kilos of corn flour, and repeat next week, you may actually start wanting to see those dangerous marines to come. It cannot be worse than that these never ending lines..... And they will have dollars in their pockets, you know!

Whether we go to vote on December 8, whether we actually win, we may see this December as the final generational shift we have been waiting. Inside chavismo the "revolutionary" oldies will be confronted with the new base that was shunted in the candidate nomination process and that may be the single most important element in the electoral loss of chavismo in December. The silenced rank and filed chavista may actually be more democrat than the ones at the reins today, and as upset by the airwaves censorship as the opposition folks. Let's not forget that the official message does not reach much the hoi polloi since it is concerned more in glorifying Maduro than announcing real improvements in el pueblo situation. Constant propaganda has its limits.

For the opposition the generational shift is coming, even more if we have elections. There should be at least 50 new mayors and scores of new municipal council folks that have never held and elected office. It is quite possible that when the tallies are in at least half of the opposition new officials will be newbies, that developed their career skills under chavismo, that have just won their very first public office. And even many of those in charge today were unknowns in 1998. After December 8 the leadership of Capriles and the MUD will face a fresh new challenge just when it may have to get ready to assist the end of Maduro......

That is why I do not know what is going to happen exactly but why I truly think that the next two months are really going to be the real hinge between the Chavez era and whatever comes next. 2013 will have thus been the mere set up for the times to come, the necessary time to start forgetting the reality of Chavez, to learn for both sides that it is time to take back in our hands our destiny, or give up on it, as the case may be. 2013 was not a transition, it was an end. Transition is only starting, finally.

Is Venezuelan opposition dragged into a coherent strategy?

The end result of this week may be unexpected. Both sides accumulated failure after failure and yet, the opposition may have come on top significantly with the real tool it needs most: a strategy.

The regime accumulated failure after failure, clearly. The undeserved prosecution of representative Mardo was perceived by most in the country as a at best a distraction move from dire reality and at worse an unspeakable abuse of power from people that had no moral grounds for that.  Then, as a knee jerk reaction, the most corrupt regime in Venezuela's history called for a rally against corruption. This rally this morning was by all accounts a failure, as seen on TV. And to complete the day it was announced at the post march rally that the communication minister, a charismaticless journalist, has been named the candidate for Greater Caracas Mayor without consultation and even less of a primary; with the added contradiction that the regime has wanted to destroy that position for the last 4 years and that suddenly it wants it. The accumulation is synergistic and we may have a major political mistake from the regime, a mistake that may be of major consequences.

The opposition errors come more for their erratic organization and centrifugal forces. Mardo may have seen as a victim but he did not raise by himself major sympathy. After all, no politician that keeps bouncing from any elected office to another one rarely garner respect except perhaps from his constituents that know him better. The national attention he garnered was from what was done to him more than any martyrdom essence. A normal opposition would have been divided on that matter but the aggressiveness of the regime had the opposite effect: it showed quite a united front this week. Yet, once Mardo was done in by the Assembly the opposition hurriedly and unwisely called for a few actions across the country.

I can verify that in San Felipe the local rally never reached 100 people. It was ill planned, in an unsuitable spot, at a terrible time for the habits of the town that has Saturday morning as THE shopping time of the week. Mardo counts of little when your chance to get scarce goods coincides with the rally.  That small group was so out of place and out of touch with the concerns of San Felipeños that it probably was counterproductive. The Caracas event was not even a march, but as a gathering it got a respectable attendance. Though not worth writing home about. What saved the day was that it visibly had a bigger draw than the one from the regime, who, by the way, did nothing worth noting outside of Caracas. The opposition carried the day because it failed less. Much less in fact.

The result of all this, of the clear intention of the regime to erase the opposition as needed, is that finally this one is getting is ideas in place.  Today Capriles officially put himself behind a constitutional change call but with the cleverness of putting a condition: the opposition needs to win the mayor elections in December if it wants to have a chance to effect those constitutional changes. Thus the strategy is set: bring in the radical vote by telling them that unless they rally first for December their proposals will be put moot after. That way the hope is to minimize opposition abstention while the individual teams for mayor and councilmen candidates should be more efficient to limit the regime's fraud. Then, obviously for all, with a 100+ mayor it will become much easier to raise the signatures needed for constitutional reform and get the votes after.

