The rebellion has started

What else could the regime expect today after the annulation of all elections? Or is is it what the regime hoped for? And will it still be of any use for the regime this late a confrontation?

A fraction of the river of people in Caracas today October 27 2016

What has happened today is transcendent, on many aspects.


The causes are the naked abuse of the regime which has refused to recognize the duly elected majority of the National Assembly. A regime that has refused to recognize the constitutional right to call for a a recall election. A regime that has suspended all elections until they decide to hold them again, someday, when conditions are good for them. A regime that has decided to assault the national assembly. And of course, most importantly, a regime that has left its population with not enough food, not enough medicine and not enough money to buy from the little that is left to find.

In not even 48 hours the opposition managed to organize spontaneously what is probably the largest NATION WIDE protest ever in our history. If the Caracas one was not as large than the one on September, it remains quite impressive as per the picture above in front of the military base of La Carlota, without even bothering to ask for permission tot he regime. Think about that for a second. The opposition simply called it and people came. What makes the day noteworthy is that in many cities of the countries huge opposition rallies materialized at the same time, resulting in a major show of strength for the opposition, duly noted even on French TV tonight.

The only thing chavismo could manage was a handful of  "supporter" public employees at the gate of Miraflores. They did not even tried to have some thing significant, they knew that they would not be able to fill up the buses with enough people to carry, no matter how much pressure and/or cash to attend they would provide.

However what they did was to repress. Not in Caracas, mind you, where all eyes are, but inside the country where they think that the world watches less and where they assume that people can be sacred easier to get back in line. We had dozens of arrests and injuries during the day, with an extremely worrying high rate of rubber bullets shot in the face of people, as close to the eyes as possible. A vicious attack, without doubt inspired by the fascist ways of repression the regime imported from Cuba.

The results of all of this are varied and not encouraging.

The first victim is the carelessly dialogue called by the Vatican next Sunday, a clumsiness that surprises everyone. Then again the US and the Vatican have always had in mind solving the Cuban situation thorough Venezuelan pockets never caring much for the fate of the Venezuelan opposition. It will remain one of the biggest failure of US or Vatican diplomacy, to underestimate the level of despair AND resolve of the Venezuelan opposition, a mistake that could cost Obama's"legacy" a big chunk. Never mind Francis himself though he still can recover better than the US.

The second result is that the regime has got in overdrive, invoking article 323 of the constitution, a preamble of sorts to suspend the constitution altogether. Except that ironically the decisions taken out of 323 have a validity only if the chair of the national assembly signs them. Not that it matters much for the regime, of course. But that seems a little paltry after all the other violations of the Constitution by the regime that justify in full all that the National Assembly has decided to undertake. These are also in agreement with the constitution, and include removing illegally appointed justices and electoral board, citing Maduro for investigation on many issues, etc...

The third result may be the most momentous. After today's true show of strength that not even the regime propaganda is taking down with its usual cynicism, the opposition has called for a general strike on Friday and a march on Miraflores Palace on November 3. That is, either the regime decides to give concrete and real responses NOW or the insurrection not only will start but probably could not be controlled by the opposition.

I wrote, and many others, that the regime sought violence as a way to sustain its power. Hence so many provocations. But violence is not necessarily the solution for the regime if it did not happen at the right time. Now, with a long suffering country, the violence that the regime is unleashing seem to scare many of them actually, as a demon that they are not sure they can control to their advantage. In 2014 it worked and gave the regime two more years but this time around conditions are different.

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What follows below does not quite belong tot he the stream of the text above. call it additional info.

First it was my own attendance to the march rally in the picture above.  There is my two videos on Instagram

I was there, the first day of the open resistance against the now dictator Maduro. We did what we should have some for quite a while already: block Caracas by taking over the major thoroughway.

A video posted by daniel duquenal (@duquenal_at_vnv) on Oct 26, 2016 at 1:24pm PDT

The second one is a flag sales guy. What is remarkable is that he was openly selling 7 star flags, those of the pre Chavez era. Quite a symbol that those are now the flags made and sold at marches....

The return of the 7 ✴ The opposition feeling is so strong that they making again the pre Chavez 7 star flag and peddling loud it at marches!

A video posted by daniel duquenal (@duquenal_at_vnv) on Oct 26, 2016 at 1:15pm PDT

This was one of the marches across Venezuela. This one from Barquisimeto.

Aquí en Barquisimeto,las calles no fueron suficientes para toda la cantidad de ciudadanos q salimos a marchar pic.twitter.com/HVcg0Ex0YC

— lorena perata (@lorenaperata) 26 de octubre de 2016

And a couple of videos on today's repression. You can clearly see how the police was facilitating the chavista storm troopers actions. Observe when the masked aggressor points at the window of the movie takers. Fascism. The real stuff.

@trafficTACHIRA @traffiCARACAS como se unen los policías + tupamaros para reprimir pic.twitter.com/rKewRGa2Es

— norelis garcia (@norelisgarcia4) 26 de octubre de 2016

La Policia del Estado no les basta con reprimir al pueblo sino además descaradamente protegen a los malandros del gobierno #Mérida pic.twitter.com/OYD3drZUk6

— Carlos García (@CarlosGarc1a) 26 de octubre de 2016

And to finish all, in case you doubt how angry Venezuelans are becoming at the regime...

Mujeres tachirenses impidiendo q efectivos militares disolvieran protesta cerca del CNE San Cristòbal. #LaTomaDeVenezuela #Táchira pic.twitter.com/1yJ4molZJS

— Luz Dary Depablos (@luzdarydepablos) 26 de octubre de 2016

There we are not, at freedom

Long time I did not write a summary of what is going on. As usual there is a big yawn along as everything changes fast but everything is, in the end, the same: a gang of thugs will do whatever it is possible to retain power because they know what awaits them once they lose. Nevermind the culture of violence that goes with such mentality where only brute force is the argument. Negotiation? Only to gain time until I finally find a way to screw you once and for all.


This been said things are not going any better for the regime. True, the vice president and the communist minister of economy are saying that lines are lesser, that we are turning around a corner, that imports are on the rise since January, etc.  The reality is that indeed lines are lesser. See, supplies are lesser so there is no need to stand in line for stuff that will not come in. Shopping on weekends for groceries is great: since there are no deliveries anymore on Saturdays then what is left is for the people that have money enough to buy what the hoi polloi cannot afford. For the first time in years I am hitting again grocery stores on Saturdays (Sundays are, well, empty no matter what). As for the commie minister (he used to be a PCV member before jumping ship to Chavez), someone in his office should point to him that historically January has always been the lowest month for importation since the country is out of business until mid January. No dockers....

Politically the big fight remains the Recall Election before January 10 2017 since after that date a chased Maduro can name his successor, no election needed for the next two years. As I suspected long ago, it is not going to happen no matter what the opposition does. Too much at stake for the regime. Yet the good fight must be done in the off chance that a division inside chavismo allows in the end for the recall election; or,  better, we have Maduro resign before January 10 (which I think is what will happen if chavismo decides not to go full metal jacket on repression).

