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

Can the opposition win? (election YV-3)

This is a rhetorical question: even the once neutral to favorable pollsters historically putting chavismo even or ahead are now giving the opposition a two digit lead. And yet things are not that simple.


I am not talking here of the obvious: electoral cheating that has taken this time around a many splendored scope. This December election will be one for the annals of deceit, treachery and plain banditry.

Yet it is very difficult to imagine a scenario where chavismo could get back to trailing the opposition no more than 5% which is enough for them to get a one seat advantage. I have already discussed that a "victory" for the opposition is a 3/5 majority. Nothing less will be good enough to force the country into a fairly negotiated political transition. Actually I am starting to think that a 2/3 parliamentary majority is what the opposition needs to win. Equally for the regime at this point a "victory" is 45% of the vote cast. Anything less will not do as no "revolution" can retain a semblance of credibility with such poor result in vote. Never mind that the military will start having doubts about supporting a plebiscite based regime that cannot even get 40+% of the vote.

This being said, the point of this blog entry is to think about whether the opposition can indeed get a 2 digit leaded, that is 10%+ margin over chavismo. No matter what the polls say it is hard to guess. True, a larger vote count seems now assured, but the margin will be volatile for many reasons.

First, many folks who have voted for Chavez consistently for over a decade will have a hard time to admit that they were wrong even if their heads are now sun baked through food scarcity lines. I, for one, cannot imagine many chavistas hoping happily from chavismo to opposition without an "abstention" election in between. That "abstain first and then vote oppo next" has been the pattern in the slow electoral growth of the opposition. But going from a documented trend to an hypothetical landslide.....

From this first observation you can understand that the second observation will be about the emotional content of the vote. True, the natives are restless but it is my belief that the bulk of chavista "desertion" will be more through abstention than actual switching. This because many of them will decide for real what to do in the very last days of the campaign and no poll can see that. True, such last minute decisions will not affect the outcome but could at the last minute carve out 2, 3 or 4 points of the opposition advantage. For a 3/5 majority these few points are crucial.

But this could backfire badly for chavismo too, my third observation. Chavismo will try its bring in the vote machinery. But if it pushes too hard, if it forces too much of its voters it could create a resentment reaction turning a lot of folks into former voters.

A fourth observation is how many voters the opposition lost to emigration. A million? A million and a half? Another key factor to reach the fabled 3/5.

Etc.

In  short as we reach the last stretch of the campaign chavismo is left to rely on Chavez love and the effectiveness of its bring in the vote now that it has very little to pay for it. As for the opposition, deprived of media and campaign money it has to rely on people being upset enough to give it the crucial 3/5.

As you can guess yourself, an election based on emotions is hardy quantifiable in advance. As of today anything is possible, from a small opposition victory to a landslide. But all decided in the very last week.

Electoral scoundrels

No, this is not a post about the constant pro Chavez partisanship of the electoral board CNE. No, this is not a post about the government abuses on the campaign trail. No, this is not about the impossibility of the opposition to voice its political offer on any nation wide network.

This is a post about the scoundrels that flourish under a neo-totalitarian regime like the one Venezuela called for and now suffers from.

Electoral campaigns can be a way to bring the best in people but in general it tends to bring the worst. I am going to detail two recent stories.

William Ojeda

The first one is for the turncoat supreme, William Ojeda. This lackluster character/journalist came to his 15 minutes of fame when he published about 20 years a go a book titled "How much is a judge", pretending to illustrate how corrupt was the judicial system before Chavez. That the judicial system has become infinitely worse since is not the point here, the point is that actually some of the tenets of his "investigation book" have been questioned since. That should have given pause to a few wishing to associate with him.

Whatever. At first Ojeda was with Chavez. When he did not get what he wanted, namely Caracas East mayor job (Petare) he went opposition to the point of entering fist fights with pro Chavez folks. He was eventually compensated by getting the nod in 2010 to be Petare's representative.  So far so good. Except that for reasons that are not explained directly to this date he went back to chavismo within two years. This betrayal to the electors that voted him in has been a constant source of problems and resentments, the more so when Ojeda not only started voting some of the most unpalatable and anti democratic recent laws, but tried to lure through bribes inside chavismo more opposition figures. (1)

Needless to say that the opposition was not going to renew its name on its list. What is more curious is that the regime delayed until it finally gave him the nod. See, after extensive gerrymandering the regime has been able to take away 2 out of the 5 seats that the opposition has been winning in the greater Caracas. Ojeda previously elected in a two seat constituency is now running in a pared down district that albeit still including juicy portions of popular classes neighborhoods is considered as lost by the regime.  Which certainly explains why the regime eventually relented and allowed Ojeda to run for "reelection".