I personally think that it is the lone way to avoid a new disaster in December. As long as the concerns of the more radical groups inside the opposition, or the mere disgust of people like me are not taken into account there is no chance to perform decently in December no matter what the polls say today. It even works to attract some chavista that are disgruntled enough to vote for the opposition in December just to force the regime to sit down and negotiate an agreement with the opposition to avoid a constitutional conflagration. And the beauty of it is that there is enough time to make this strategy prosper until December.

Let's not be blind to the reality: the hysterical power show of the regime this week, the crass attempt at creating a good corruption versus a bad corruption cannot hide the inherent weakness of this one. The regime suffers already of two strikes against: no leader able to replace Chavez and a terrible economic inheritance that the lack of leadership makes it impossible to tackle. To this the regime adds a major error: no primary to decide mayor candidates, and worse, to decide councilmen candidates where many want in. All will be appointed from Caracas.  In current political language in Venezuela this means a probable fatal abstention for the regime in December as this one comes along as self serving, as defending the privileges of those already in office, not making room for new ones, not sharing the now scarce benefits.  And this just at a time when the opposition may have found a way to minimize its own losses.

Even though on a foul mood through the week, tonight I find myself surprisingly optimistic.

Oh Dear! Capriles uses the F word

But can you blame him?

El Gobierno fascista toma represalias contra la aerolínea LAN pq viajamos en ella a Chile y el regreso,así actúan los fascistas!
— Henrique Capriles R. (@hcapriles) July 21, 2013

The fascist government takes revenge actions against the airline we traveled to Chile, LAN and on return, this is how fascist act!
In short, LAN, the Chile airline, has been banished to an auxiliary runway of Maiquetia airport because it took Capriles as its passenger this week to Chile. As if Capriles had other choices to fly direct to Santiago....

The comie cliche call to arms

And apparently the airport had a welcome committee to receive Capriles with aggressions this afternoon. Just as Maduro hired the communist party of Chile to harass Capriles in Santiago as if this one was a nice NGO...

Still, I must object to Capriles use of the F word. If indeed totalitarianisms resemble themselves more and more, the actions in Caracas airport are more like the ones that the Cuba variety would take.  Those are the type of actions of "repudio" that Yoani Sanchez writes so much about. I know, I know, it is more and more difficult in the XXI century to differentiate fascism from communism (at least what was called Communism in the 80ies) but we should try.

At any rate, what they did in Maiquetia this week is once again proof that the regime is running out of options and that its creativity resides in using Cuban repressive techniques.

Now, will Piñera or Bachelet protest the treatment of LAN in Caracas?  Is it this not a direct evidence that ignoring human rights doe snot protect your commercial interests?

PS: Juan Cristobal sent me this lovely poster of the Communist Party of Chile pretending to call a movement of the people against Capriles.  You know, with spontaneous enthusiasm. They did manage about 100..... click to enlarge and read if you dig Spanish. Worth the effort.

Towards "le dernier carré", or Maduro circling the wagons

SICAD at Waterloo

"Le dernier carré" is a known military term, particularly put in vogue at Waterloo when the last battalion of the Garde Impériale was called at the end of the battle, as much as a last ditch effort as to protect the retreat of the army. The Garde supposedly was standing in squares and the last holding square was, well, kind of like circling the wagons while knowing full well that your scalp was about to free itself from its hold no matter what.

This being said, before I digress further, I am not implying whatsoever that the regime theoretically held by Maduro is about to collapse and they are circling the wagons in a square (though they would be stupid enough to try that if you ask me). No, the regime may still have a while ahead but it is behaving as if the hour had come. But before we go into these nervous defenses of the regime, let's review why it is justified for them to feel cornered.

First, social protest is not ebbing. The regime there benefits of the congenital selfishness of the Venezuelan that makes an interest group unable to take seriously the concerns of other interest groups, starting with the opposition MUD unable to support energetically the university protest, to name the most recent major case. But that does not stop the myriad of protests going on because X was not paid, Y was due such amount, Z were laid off without reason and W was promised this by Chavez himself.