The strategy of the "legal" chavismo (and institutional military?)  is to wait as long as possible in the vain hope that oil prices go up just enough to resupply a little bit food shelves and thus make electoral defeat not a fact. Since production is not promoted and that economic repression is getting worse, I do not see how can this happen even if within one year oil were to go back to, say, 80 a barrel. But chavismo is entitled to dream too.

Meanwhile the "illegal" chavismo (and narko military?), the one that does not give a crap about appearances and that wants not only to get rid of the opposition but also of timorate chavistas, is forging ahead. The packed high court (never a dissenting opinion in the TSJ) has annulled anything the National Assembly does. The problem is that we need to vote next year budget and the constitution is quite clear in that it can only be approved through a National Assembly vote. We are sure that the TSJ will write something to annul yet a new sector of the constitution which for all practical purposes is only good enough to replace scarce toilet paper. The final head-on conflict must happen in the next weeks as the to-do list of TSJ before the end of the year is 1) annul the recall election proceeding 2) decide the budget 3) bar the nomination of a new electoral board 4) support legally repression and, why not, 5) disolve parliament without electing a new one.

While chavismo is desperately establishing a dictatorship without any popular support things outside are not improving for them either. The non aligned summit of last week was a fiasco as only a dozen of the 100+ head of state showed up. And we are talking here of Mugabe, Castro and other undesirable ones that have zero credentials on democracy. No luster from the summit except perhaps for some lumpen chavismo, part of it being carried to a refuge like tent city nearby the luxury hotels to provide Maduro with the adoring crowds he needs to prove his alleged popularity. Indeed, since Maduro was pot banged live in Margarita Villa Rosa community the regime takes no chances, from jailing as many as possible to bring its own sycophants along.

And I will pass on MERCOSUR giving an ultimatum to Maduro...

Thus repression keeps apace. What else could the regime do? We learned this early week alone that now Leopoldo Lopez is deprived of any light at night in his jail, that they search him and force him to undress uncounted number of time, etc...  all enough to deserve for the regime a boat load of human rights crimes trials against the regime. But the best example of regime fear and desperation came today.

Primero Justicia hired three guys to do a video on the situation and against repression. The army quickly jailed the three producers on treason charges and put the three civilians at the disposition of a military tribunal. So there you are (while the leadership of Primero Justicia is so far untouched by the army...)

RT | ANTES QUE LO CENSUREN - El vídeo que tiene al Gobierno de Maduro desatando una ola de persecución y arrestos en Venezuela (1/3) pic.twitter.com/AHhN5Eae7V

— Alberto Rodríguez (@AlbertoRT51) 20 de septiembre de 2016

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A short summary of what happens in the video.

The girl tends to her sick mother. She looks at the empty fridge and texts her father to tell him that she is off to stand in line because she cannot find the medicine for her Mom and that there is no food at home. It just happens that her father is in the army and getting ready to repress a student march. The daughter reminds her father that the people he is about to repress suffer of the same problems that they do.

Too close for comfort?

Ways out of the mess, doubtful all, military for sure, recall it ain't

Last I wrote on ways to get out of this mess was June 11 (and April). Things have changed somewhat since these entries. Time to include recent developments.

What has not changed

It is still a matter of a group of narko-mobsters holding Miraflores Palace who cannot surrender power because they will go to jail. All problems originate from this.

Period  1.

This has been a military regime for quite a while. Naming Vladimir Padrino as the head honcho co-president does not change things much, except on some stylistic matters, such as more naked repression, always a possibility.

Period 2.

What has changed

Even people that were reluctant to use the D word (D not for Democracy) are coming around and calling a spade, a spade. That for me it was officially a dictatorship since January 2013 is no consolation. Ever the Cassandra, sometimes even the laughing stock, but oh, so right.

The economic crisis is nearing tragedy proportions and the regime is simply unable comprehend, instead resorting to scrapping the very last bolivar that can be found. The cruelty shown by the regime is reaching genocidal proportions. This is for all to see, even at home in spite of heavy censorship of the air waves and even threats at social media.

And to drive in the point of the crisis there are reports of belt tightening in Cuba which proves that the colony is having problems supporting its master. From there to think that Cuba may want to get rid of Venezuela it is not that long of a stretch.

As a consequence there is some intensifying international movement. The OAS is starting the proceedings to apply its democratic charter on Venezuela. Mercosur does not want to give the rotating presidency to Venezuela. But the US seems to have misplaced views at forcing a "dialogue" upon Venezuelan opposition least a final collapse of Venezuela sends waves of Cuban, and Haitians, and Caribbeans, and Venezuelans to the Florida shores.

Facing all of this, the military had to take a more visible direct role. Why? They are already responsible for the mess, nobody believes for a second that their corrupt structure is going to change anything.  Two possible reasons.

First, and foremost in my opinion, there is not enough to loot and the higher ranks have decided to limit the robbery intake and restrain it some, to some. That extremely corrupt Marcos Torres is not sacked and remain in office would point that way. Let me remind you that he was the one managing the billions at HSBC Spain and is yet to account on how that money was used. He has been censored by the National Assembly and yet Maduro keeps him even though his signature on contracts has no more validity as far as the National Assembly is concerned. His direction of the economy in the last couple of years, well, speaks for itself.

Second, the army does not want to do Maduro's dirty job. That is, they do not want Maduro to call on them for rough repression and be the ones to go to trial some day for it. That co-presidency sounds to me like a "if I go down you go down with me" thing

What are the current exits

This being considered we can review quickly which could be the possible exits to Venezuela's political crisis today. Which may be invalid by tomorrow but that is another story.

The best one for the chavista party PSUV to avoid a final collapse is to have Maduro resign. This can be done in such a way that Maduro remains in office for, say, three more months before a new election to complete the 6 years term of office, even if the opposition (if not divided) is certain to win. That way chavismo can put all the blame on Maduro and pull out a relatively untainted figure that would ensure the PSUV to bounce back to the 20ies it currently hold in polls to a more palatable 30ies, or even 40ies.

Odds? since it makes sense the odds are not good. Also, it requires several things. That Cuba approves. That Maduro accepts to abide. That the opposition gets into the deal and offers a more "moderate" candidate than Capriles or Lopez or Machado. That X Y and Z.

The coup is a resuscitated option, the more so when one sees the probably faked coup of Erdogan in Turkey that is allowing him to get a MASSIVE purge of public officials in there. After all, there is a precedent in Venezuela. Chavez himself admitted to have provoked the 2002 crisis and used his survival to purge all what he could in the Venezuelan state.

There are two modalities for the coup depending on what the "provocation" may be. One is a simple dissolution of the National Assembly, akin to the Peruvian "Fujimorazo". The other, a variation, is a more extreme state of emergency removing all powers of the state,  Both options are "moderated" through a promise of  elections within a year.

Odds? since it is reckless, since they are more into the current style of Maduro, Cabello and all the others that are going to jail sooner or later, the odds are not bad. Since Venezuela is already a bankrupt pariah state, who cares?!

There is the possibility of general collapse. It is clear that the army, no matter what Padrino tries to do, is less and less in control. The latest shopping exodus to Colombia is an evidence. Just as when the Iron Curtain borders control collapsed announcing the end of Communist Eastern Europe.