The observant reader would say: so what? The so what is that that Ojeda is already on campaign even though this is not allowed. His district is now covered with huge posters like the one above I am forced to gaze at several times a week when stuck in traffic. All of them say that "Sucre deserves better" or "Sucre does not deserve this." Sucre is the official name of the district that includes the core of Petare's favellas and the tonier districts of North Eastern Caracas, Macaracuay, the Californias and El Llanito. So what, again?

The problem, for one, is that Ojeda is not running for mayor so blaming current holder Ocariz, who is doing a rather good job considering all the sabotage he has had to endure, is not only unfair but out reality. The second, and worse objection, is that Ojeda has been representing the district for 5 years and yet he has partaken in the effective sabotaging of Ocariz's rule even if that affected directly its constituency. That is, not only he betrayed his electors, but then he went on to screw them.

Voters are not fooled and his nomination has faced significant criticism inside chavismo as can be read from its Aporrea portal directly. In fact, you can find elsewhere in Aporrea more complete criticism of Ojeda than I could hope to write up myself! Even in popular districts of Petare Ojeda is not only disliked but he is booed when he tries to pretend that he works for the community. There is a certain Shakespearean quality to Ojeda's plight except that I doubt an ethically corrupt mentality like his can notice. (2)

Jacqueline Faria

The second case is shorter to deal with. We are talking of Jacqueline Faria who is one of the biggest frauds of chavismo. Her main non-achievement was to clean up the sewer that runs through Caracas so that Chavez could go for a swim together with Evo Morales. Today when we cross any bridge over the open air sewer once known as Guaire river we can see that the millions assigned to her for that purpose have gone anywhere but. The problem with Faria is that she pretends to be for el pueblo when she is in reality a snob, rumored to even go from official position to official position with her personal cook in tow. I do not know how true that thing may be but we all know about her comfortable life as a highly inefficient bureaucrat who would never think of sending her child to a public school or public hospital. Milagros Socorro wrote a few days ago an excellent review of the main lies that Faria blurted out without any hint of shame or even self awareness.

Finally all caught up with her when she said that the long lines were "sabrosas" and that it was what Maduro ordered so we should just pick our shopping bag and go along with it.  I kid you not, video below. To understand well in full what a mockery Faria did of all the chavista crowds standing for hours in line, under sun and rain, you should understand that sabrosa in this context is a concept word not directly translatable in English. Sabrosa means here highly enjoyable, very funny, to be sought for, to be done without any remorse. Needless to say that chavismo is not amused by Faria as can be read in Aporera, also. Oh, I forgot, Faria is also running for representative in an area where standing in line for hours has become a full time occupation for some, amen of being an area where buhoneros and bachaqueros hit particularly hard the locals with very high black market resale prices.





Ojeda and Faria mock equally the long suffering electorate, in different ways for sure, but cruel mockery it is.

So there you are, now you know, how chavismo has filed scoundrels to run for office since, well, no one decent would run on that record...........

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1) Ojeda barely used Twitter account as an opposition representative still exists. He cannot even get around to delete that previous account!  I have saved a screen shot in case.

2) There is also another issue about the plastering of billboards in Caracas by Ojeda: who is paying for that? PSUV is not "directly" involved. It is never mentioned in any poster, nor the color red appears. In fact Ojeda uses blue mostly. The excuse is that a minor opposition party, MIN, has been hijacked through a judicial fiat. MIN color is blue and the new board, judicially appointed, seems clearly bent on sabotaging the MUD opposition unity (from which it was promptly suspended). MIN has named Ojeda as its candidate though no one knows how it is possible that suddenly MIN can pay for one of those billboards, never mind the dozens that sprung.

Keller polls on Maduro's illegitimacy

There are many ways to conduct an electoral poll. In general you ask folks for whom they plan to vote and apply the acknowledged corrections to predict who is going to win. This works more or less but it tends to at least predict the winner, the margins of victory being the major problem. Or you can ask voters who did they vote for. After the fact and totally useless for us, but good for a pollsters as a way to control their polling methods when the vote is still fresh in mind.

This is what Keller did, who used to be my favorite pollster before I decided to send all of the them to the dumpsters. At least Keller still has the saving grace that on long term trends he is one of the best, only lacking when he wants to apply them to tomorrow's result. But that is another story.


What Keller did was to ask who they voted for after last April when results allegedly were 51% Maduro 49% Capriles and which Capriles does not recognize. In May folks answered 40% Maduro and 45% Capriles. Keller folks, surprised, thought they made a mistake in the methodology for that question and asked again in August. They got 40% Maduro for 46% for Capriles..... I suppose that in the post April confusion they added "who do you think won?" getting 45% Maduro and 48% Capriles. And further more 54% think there was electoral fraud somewhere.

I truly do not know what we should really do with this, since it was from a Keller interview I read and I do not know the methods used, nor what were his results, say, in post October 2012 or post December 2007. I do not think really that within a month people got fed up enough with Maduro that they already refused to accept their part in voting him in. This is proven by the almost exact same result of August, 3 months later. Let's just say for the time being that it is one more evidence as to Maduro having stolen the election.