Second, no matter how hard Maduro tries he cannot establish once and for all his legitimacy. Every body, EVERYBODY, knows he won through electoral fraud. That, at home or abroad, they decide to pretend otherwise or prefer not to do anything about it is another matter. One reason may be simply that foreign countries manage basic arithmetic and know the regime of Maduro to be nonviable. Thus why not wait it out? Which is a crass error because it assumes that the regime is more than an assembly of thugs and that at some point it will yield power more or less pacifically. It will not, the regime is a group of military corrupt thugs and their civilian enablers, all working for the colonial master in Havana.  At any rate, that is why Piñera had so much trouble in receiving Capriles in Santiago this week and why Humala escaped Lima for the provinces so as not to be put in the same uncomfortable position. But it is also the reason why Santos did receive Capriles in Bogota because Colombia knows very well that the collapse of chavismo is trouble for them and thus Colombia cannot wait for it to happen, preferring a more controlled end.

But that avoidance in fact plays in the hand of Capriles who, for the first time that I know of, put UNASUR on notice. Humala may have skipped town but the political class in Lima has been served notice and has been asked "it is not possible that what matters most are economic interests over human rights and constitution".  This in Peru, the country that with Chile has probably been helped the most by Venezuelan democracy before 1998. People with principles and intelligence are confirmed in their notions that UNASUR, OAS, CELAC, MERCOSUR are mere fronts for immorality.

Third, of course, is the intractable economic situation. Intractable mostly because the regime refuses to take the measures that need to be taken, refuse to accept that the Chavez years are over, seems to believe that if Chavez were still alive there would not be an "economic problem" today. I am certainly one who wishes Chavez would be alive to enjoy the show of him finally drowning in his mess. But I digress again. The point is that this last week much vaunted solution, SICAD, to offer cash to the private sector to reactivate the economy has proven to be a mere lottery, to have no direction, to have no transparency, to look more like an excuse to give scarce dollars to cronies of the regime than actually solving problems. The second installment of the SICAD disappoints more than the first one and its failing is not even on what I listed before, it is that it is not enough. Depending on the experts, the SICAD is not able to satisfy the demand of dollars of the economy, offering at best, if it continues, if it becomes more fluid, a mere 10% of the needs that CADIVI does not provide. Amen that CADIVI itself is not providing half of what it is supposed to provide. El Universal explains it today, again: the Venezuelan government, instead of priming the private sector to grow again, is reducing its access to dollars while the regime prefers to use the few dollars to pay for debts and import electoral goods  directly. Looks like a Merkel austerity plan if it were not that the regime keeps buying weapons and financing lost causes.

The regime is obviously trapped in a catch 22 situation. This would not be so bad if at least it seemed that they were aware of it and trying to find a way out. But no, they are forging ahead, trying to find the new regulation that will finally allow all the old regulations to work.

For example Diosdado Cabello went to China to find inspiration. But even if he found it, it would not work because after 14 years of entitlements the Venezuela worker is no mood to work like a Chinese worker, the major source of China economic growth.

For example Maduro once again breaks with the US because its new appointee to the UN embassy , Samantha Powers, said publicly that Venezuela is a repressive regime. Maduro gets upset easily these days that things are not going his way and the weak "overture" to the US, with Jaua beaming to Kerry, is over. As if breaking with the US was the solution. We have been now a few years with ambassadors, I am sure Foggy Bottom is shaking.....

Of course, the escalation against the opposition is going on. Several opposition representatives are now prosecuted for a variety of reasons, using even evidence that is obviously forged but that the states attorney takes as valid without bothering to investigate the charges. Reports on pressing the media to stop talking about election fraud are apparently now routine.  As well as pressure against anyone fool enough to write a check for next December election.  And let's pass on tall tales of imminent invasion whose sole object is to justify future repression from the regime .

All in all the scenario is quite clear, at least for this blogger. The regime continues in its downward nihilistic spiral, reaching eventually a "dernier carré" at which point it will either implode into a red dwarf and leave room for a new sun to emerge or go supernova and take down all of us.