La foto más impactante de los venezolanos cruzando la frontera con Colombia https://t.co/qANXRl7mah pic.twitter.com/PQUTD56pQc

— El Nacional (@ElNacionalWeb) 17 de julio de 2016

What would happen if general looting started, if people started marching from chavista former strongholds like Catia to Miraflores Palace?  All is possible, from civil war, to military bloody coup to a swift regime collapse like Argentina's De La Rua escape from Casa Rosada in 2001. Many variations are possible but all drive from a provisional regime to an opposition take over that would have to face the highly unpopular economic measures necessary to end and correct the chavista narko-corruption mess. Let´s not speculate on that for the time being.


Odds? Probably the highest at this point as it seems that the "civilian" and narko wings of chavismo would chose this way out, either to exculpate its mistakes or to purge once and for all its opposition. But it is doubtful that the military would accept that last one as they will be finding themselves at The Hague benches. We are in the XXI century after all. Hence probably the recent take over by Padrino, which is far from ruling out that option as the guy has started by counting chickens in combat vest.

@vladimirpadrino visita Empresa de Alimentos El Tunal, en Lara, como parte de la Gran Mision Abastecimiento Soberano pic.twitter.com/Hec5CVYXQ2

— Vladimir Padrino L. (@vladimirpadrino) 16 de julio de 2016

So that is that.

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PD: something probably thought that I did not discuss the Recall Election scenario. There will be no Recall Election. Nor any election for that matter (can you imagine chavismo losing 90% of State House in December!!!!).

A recall  election is the worse case scenario for chavismo. If Maduro is recalled, say, with a 20 points spread, that would reverberate badly downstream and the following presidential election could go to a spread half as larger!  That is, the end of PSUV.  Thus why I think that if the regime were to be forced into a Recall Election before 2017 it would have Maduro resign first, a less damaging option for the PSUV.

Revocatorio, Brexit and other assauts on democracy

This past week we got dramatic examples on the limits of democracy. Let's dispatch Brexit fast as the "revocatorio" will require some details.


Some claim that Brexit was an exercise in Democracy and sovereignty. But this week has shown that it was anything but. From the quick collapse of Boris Johnson to the obvious intentions of a few in the Tories to remove Cameron at all costs, without forgetting Corbyn's naked intent at turning Labour into a British version of PODEMOS (or is that English now?) we can see that the voters interests were, well, accessory. Now Scotland is veering fast towards a new independence vote while the idiots that did not bother voting are now marching in the streets of London. And never mind the flow of racism that opened after Brexit, showing clearly what the vote was for some.

The saddest part of all this is that not only the UK voter took unnecessary risks to exert their "esprit de clocher" (podunkness?), but they are dragging Europe down with them, breaking up a peace zone that was so difficult to build up. Now that I think of it Europe should also have been voting as to whether keep Britain in. Things would be clearer today, for better or for worse.

The revocatorio in Venezuela is quite another expression of the limits of democracy, but with cruel fascist political garbage to boot. The objective here is that 20% of the electoral body can sign up, under certain conditions, to ask for a recall election of any given elected official. This may work out in countries like the US where people are used to register with a political group and where the given political group can never take for granted the amount of people that claim intent to vote for them.

But in savages country like Venezuela, a recall election is a sure way to destroy the secrecy of vote. It happened in a really bad way in 2004 with the Tascon list (yours truly was denied passport for a while for having signed up to recall Chavez, to give you an example). But now, without Chavez and with a group of renegades on top with too many crimes to confess, a recall election is out of question and any, ANY pseudo-legal trick will be tried to avoid such an election.

The latest one is that after an arduous process to collect 2% of preliminary signatures (not because of the lack of will of the voters to sign up but because of all the political pressure exerted by the regime to block the signature drive) rumors are that the regime will toss away these signatures anyway. The argument? A handful of signatures were ill collected and thus none of the million + is valid. Never mind that the electoral bord, CNE, supposedly did its job by filtering and rejecting already 600,000 signature including some of those from opposition leaders that signed in public, in front of news cameras.

What we see here is the profound anti democratic reasoning of chavismo. Since this one has had no convincing argument, for years now, their only debating strategy is to negate all because of one. That is, you can advance 100 solid arguments, if one is slightly shaky this will be used by chavismo as a proof that the other 99 are worthless. Self exempting themselves along from sustaining their own arguments, by the way. Note, such systemic reasoning is not exclusive of chavismo as we could see in some of the comments in my previous entry, quite similar to those of chavismo in the days where they infested all opposition blogs.

Thus in addition of the Venezuelan high court preparing itself to destroy the will of the people, we already see the regime creating a new version of the Tascon list with those poor sols that signed over a month ago. And the victims are the 8% that signed, even though the CNE "rejected" a good third of them. For apartheid, they are suddenly all valid.

As a I wrote, thus went away the secrecy of vote in Venezuela. The remarkable thing is that in spite of this, in spite of incredible regime pressure, 8% managed to sign. And this is duly noted when even Obama getting out of his reserve, forgetting for a while his tractations with Cuba, clearly stated that the recall election should go in Venezuela (timely this year, according to may others as a 2017 a recall election would be useless according of the shitty constitution of Chavez).

Churchill said that democracy was a messy system of rule, but that no better system had yet been invented. And probably will not. So we are left to try to improve the workings of democracy. Direct people rule is showing its limits fast. Even Athens, the copy right holder, succumbed to its excesses. With visceral reactions on twitter, facebook and other such easy access media people vote more and more through their gut feeling, electing the like of Chavez, or finding easier to bring down worthwhile instituions rather than reform them because of too many pakis.

For all what is worth, nothing pretty much, my provisional solution is to reinforce representative democracy. Shorter terms and strict term limits on executive positions should be installed to avoid the need for recall elections. Federalism should be increased. As for referenda, mandatory vote should be required, or at least that results are only binding if 50% of registered voters approves the question.

One can always dream, no?

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.

And they shall go to jail

I am not sure if people outside Venezuela truly measure how miserable it is to live here. However one thing is certain, the political situation makes it impossible for things to improve any time soon. Even more certain are the odds of things getting worse. The photo below is National Assembly chair Ramos Allup showing on TV the picture of the defense minister Padrino Lopez in bowed deference to Fidel. This is the clearest sign that the confrontation with the regime is reaching pitch fork level.

Why is this picture, which has widely circulated in the web months ago, back in front?

For this you need to come back to what this blog has gotten tired to repeat over and over: the regime cannot, CANNOT, leave office because this would mean that dozens if not hundreds of regime luminaries will find their way to trials and jail sentences, some as far as reaching The Hague tribunal (it is my opinion that, at the very least, Maduro's criminal actions against the well being of the Venezuelan population make him worthy of sitting at the accused bench of The Hague international court for human rights).

If you do not get this, or disagree with this, then you really have wasted your time reading this blog over the years.

The Games of Thrones played in real life here is as confusing as the fictional one, and probably many a political career would be demised as in the series, hopefully with not as much blood though I am now certain that some will be spilled..

To try to understand this let's start by the game played by the National Assembly. It's only weapon is legality, voting laws that bring answers to the plight of people. The process is long and tedious and exasperating not only to the radical minds inside the opposition but even to more rational spirits like a dear friend from overseas with whom I had a long talk yesterday.  It is indeed hard to keep cool in front of the onslaught suffered by the Assembly.