Capriles in Bogota, or yet more evidence of a failed Brazilian imperialist policy

There is no need to expand on the diplomatic fiasco that Maduro's "new" team has suffered from Bogota this week. What is more interesting to note is that were Brazilian foreign policy a success, it probably would have never happened. True, there is always some small room left to suspect that the whole thing was a Machiavellian manipulation of Itamaraty to have Santos do the deed, but how unlikely an explanation....

First, a short summary of the events.

For some reason Capriles was received by Colombia's president Santos this week.  Capriles and the Venezuelan opposition keep their impressive campaign to educate the continent about the electoral fraud that allowed Maduro to retain Venezuela's presidency. A double fraud if you remember that Maduro promised a real electoral audit at UNASUR Lima's meeting to ensure their attending at his swearing in. As soon as he was sworn, the regime simply performed instead an absolutely useless audit and started a ferocious campaign to silence the opposition and place the world in front of the fait accompli of his fraudulent election. 

At first it seemed that Maduro would succeed when in his own international campaign he was received by Dilma Roussef, president of Brazil and faithful follower of Lula policy to forgive any abuse of chavismo, though if truth be told she is less enthusiastic than Lula on this regard.  She offered Maduro help for the food crisis of Venezuela and listened patiently to his explanation of Capriles being a less than nothing, thus implying that Brazil was willing to accept the fraudulent electoral outcome in exchange for the preservation of its 5 billion plus dollar trade surplus. That also means a further dependency of Venezuela from MERCOSUR increasingly lorded over by Brazil as its sphere of interest, or private backyard if you will.

The implication of all of this in Brazilian minds is that no matter what UNASUR decides at its meetings, the last word is the Brazil one (in this case forgetting about the promised electoral audit agreed at Lima).  UNASUR, allow me to remind the reader, includes strictly South American countries in an association that supposedly ensures the solution of internal conflicts and an alliance of sorts against outside interventions.  Chavez always dreaming that he would lead UNASUR when in fact he was the pawn of Lula in that scheme, an extension of Brazilian ancestral imperialist pulsions to control all of South America.

When UNASUR was proposed it was at the height of Chavez petrodiplomacy (meaning, using Venezuelan money for his dreams of grandeur). It was also at the height of Lula, when he ruined the proposed free exchange of the Americas proposed by the US, unable to support it as it should as the US was too involved in Iraq and the like.  Thus, with Brazil pushing along Venezuela and Mercosur all countries had to join UNASUR, which did not mean for a second that they all liked the idea.

Times have changed. Dilma in Brazil has failed to live to her promises of more attention to human rights (except for the distancing with Iran, the least she could do). Instead Brazil seems embarked in some form of protectionist adventure where its economical elite seems more interested in securing a safe zone/perimeter rather than confront globalization. As such the indecent hurry to exclude Paraguay from Mercosur last year on silly pretexts, removing the last block to include Venezuela in Mercosur. Venezuela, by the way, who routinely does more constitutional violations than Paraguay politicians ever did. And there is also Chavez death, just about when the petro check book also died.

Some country observed these sequence of events that proved to them once and again that not only Brazil had no good or serious intentions, but that Mercosur was not a really good club to join in. So they did the only thing that they could do, join their more market and trade oriented economy to the Pacific rim ones. And Mexico as the lone possible counterweight to Brazil economy. Thus after many preliminary summits the Pacific Alliance was formally installed in June 2012, sending Itamaraty in a panic and probably accounting a lot for the messed up Paraguay crisis.  It is worth quoting the Wikipedia entry on this regard, to prove to you that anyone can notice this gigantic chess game that Brazil seems to be losing so far (my emphasis):

The Pacific Alliance (Spanish: Alianza del Pacífico) is a Latin American bloc formally launched on 6 June 2012 in Chile's Paranal Observatory at the organization's fourth summit. It groups Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. The four nations of the Pacific Alliance represent about 36% of Latin America GDP, and if counted as a single country they would be the ninth largest economy in the world with a nominal GDP of more than $2 trillion USD, surpassing India. According to information from the World Trade Organization (WTO), the countries of the Pacific Alliance together exported about U.S.$ 445 billion in 2010, almost 60% more than Mercosur (the main economic bloc in Latin America) exported in the same year.

In short, the Pacific Alliance is an open trading block, of the maritime kind, the most effective; whereas Mercosur looks everyday more like a protectionist block centered around Brazil.

It is in this context that we are more likely to understand why Santos faced a more than likely crisis with Venezuela by receiving Capriles a few days ago. Sure enough, it started with the vile outbreak of Diosdado Cabello declaring BEFORE Maduro or his foreign minster and singlehandedly turning an incident into a crisis. If there was a surprise it was not that the Venezuelan regime would be upset but by the virulence of the crisis at a time when, simply put, Venezuela has no means to put pressure on Colombia. That is, in the middle of a food crisis, where we do not even have toilet paper to wipe ourselves, the regime antagonizes the lone country that could help us the fastest. In fact a Colombian minister was prompt to add that Colombia would only help Venezuela if it offered guarantees as to paying its new bills towards Colombia, driving the point. Needless to say that this week end the regime is backpedaling already, understanding that they are not Chavez to weather such self inflicted storm, and that they were done in by Santos.

The point of this text is not to go into the motivations of Santos into running deliberately into a crisis (at the very least he certainly scored a point against Uribe while proving how toothless Venezuela has become). Nor is the point to discuss why the regime allowed National Assembly chair Cabello to play lone ranger. The point here is that Capriles highlighted clearly the limits of UNASUR by reviving the electoral fraud question of Venezuela that Brazil clearly hoped was put behind.  And a possible visit of Capriles to Peru could make things worse for Brazil who undercut Peru's president Humala efforts last April when he called for that conciliation meeting that was in the end flouted by Maduro (and Brazil by extension). This eventually led to the resignation of Humala's foreign minister.....

Brazil is bound to lose a lot if it does not correct quickly its wrong headed all out support for Maduro. If Humala also receives Capriles it would be only a matter of days for the whole Pacific Alliance to side with the Venezuelan opposition in appearance, if not formally. The North South cleavage of the subcontinent would then be growing fast while to Colombia, Chile and Peru would be added soon Costa Rica, Panama and maybe even Canada, amen of Mexico already in and sympathetic to the Venezuelan opposition cause. Uruguay even is interested in that Pacific Alliance which hints at the coming irrelevance of Mercosur if things keep going the way they are.

But Brazil can lose even more. Let's remind the reader still reading that Capriles espoused the Brazilian model of Lula for the 2012 election. Little good did it do to him. In addition of the siding of Roussef with Maduro, it did not stop a shameful interference of Brazil in April's election when Lula bluntly endorsed Maduro. As the regime collapses does anyone still think that a Capriles administration will be pro Brazil?

And it is not all. Brazil in recent years had a campaign to gain a permanent seat in the security council of the United Nations. All the efforts have been lost, I dare say with the recent fiascoes. How can a country aspire to such a rank when it is unable to protect democracy in its area of influence, and furthermore generates deep divisions as it may happen soon between Mercosur and the Pacific Alliance?  Clearly Itamaraty hopes of world leadership are seriously compromised as its actors are revealed to be mere grocery shop managers, more worried about Venezuela paying its bills to them than the long term perspective. Or mere amoral operatives if you prefer. Let's say it: Brazil is not ready for the major leagues, Colombia is.

----------------
PS: let's also remark that Brazil does not understand that Colombia is not amused by its diffidence on chavismo: when things will get bad, it is Colombia which will suffer the most from a repressive Venezuelan regime.  That Itamaraty is not aware of that speaks volumes about the ideological view it has adopted under Lula.

Taking the gloves off: Capriles tells explicitly that Maduro stole the election

I did not know how to title this entry but scanning for background before typing it I thought that an adaption of Spain' El Pais would do. Because this is exactly what Capriles has done tonight: he has officially claimed that the election has been stolen from him. I am putting the portion of the video at the end of the post.