The regime indeed is annulling every law the Assembly passes. Even if the political cost for the regime may be high. For example we are waiting for the oncoming, announced, annulment of two laws. One is designed to allow quick and full ownership to those who got public housing in recent years. This is a No-No for the regime as that housing is sort of a grant that people can preserve as long as they support the regime. But denying such law goes against the human nature of even many hard core chavistas who, well, like any human being want their very own refuge...

More damaging still are the ridiculous pretension that the "bono alimentación" (kind of a food stamp system) for retired people is too expensive for the regime to accept. To which it was replied immediately that if there is money for weapons then there is money to help retirees living of a pension that is today at 40 USD a month (according to DICOM already in free fall since its creation weeks ago). The problem here is that the regime cannot permit under any circumstances to have the populace believe that they can get stuff outside of Chavez or his appointed heir. I suppose that in the regime mental construct the political price to screw the elderly is preferable to the political price of people starting to think that there is life after chavismo.

I pass on other laws annulled which are more abstract to the point made here. The objective of the regime is to annul the National Assembly. Since this cannot be done easily in front of the public opinion, and because the Assembly has two atomic bombs in reserve, the regime is proceeding to discuss nincompoopy proposals such as an amendment to bring down the Assembly term from 5 years to 60 days. Amen that such a constitutional amendement would have to be voted in a referendum (article 341) that the regime cannot win without massive and thus obvious fraud.

Or go the way of a mere coup and that is that.

Indeed the National Assembly has two bombs that are very dangerous to all, but more to the regime. One is the ability to call for a Constituent Assembly that if it proves effective could result in sweeping away all of the regime office holders (articles 348 and 349).

The other bomb is immediate: the regime is short on cash and the only way to borrow more dollars is to get a favorable vote from the Assembly (as a guarantee to the lender). This one will certainly give it IF AND ONLY IF the regime accounts for how the loan will be spent, monitored through a mechanism that will not be under regime control. Something that is totally unacceptable for an hyper corrupt regime. Will the regime pick bankruptcy? Coup? Negotiation?

I am going for coup even though no one will lend a dollar to the regime in such conditions. A coup would only result in utter misery for the people with the regime's hope to control the populace through control of food. A gamble that at least Maduro, Cabello and their close corrupt entourage are willing to take with the assumption that the army will help killing whatever needs to be killed through heavy repression.

Which brings us to the picture opening this entry.

I, for one, consider that Ramos Allup and the opposition have acted to the best of their abilities. There may be better ways to proceed but NO ONE so far as made the case that there is another strategy for the opposition to corner the regime until this one blows a fuse and close the Assembly, or collapses. Either way, many will have to go to jail...

The pressure over the regime has been gradual but continued and unfaltering. And at each time the regime has shown its dark nature. First the emergency economic decree was rejected but approved through yet another judicial coup. The the courts decided that the National Assembly did not have the right to call for hearings on public servants unless allowed by the regime. Then populists reforms are rejected at political cost for the regime. Then the amnesty Law is now under threat and if the regime rejects it it will result in a strongly welded opposition against the regime. On this last one we had the Defense Minister that chimed in as to his opinion that the Amnesty Law was bad. Not only this is not true, and not of his resort, but coming from someone who is linked to coup mongers that benefited in their time from an amnesty of sorts it is simply an indefensible position.

Ramos Allup thought that the time has come to put the armed forces in front of their duty. Showing the picture of an adoring minister of defense in front of a foreign potentate, publicly, on TV, simply questions the loyalty to the nation, to democracy, of the head of the armed forces.

The implications of this are so obvious that I will dispense the patient but smart reader from further explanations.

Only one comment to close this entry: Padrino Lopez today must regret not to have accepted the massive fraud that Cabello wanted to perpetrate on December 6. I will let you think on that too.

Extraordinarily newsworthy day in the battle for democracy

I thought already when I was writing the communism decree that the regime wants to pass would be quite something already for a single day. I even started publishing it before I finished or corrected such was my state of discombobulation.  But tonight there is yet two more news, maybe more important because that decree can still be rejected by the Assembly. But apparently there are bigger fishes to fry.

President Maduro finally came tonight for his state of the Union. The speech was long, vapid, misleading when not blurting outrageous lies when vaunting the "successes" of 2015. The excitement came through the fact that he showed up when a few days ago it seemed that the rebelliousness of Diosdado Cabello with the support of some judges could carry the day and send the Assembly into nothingness. This can still happen but I have big doubts tonight about it ever happening.


The Assembly "caved in" and suspended for a while the controversial representatives and thus Cabello and the Court had no other option but to recognize the validity of the Assembly for the time being. Thus showeth up Maduro.

All fine and dandy. The speech is given in cadena, that is, simultaneous mandatory broadcast on all audio visual media. ALL. Important detail for later. The speech lasted for over two jours but I only connected to it through the end, following it on tweeter before (see my time line for highlights in Spanish or English according to assumed public, on the right side of this blog).

Maduro said nothing besides his usual assortment of insults and what not. Yet he seemed rather subdued, a little bit lost. At the end, as expected, he handed the microphone to Ramos Allup as chair of the Assembly which we would have thought would limit himself to pronounce the protocolar farewell. It was not. Ramos Allup launched himself in a big speech.

Now, why was this speech so important, well managed by the way considering the ordeal that today must have been for him today?

You need to know that just like in the US, all powers are represented (5 in Venezuela, 4 of them clapping at any inanity of Maduro; in the US no Justice would be caught dead applauding a president at SOTU!). You need to know that when Ramos Allup took over the cadena continued and the state TV, VTV,which was the only one allowed to transmit live on airwaves remained fixed on Ramos Allup the whole time, probably waiting for the order to cut off, an order that never came. It was the first time in 17 years that the country saw a cadena by someone else than a chavista stating the official line. Thus the fixation and the novelty gave more reach to Ramos Allup than he may have deserved.

Of course the response of Ramos Allup was civil but frequently mischievous in pointing out the flaws in Maduro's speech. But what made the reply to Maduro a hit were the following, in no order of importance:

- VTV and state media attack him all the time, which is OK, he does not care (I have got my mileage he said). What is not OK is that he does not have the right to reply. VTV et.al. addicts cannot pretend to ignore that anymore. The more so that the biggest vilifier of Ramos Allup and the opposotion is Diosdado Cabello show "con el mazo dando".

- He looked at the other three powers and reminded them that the only two sovereign powers, those elected by the people were the president and the Assembly and thus the other three were "derivative" powers. That is pointed at a time when one, the judicial power, is trying to unseat representatives without even the semblant of a trial (never mind of the well documented treacheries of the other two)

- He addressed the attending military top brass and explained them that the Bolivar that Chavez invented IS NOT the historical one, helping his cause with pictures and quotes. He explained that there was no room for ANY president portrait in a National Assembly. He went ahead and told them that the army was not there to do politics and he finished by making it crystal clear that neither Maduro nor him wanted a coup of any type.  Reminding them, by the way, that about two weeks before April 2002 he was on record that there was a military coup in preparation against Chavez.

Now, guess who was the real target of this speech? Maduro? Guess again.

I think that what happened tonight besides revealing to the hard core chavismo what parliamentary democracy is all about, is that Ramos Allup offered his hand to Maduro to deal with the economic crisis together AND, most importantly AND, get rid of Diosdado Cabello who is managing to put everyone against himself without solving a simple problem.

It is of course a big gambit if what I write is right. After all, a reader could reply, Ramos Allup is on record to want to remove Maduro from office in the next 6 months.  But the difference here, clearly expressed tonight, is that Ramos Allup does not have any particular grief against Maduro, he just wants the system gone. So, he implies, we can either prepare an honorable exit for Maduro (resigning or constitutional shortening of the term, a mere referendum would suffice) or a nastier one. The villain here, for all, is Diosdado Cabello. And you could sense that the message had been received in the rather subdued declarations Cabello gave to the press when the ceremony was over.

And since I am speculating might as well go for it. Ramos Allup offer is that if Cabello tones down or retires he will not surrender him to the DEA. As long as he remains in Venezuela in quiet retirement he can enjoy his loot (though I am sure he will be asked to return a portion of the stolen one). The offer to Maduro is that the opposition will help him taking some hard measures but the condition is that power is shared. That is, the judicial illegal nominations be reverted and the electoral board becomes truly neutral. This is the red line. Then if Maduro cannot go all the way with the necessary economic measures he can resign and retire in Venezuela, at least for a while. Or have his term shortened through a constitutional amendment that can be voted on fast, without any campaign needed. And all of this gives time tot he army to clean up its act and pick among themselves the 2-3 generals that must be sacrificed to the DEA so the other can remain free, as long as they do not leave Venezuela.

You know, I have the nagging feeling that the whole show was sort of planned by Ramos and the new Vice President Isturriz...... And probably worked out much better than the two wily coyotes ever hoped it would.

The first day of the New Assembly

This entry started this morning (see bottom for earlier text) but I decided to edit it and keep it up as a regular entry.

I am sorry to limit my comments on what happened inside the Assembly because I went to the support rally. In spite of the low speed of connections I did manage to have a full report, video included, of what that rally was. Considering that it was early January when everyone is on Holiday, considering that the regime close 4, FOUR, subway stations to force people to walk about 2 KM to attend, considering the threats, I think it was a very successful demonstration. Visit my Instagram account for pics and videos, in particular the police barrier at the end of the march, two blocks before the National Assembly. For those new to Instagram you need to click on the picture for full details and comments.  Better get used to it and open your account, it is the future of micro blogging by eye witness.


As for what happened inside. It was a mess, chavismo trying to disrupt and sabotage whatever they could, sending a drunken opening speaker because it was for the oldest elected representative to open the session and proceed tot he election of the chair, Ramos Allup. Expect more of the like.

On noteworthy moments.

Ramos Allup gave a good speech and made it clear that the opposition got the message, that the regime is going to attack the New Assembly and that they will fight back, including a legal, constitutional, electoral, peaceful removal of Maduro from office in the next 6 months.

Cabello withdrew the PSUV group because supposedly Ramor Allup violated rules. As if he NEVER violated any rule himself.

Cilia Flores, wife of Maduro and representative from Cojedes was asked about her narco-nephews in jail in New York. She walked away with a truly dirty look, first time a journalist was close enough her to ask for the question we all wanted to hear.

Things were said that chavismo did not like. They are not used at how democracy works.

Reuters got it right: Venezuelans used to years of monochromatic to ideological TV could not believe it when in cafes suddenly TV was live with opposition politicians speaking.  It is true, when I drove back home I saw crowds spilling out of cafes!!!!

So there it was for a first rowdy day. But that is that, the opposition is now in charge at the Assembly. There is still the question of the illegally annulled 4 seats. But as wee say in French a chaque jour suffit sa peine.

For those who refuse to get into Instagram

Video of barricade

A video posted by daniel duquenal (@duquenal_at_vnv) on Jan 5, 2016 at 8:12am PST

---------------------------------

I will try to go to the rally in support of the New Assembly. If I succeed I will try to post stuff on Instagram and/or twitter. Links on the right side of this page.

Then again maybe not: I just learned that the subway stations around La Hoyada have been shut down for "security" reasons, which means you need to walk a mile to reach la Hoyada.  They will try to screw us until the bitter end!

We are going for it anyway.

The decalogue of a new opposition (eventually?) led National Assembly

A thought exercise first. If the MUD opposition alliance gains a majority in the new National Assembly, who is the opposition? Maduro or the MUD?


This being said, when the National Assembly settles in next January which could be the initial measures that can prove new times have come, even if there a simple majority of seats?

Before the swearing in. In no particular order, as they come to mind during my morning coffee.

1) Announce the new directors of ANTV, the C-span of sorts. This network, mostly cable, is one the propaganda tools of the regime. It is also the network that the MUD can reopen to public debate and democracy from day one. Voiding this way the need to buy back one the private networks bought by regime mystery figures. ANTV would go in a few days from the least watched network to the most watched in Venezuela.

2) Announce that control of the Assembly will be all in the hands of the MUD. BUT...  offering two or three commissions to chavismo as a good gesture to start a useful debate. After the sectarian years of Diosdado Cabello at the head, that would improve the political climate greatly, nation wide. Note: that measure can be strengthened by the MUD offering these commissions chairs to PSUV representatives not associated with previous sectarian practices: folks like Cabello or Eekhout cannot chair any commission.

3) Announce before Christmas, or even next week, who will be the new Assembly chair, so as to have a forceful spokesperson to counter regime's last minute treacheries.

4) Announce that any Maduro's initiative before the Assembly is sworn in will be dead on arrival, that is, will not be funded and legally reverted. The simple objective here is to announce regime's treachery before this one is even proposed, countering from the start any propaganda effect.

5) Announce that from day one the press corps will be allowed to monitor live the debates of the Assembly. Yet announcing that the other rules of the Assembly will be kept as is for the first year (to teach the regime representatives a lesson in democracy).

And announce the first laws that will be discussed starting day 1.

6) An amnesty law. Since there is no way to have fair trials the new assembly has to assume a provisional guilty status of the political prisoners until at a later date the unfair and infamous trials can be reversed. By proclaiming an amnesty law the opposition thus in a way recognizes the sentences but also gets to free all political prisoners and even allow the return of many political exiles. Leopoldo Lopez back in the streets with his acquired Mandela status courtesy of the regime clumsiness, will be the nightmare of the executive power of Maduro...

7) A budget reform to guarantee that local financial needs are met as intended. This will strike at the heart of the regime financial muscle. Chavez had managed by all sorts of tricks to deprive the states and city halls of a large chunk of  what constitutionally should have gone to them. On one hand the regime gained a weakening of local authorities and on the other Chavez gained more direct patronage. Yes, such a measure would appear to strengthen the existing large majority of chavista governors, but it will also force then to give to their own opposition city halls the funds they require to function, a dramatic gain for some town halls that the regime has sabotaged to the extreme. Two notes: the regime should willingly sign in such a reform because it will get a more effective help from the local administrations to solve the humanitarian crisis at hand. And the governors have only one year left in their tenure so it will be difficult for them to use that windfall efficiently enough to build a reelection machinery.