Far from me at this point to tell you that he is right or not, no matter how much evidence is already available. I am too far from the centers of opposition power and too ignored by them to be able to defend them, not that they need it much these days.

HOWEVER......

There is a few signs that show quite clearly that chavismo has something to hide. They are coming back on their word given at the UNASUR meeting of last Friday. The electoral board, CNE, goes all around saying that the results are irreversible no matter what the audit will say. They refuse to answer the written request of Capriles commando. And they are not even offering a serious audit methodology.

To this you add the ruthless campaign going on against Capriles in the state media and you do not need much to start agreeing with me: the regime has something to hide and is trying desperately to avoid an audit.  When that has happened in historical situations, I would bet anything that at least 90% of the time the people on power lost the election and were trying to retain office through cheating.

We must thus recast the battle in proper terms: this is not anymore about whether Capriles got a vote more or a vote less: this is about democracy, accounting, ethics, and the rule of law. And this is exactly what Capriles did tonight, stupidly proven right by yet another governmental abuse during his press conference.

This week has brought an increased attack against Capriles:  personal, fascist in the best tradition of Goebbels and his Cuban distinguished students.  The worse was yesterday's noon cadena where edited videos of last week wanted to prove that Capriles had been the single organizer of all the violence that happened last week. This came along the equally fascist threats from Iris Varela as to her having a cell bunk ready for Capriles, without mentioning the wave of repression that has fallen over the country since April 14, from tortured student protesting to firing public employees who were at the water cooler at the wrong time, because someone hear them pronounce the word Capriles.

Capriles took his time and replied tonight, not wanting to perturb what mattered more, that the CNE fess up to its promise of last Friday. But as this one was not coming he went to a press conference tonight to speak his truth.

Of course, only Globovision was showing him, the other "independent" networks having been duly brow beaten by the regime last week with direct threats from Maduro (well, he threatened Televen, the only one that still shows on occasion real news). And yet the regime knows that when Capriles speaks people tune in to Globovision and maybe half of the country on TV is watching him. So the regime did the only thing they know to do: silence him. They suddenly played again the cadena of yesterday, cutting sharp Capriles press conference (reminder: a cadena is the forced commandeering by the state of ALL TV AND RADIO STATIONS for a simultaneous broadcast, with no right to reply for anyone, of course  not even on state TV late at night).

That way I could see that infamous cadena that I had missed for being at work. It certainly was infamous and show all the power of the state magnifying incidents that happen in any national election in Venezuela to the status of coup mongering and terrorism, all under the order of Capriles. Editing does wonders, you know.

Once the cadena was over (I am sparing you the details, in particular of the Peopl'e Ombudsman who clearly thinks that non chavistas are not people) Globovision went back to where Capriles left and this one, certainly expecting such a clumsy move, had already at hand all the material to discredit the cadena, while showing pictures of the tortured students and wondering whether the Venezuelan state prosecutor was also going to investigate these victims.

All of Capriles presentation was this forceful, tearing down one by one the mask of the CNE and Maduro, announcing that the elections had been stolen from him, that he did not care about the threats, that they should dare put him in jail, giving the CNE an ultimatum, while reminding that the new regime had still to do anything positive for the people in spite of being in office since last December 8.  He even found a way to totally humiliate Madruo while he replied to a journalist question about Maduro overreacting by putting to jail the heckler at his inauguration. "Ridiculo! No seas Bolsa" he said, which loosely translate as "you are ridiculous, do not be a nincompoop".  That heckler, by the way, having also crashed in the past a Chavez event and a Capriles one and even a Miss Venezuela. Needless to say that

#elpropiobolsa and #SeRobaronLasElecciones

became instant Twitter trends in Venezuela.

I cannot remember when a just elected president was ridiculed so fast, and given zero honey moon......

Of course this means that the ante are going up. But the regime is the one forcing the issue, overpalying its hands with lies and manipulations, unable to explain why ballots should not be audited properly even though the law allows for that.. Capriles ended up with an unassailable ploy: he called everyone to go to church next Sunday and pray for the country. But I doubt that this will slow down the inexorable march of the regime towards open violence.