8) An administrative reform of the comptrollers office to stop the practice of depriving politicians of their rights without the legal ruling in court: inahabilitaciones. Currently an obscure bureaucrat at the order of the regime can simply forbid so and so to run for election or become a public employee.

9) An anti expropriation bill. This way the recent abuses such as those of SUNDEE, Dakazo and the like will be stopped unless the regime previews a fair return before proceeding to expropriation. A way to restore a minimum of trust to bring back some investments to the country.

10) A bill to review the functioning of the expropriations done before. Those which have been a failure should be returned free of charge (and indemnity for the robbed properties?) to the owners who still want to get them back. If indemnity cannot be offered right now, at least offer them tax breaks for a few years to allow them to restart the business.

I am not including laws to revert some of the ruinous social programs. After all inflation will take care of their undoing and the regime executive privileges would force Maduro's combo to finance them at the very least through less corruption. In fact it will be cheap talk to proclaim the Assembly support for existing programs"as is". Also some unpopular measures such as the price of gas, are left at Maduro's doorstep. The common thread in the above Decalogue is to restore some trust in the battered political and economical needs of the country, to jump start what can be jump started legally through the specific constitutional powers of the assembly. The Assembly is not closing down on the regime's alleged reforms, it is building on them by correcting excesses. A fine line but a line worth threading.

And by announcing such type of laws before starting audits and inquiries on corruption would be a good PR operation, the more so that through ANTV and a reform of CONATEL, the media regulation agency, the MUD will have a way to counter the communication abuses of the regime.

Of course, if the opposition gets a 3/5 or 2/3 majority things will be simplified, and we can even foresee a regime collapse sped up through these very simple initial measures.

NOTE: I list all of these but let's not forget that there will be a full month in between the election and the swearing in, a period long enough for the regime to do enough treachery to stop some of these initiatives. A good measure on how to fight for the next thousand measures required will proceed....

The Macri effect

One week ago Argentina elected a new president, the first certifiably peronist free in decades. As expected there will be changes in Argentina foreign policy. What was less expected is the speed at which president elect Macri started those changes, more than two weeks before being sworn in. To begin with, of the few people allowed on the election night stand, one was Leopoldo Lopez wife, Lilian Tintori. This made it to the opening news of CNNSpanish...

¡Plop! Café CÑN empieza su cobertura de resultado Argentino con abrazo de @liliantintori y @mauriciomacri en tarima pic.twitter.com/t2NkUB7x0e

— daniel duquenal (@danielduquenal) November 23, 2015

So what now?


The first thing to note is that Macri means what he said. He repeated it twice on his morning after first press conference.  Other countries are taking notice and are not amused, like Uruguay. To which Macri replied stating point blank that human right violations were public and notorious in Venezuela and it was up to other countries to chose interest over ethics. In Venezuela they took a few days to acknowledge the hit, hoping, I suppose, that Dilma or somebody would call Macri to ask him to shut up. When nothing more but very gauche declarations like the one from Uruguay came, the regime finally reacted. National Assembly chair Diosdado Cabello called Macri a fascist (it takes one to know one, I suppose).  And president Maduro, not to be left behind, went as far as saying that the Argentinian people were ready to raise against Macri (interesting statement since he just got elected, is not sworn in yet,but then again Maduro was never suspected of being a democrat).

And yet, for of his apparent democratic ethics Macri thinks more about Argentina interests than those of Venezuela. He knows that a battle in Mercosur to evict Venezuela is lost because Brazil and Uruguay are too involved with Venezuela corruption and Venezuela owes them too much money. Macri's target is not only the increasingly abhorrent regime of Venezuela, it is Mercosur itself.

Mercosur is failing since Lula reached power. It has become for Brazil something like its private economic zone and as such things like true economic integration and political developments have been sub-ordained to Brazil's interests. The devastating Argentina crisis 13 years ago, and the very light weight of Uruguay and Paraguay made that possible. In other words, with the fraudulent incorporation of Venezuela Mercosur is going nowhere, and Macri seems to have no patience with that. In fact, Macri is looking towards relations with the Pacific Alliance which would favor Argentina more as its economy is more complementary to the P.A. needs than Brazil's one. If Mercosur fails to tame Venezuela it will be a perfect excuse for Macri to start taking its distances with it.

There is also more than Mercosur in the target, there is also the useless UNASUR, a presidential left self protection club for South America. Note that the the swearing in of Macri is on December 10, just when an eventual election fraud crisis in Venezuela would be at its apex. Apparently Macri has chosen his new foreign minister for her experience even though he did not know here personally. He gave her an agenda where two points were nonnegotiable: his pressure on Venezuela and the end of Argentina's relations with Iran. Clearly UNASUR received a notification that any unjustified support to Venezuela will not be approved by Macri and such a division could well mean also the end of the useless UNASUR.

Voluntad Popular is ready for the major poltical leagues

Today's press conference at Voluntad Popular

Long time readers of the blog remember that I have been following the growth of Voluntad Popular, Leopoldo Lopez vehicle, since almost its birth. I covered the official launch in Valencia, very soon 4 years ago.  Since then we have kept in touch and monitored its progress. I am happy to report today that Voluntad Popular has graduated to the major league.  Disclaimer: even though I have voted for them or supported their formula I would never be an unconditional for them or anyone else (I did vote Machado for the 2012 primaries even though Lopez rallied Capriles).

These past 4 years I have written about their growth, their initiatives, at least when these could be of interest for people living overseas such as the Venezuelans trying to vote in embassies and the help VP tried to bring them. Never mind writing often on the epic battle of Lopez against the regime attempt to block his political career, a battle he won in international courts even though the regime keeps playing a deaf ear to its international obligations. Then again, when has fascism paid heed to legality?

The true trilogy of evil: empty
wallets (slang), high crime and
scarcity of all, including toilet paper

I have thus being privileged to be a regular guest at VP, be it when Lopez launched his candidacy, or a few days after he gave up his ambition to favor the one of Capriles in 2012, already itching for the good fight against Chavez electoral machinery. A few months ago I was invited to tour their new headquarters, a flat on Centro Plaza, a good deal in a rather derelict building but aren't they all in Caracas these days..... I returned this week to make the promised report, coincidentally with the reply of Lopez to the fascist regime attack against him and Capriles with Machado. The true "triology of evil" that Maduro pretends to believe us these guys incarnate is in fact the trilogy of poverty, crime and scarcity. With the poster just produced today on the left for show.

The headquarters of Voluntad Popular are bristling with activity, full of energy. And not only because in one month we have elections, I already had that impression a few months ago when they had just moved in and there were half of the folks I saw today.

What welcomes you when waiting for your host to fetch you is an exhibition hall. A long hallway that can also be used for other purposes is decorated this month with a selection of political cartoons from Zapata, Rayma and Edo. It is called "La Ventana", the window, as a place where prosecuted folks are welcome to expose, and other to come and look over and see what the regime would like to disappear.

Defending freedom of expression.

This is, in short, the tone of the visit: the rather young and dynamic team working for Voluntad Popular leaves no stone unturned, from mere electoral activities to more intellectual pursuits, even if in a hurry. But we are a country in a hurry, in a hurry to leave behind chavismo, so I can relate. Contemplation must be brief and purposeful.

The call center

There are rooms for everything, and all full of busy people. Below I will spare you the numerous meeting rooms and just show you where the action takes place (by the way, all rooms sparsely crowded with items, we sense that they want to have as little as possible on their desks least some repressive raid were to happen: whatever the Nazional Guard seizes, personal or not, is rarely returned even if you are 100% innocent).

Media Watch

Let's start with the call center, the key to any serious political organization.  There are about five rows as the one in the picture above. I did talk briefly with one of the guys in charge and they are happy with their work, having created in a few month a structure that allows them to avoid the use of expensive pollsters, at least on simple issues. I will not give you details since it is after all their weaponry, but I can tell you that their own "polling" matches rather well the few polls found on newspapers.  Of course, almost no one looked more than 30 years old.  In fact, I felt like an old troll in many rooms.....

VP's hope

Next is the room monitoring the media. Today since all media TV is either silenced or controlled by the government 5 TV sets are more than enough, and two were off....  There is way more work going on the computers where web pages, twitter and newspapers are closely monitored.

The electoral campaign is monitored from several rooms.  In the one below there are young designers trying to come up with all the necessary material.

Campaign creation room

In another there is support to the candidates with the chart pinning the picture of each candidate running for town hall. Limited means make them run more "traditional" material visual aids. There are about 40 running and they are optimistic about getting a significant representation. What is noteworthy here is to observe that on the map there are everywhere. True, maybe Zulia, Falcon and Bolivar are still rather empty, but everywhere else VP is running a guy, sometimes in big tickets like San Cristobal or Maturin. At any rate, in barely 4 years, VP has cultivated a growing nationwide presence, something that cannot be said for, say, UNT, and with caveats for PJ.

Last but not least, Voluntad Popular is finishing up its program and political concepts. The Orange book will be published soon and I saw the provisional cover.  Well, they are still working on the set up but the good thing is that after months and years of discussion across the country with the many grassroots groups they are finally getting there. It is not useless to remind folks that VP was the first political party since 1998 to hold an internal primary. Chavismo had some but they forgot about the whole thing as soon as they observed that some dared criticize Chavez proposals.  And the others are content in their pyramidal set up, if there is indeed a pyramid to be found for them.

Simonovis remembered

Details are not forgotten. In an office I did find out that political prisoners are not forgotten and several cartoons asking for the freedom of Simonovis were on the wall.

To finish this post, let's talk about the press conference system of VP.  I receive on my mail regularly, at least once a week, a press communique of the weekly agenda. It is about the response of VP to a particular situation. It may be held in the press room of the headquarters or somewhere else, in particular if it is locally related to a given campaign. But the most salient feature if you ask me is that the official position of VP is not always announced by Leopoldo Lopez. In fact, there is great care taken to promote as many voices from VP as possible and many spokespeople are formed by giving these press conferences and holding the questions.  VP may be the creation of Leopoldo Lopez when he left his original associates but he has had the wisdom to make the party a real political group, a confluence of ideas and interests.

Presenting the poster.

Today it was Lopez in charge of the conference.  Normal, he had been attacked vilely last week and there was a need to a direct reply.  I am not going to go into the details of that short and to the point briefing, which is by the way, always the case, short and to the point, whomever is in charge of directing the event at VP.  I did do a live tweet that you can check here if you wish. But live tweet is not the way to cover the energy of Lopez. And I must say, a certain anger I sensed by being branded a fascist when he has been repeatedly the victim of a regime that does not bother much anymore in democratic pretense.

The highlight of the presentation I would say was to once again ridicule Maduro. For him being so worried about Twitter removing 6000 fake accounts out of his 1 million plus followers is equivalent to a teenage girl tantrum, according to Lopez. Again, more evidence that Maduro is located between pusillanimous and ridiculous. The ever repeated leitmotiv that no matter what corruption is denounced, there is NEVER a big fish toppled by it was not forgotten.

The communication machinery, a concern from the very start by Lopez and Voluntad Popular, is smooth and quick to respond. When I was starting to put together this post I received already the summary of Lopez intervention and this video which is quite chilling if you understand Spanish. There is a clear expose of what is the real "evil trilogy" of Venezuela, shortages, corruption, violence, etc...



The web site of Voluntad Popular, a work always in progress in real web sites, is full of news, videos and how to join it. But you can also follow or visit  @VoluntadPopular to see pictures of all the constant activities of the group across Venezuela, some impressive considering the small locales they visit. They also report with pictures on the nasty stuff they find around. You can also follow @leopoldolopez who happens to have 100,000 more followers than @nicolasmaduro, interestingly. Real followers I would bet as Twitter does not seem in the need to clean up fake accounts with Lopez as it did with Maduro....

I am no political expert to judge how successful Voluntad Popular is, we will need to see if they get at least 15-20 town-halls next December. However after this visit I have a sense that whatever it is that VP is doing, it seems to be doing it right. And certainly the constant harassment the regime has against VP is proof that these young activists are having an effect.

Lopez has read VN&V

To conclude, a picture I took during a short meeting I had with Lopez's team at the end of the visit, where he posed along the VN&V web page screen to greet readers of this blog.

A XXIst century dictatorship primer

Even though for informed people the Venezuelan regime has become a symbol of utter corruption, immeasurable incompetence, sublime contempt for the rule of law and plasticity for human rights, you read here and there that we are a democracy. We cannot possibly be a dictatorship because people are happy and keep reëlecting the same folks letting hysterics dominate Twitter. What these people fail to notice is that the concept of dictatorship has evolved with the times. Now, in the earlier part of the XXI century, in an age of mass media and massive social media, the tools of dictatorship have had to evolve, even if old means are yet to be out of fashion as we see in Egypt these days.

To understand that "adaptation of dictatorship to new realities" let's start by remembering what are the core concepts of democracy and, as a consequence, what trumps a democracy and can thus represent the basic tools to sustain a dictatorship.

A democracy cannot be defined alone by elections, even if those are free and fair. In a complex, multiethnic, multicultural world, and dare I invent a word, multieconomical, we need to look beyond what were the democratic aspirations of the XIX century: right of vote for all, equal justice for all and for more forward looking societies like the US, equal opportunities for all. The aspirations of the XIX century and the birth of the welfare state have led to our current system where democracy also includes protection for minorities, guarantees that a political minority can become a political majority, rule of law though independent institutions implying stricter separation of powers. Not to enter into human rights which have expanded considerably from those of the XIX century which were basically limited to habeas corpus and freedoms of the press and beliefs.

This restructuring of democracy tenets have also implied the redefinition of power. All through the XXth century democracy has had to contend with that side of human nature that wishes to control everything. This made democracy to be seen for some as weak and incompetent creating a wish for a substantial chunk of the society that wants clear and direct answers. The enemy of democracy has thus been the will of small groups who invented crass appeal to the populace, or populism, to reach power. In their more extreme forms these people went easily over to fascism or communism, which are the negative picture of the democratic aspiration, totalitarianism.

Unfortunately at this vantage point it seems that the trend is for a victory of populism in its milder forms over sensible government though we should not give up quite yet. This has been made easier because mass media cannot resit to dabble in political influence, in all countries of the world. Exciting the masses is rather easy and a few good soundbites can influence an election more than electoral homework. But yet these media and international realities make an outright grab to power more difficult than it was. Absolute control is today nearly impossible unless it was established in the last century.  Thus ambitious groups and individuals had to reshape their goals.

The only thing that, with some ease, can be more or less thoroughly controlled today is the income of the country. In an authoritarian regime this is a must because the state income is used by those in powers to play off one side of the country against the other one.  Other forms of control then can follow. In a welfare state age and crass consumption sponsored by all types of media living off advertising, the power of the purse is more effective than the power of the weapons. True, the other tool of dictatorships, giving only to a few powers for abuse over their brethren still exists but runs into lots of problems in an age of human rights, no matter how many psychopaths a regime can draw. Disposable bribe money works better, violent repression is a last recourse. Although preparations for repression are made as diligently as they used to be made last century.

The trick for those craving absolute power is on how to reach absolute control over the state financial resources. The Venezuelan model is the first success story though one difficult to emulate unless you have a spigot of money like the one that exists underground in Venezuela. The model was implemented in stages so that not that many people objected to it at any given time, outside of the 2002 scare.

First, you sell the empty promise of a new constitution without describing what you will put in it. As such people project in a new Constitution any of their phantasms or needs to be fulfilled. In April 1999 only 10% voted NO to elect a constitutional assembly.  Then, with the new constitution as an excuse you change the institutions of the state or at the very least exchange the people holding them for your cronies. This was strategically done in December 1999 when the transition commission between the two constitutions overextended its reach in removing all the members of the judicial system it did not like.

Once the judicial power has lost its independence it is just a matter of time in taking control of the rest of the state. This was done by 2004 when the opposition was left with a few town halls and two state houses. Then it becomes easy to manipulate financial arrangements to make sure only the regime can drain the bulk of resources and distribute them at will. Once this is achieved the regime is on its way to become an "electoral" dictatorship. It takes about half a decade to create a dependent population that is too afraid to vote against the regime least it risks to lose what is seen as its lone livelihood. This was achieved by 2006 when the charisma of the leader and the dependency on state giveaway programs ensured a solid electoral victory and the beginning of the other measures more in agreement with a traditional dictatorship, like restricting the freedom of expression, or using corruption to gain the willingness of supporters to start harassing opposition people, be them politicians or mere civilians that refuse to accept the new regime.

Today, certainly, we can access Internet, we can travel outside of the country at will but with significant difficulty, we can talk freely among friends to trash the regime, we can still get significant news in some newspapers. But that is pretty much it. For the rest we are in a dictatorship, a bona fide one even though the above hides it for the casual observer.

Let's list a few of the restrictions we suffer that do look like those of a more traditional dictatorship.

• As of this week there is basically nothing critical of the regime on TV. And on radio only in some cities. Newspapers and media in general practice a significant amount of self censorship and some news only appear in the Internet. Yes, you can still find criticism but now you must work for it, the masses that satisfy themselves on TV do not get much.
• Nobody remembers the last time the state lost a case in the High Court of Venezuela. Suing the state is a waste of time and money unless you need to do so before you can be allowed to reach for international help. Also, winning a case in court against a friend of the regime is an uphill and very expensive battle. Expensive because in the end the winner of the trial is the one that bribes the highest.
• Your property is not your property anymore. Once the state decides to expropriate you you have no recourse, your compensation is dictated by the state, not by an independent third party. And that compensation will be payed by the state whenever it pleases it.
• You cannot use your property at will. Some items now can be sold or rented only after the state consents, after deciding on the price. Your access to foreign currency is severely restricted, and only if you travel.
• You cannot manage your business as you see fit. Not only heavy regulations make it difficult to work but they stimulate extortion from abusive state inspectors. Worse, you cannot let the market decide your selling prices; and in increasing cases you cannot sell it where you want to whom you want even at fixed prices.
• For those who must deal regularly with the authorities, roughly half of the time the person that you need to reach, the one with real authority in charge, is military personnel. A large amount of governors and ministers come from the army.
• Personality cult is for all to see. Be it the one for Chavez still going on, but there is also an incipient propaganda for Maduro.
• Human and civil rights are trampled for some groups. There are political prisoners, a few but mistreated notoriously to set an example. The elected opposition representatives in Parliament are beaten up and insulted as a matter of fact.
• Corruption is eating up the country. You need to pay something for almost anything important you need to get done. Obtaining loans from state banks, any business with the state, has a a fixed percentile rate of the deal to be given to the one who signs it. In cash, no trail.
• Political segregation is the norm since the Tascon list was set in 2004. Many services now only reach followers of the regime, though badly. Obtaining a public job, a subsidized housing, a scholarship, is obtained only after pledging allegiance to the regime.
• And to close a list that can still go on, elections are neither free nor fair anymore. There is clear electoral fraud patterns that are now in the public domain. It starts with the extreme unfairness of an election where the opposition is not allowed to finance itself or communicate its program against a regime that uses all the resources of the state and the media to promote its cause and blackmail voters. And it ends with the dead voting and the end of secret voting.

All of these items taken separately could make the case for a mere authoritarian regime. Taken together they surely indicate a dictatorship.

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All of what I wrote above is documented in hundreds of posts that have been forming this blog since 2003. The path toward dictatorship was undertaken in 2004 with the apartheid political list by representative Tascon which created a class of sub-citizens, not to say traitors. In 2007 the regime suffered a setback, the last election where the opposition was still able to carry its message with some effectiveness. In 2010 the first massive electoral fraud was perpetrated, including an obscene gerrymandering that left an opposition with a majority of the vote with barely a little bit more than a third of legislative seats. Personally it was in 2010 when I started calling the regime a dictatorship. Final confirmation came, for those who still pretend otherwise, in the legal maneuvering required to violate the 1999 constitution and ensure that Maduro would be the heir of Chavez. Maduro is an illegitimate president that got its official mandate after a fraudulent election that the regime refused to audit, of course. The paradox is that Maduro is the front dictator of the country but he is not the one truly in charge. The real dictators are elsewhere to be found. But that is another story.

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Note

I would be remiss if I were not to mention the Venezuelan model elsewhere. The one that comes closest to the Venezuelan model is the Russia of Putin although they certainly were able to come up with the same considerations that drove chavismo to do the deed, under Cuban direction. Though Putin has been more careful at keeping appearances, so far. But the model is the same in that the regime bases its success on the spigot of cash it controls. Just as the US has financed Chavez, Europe has financed Putin.

Of the other countries that have tried to follow a Venezuelan model, only Ecuador has a small spigot of cash. If it has not become a dictator ship it is because Correa has been a better manager of the economy and has accepted that the US dollar remains the Ecuador currency. The other imitators, Argentina, Bolivia and Nicaragua are sui generis in their own with much lesser promising options if the Venezuelan cash were to stop sustaining their political corruption system. But there are other politicians that are dreaming of an improved Venezuelan system that are in the wings, in Chile, Peru, Honduras, etc....