The real mystery here is how come the opposition does not make good use of such results which probably do not come only from Keller.

The December 2013 electoral post, or lack thereof in the future

I have no intention to cover in deep the mayoral elections of December 2013. First, prediction is extremely hazardous because chavismo and opposition are, write it down, going to make major mistakes upon unexplained errors. Second, it is unbelievable that we are forgetting so easily the electoral fraud of last April. And third, that the opposition is planing on making an election with a traditional high abstention as a plebiscite on Maduro blows my mind.

Yet, since it is going to be in the news, I will try to help the reader in understanding what is at stake. Let's go by parts, starting with the last one, the easiest one to deal with.

A plebiscite? You must be kidding....

The idea is that a definitive result against the regime in December would finish this one off. There is so much wrong with that idea that I could write a treatise on it.

First, it is a traditional high abstention vote so even a major success from the opposition will translate in less votes than in April. Right there, the regime can dampen any excitation arising from an opposition victory.

Second, a regime that so far has survived major inflation, major devaluation, major scarcity and obscene electoral fraud while neutralizing the national assembly and the judicial power is able to do anything it takes to stay in office. Adverse municipalities will be quickly neutralized by reviving the "communal power" to break up opposition municipal councils.

Third, calling it a plebiscite can only motivate more the chavista core base who in time of crisis, of bankruptcy, might be even more sensitive to the regime argument that "whatever little you get depends on me remaining in office".

Fourth, if the "plebiscite" fails, if the regime survives, then we will lose bigger than what the numbers may actually say.

And so on. The opposition leadership faction promoting this are, well, idiots.

An electoral fraud always hides another one

It is becoming clear that the regime will play with the same trump cards it played in October 2012 and April 2013. That is, same CNE, same voter rolls, same voting center personnel, while ignoring all the claims made by the opposition. This one is patiently "waiting" for a high court decision on the fraud claims that now it is almost certain will not come until after the municipal elections.  This leaves us with two sets of considerations.

On the positive side, since we must always try to find a silver lining, a supposedly incensed opposition voter will be more active. Also, the high number of candidates for municipal councils will create a large population of monitors coming from these candidates friends and families. We can expect indeed that there will be more difficulties for the regime to do such fraud like "assisted voting" or "the night of the living dead voter".

Yet, gerrymandering and other stuff will help the regime who in turn will also have the families and friends of its candidates at the doors of the voting centers, promoting unrest and scare tactics for opposition abstention. I think the regime is clear in its mind that it will lose those elections, something that may have happened even if Chavez were alive today. The objective is to minimize losses, which explains why these elections have been shamelessly postponed since 2005 when the term is 4 years!!!!  And do not be surprised if the regime once again uses some delaying tactic to postpone these elections for 2014.... why should they risk the comfortable majority in municipal districts they enjoy today with some silly election?

Perturbing stakes

Which brings us to the very start of this post: what can we predict? Nothing because the stakes are so high from each side that once again there cannot be clear cut results.

The stakes of that December vote are very high for both sides.

It is certain that beyond a putative victory the opposition needs to shore up its municipal presence if it wants to oust the regime in a near future.  However that Capriles has chosen a low key approach to claim for his victory of April saying things that "we cannot send people to the slaughter house" and doing nothing but law suits that we all know will never been won outright inside Venezuela has a powerful unmotivating effect for the opposition voter.  Also, it is so clear that politics is a business as any other for politicians more worried about their paycheck than the fate of the country that the radical voter will be tempted to punish those that want a job in any town hall by withholding the votes for winning that one. Remember that some of these races will be won on a few dozen votes and there the "radical vote" will have an enormous importance. And to add more trouble for the opposition, that the primaries were held almost two years tot he day of the election has changed a lot the local electoral situation. Some winners then look like losers today. I already complained about that then but no one listens to this blogger.... :)

The stakes for chavismo are even higher because they speak to the basic survival of the regime. See, beyond a possible defeat, the point is that municipal councils are a major source of patronage for chavismo. Losing a mere 25% of those held currently would create quite a lot of trouble for chavismo which will have as lone solution the creation of yet another layer of parallel administration at a time where coffers are looking rather empty for such waste. Expect thus yet another dirty campaign with massive intimidation as Maduro himself started yesterday by claiming once again, without proof, that he knows who did not vote for him last April. If four moths before the vote we are under such blackmail, expect outright violence.

Thus we can predict one thing for certain: mean elections.

Miscellaneous

To conclude this post, we can attempt not a prediction but what would be the reading of the results.

For chavismo the task is to preserve as much as possible the advantage they have. They can actually gain a few town halls (+/- 6) to compensate the dozens that they expect to lose. According to Wikipedia (!) the regime holds 267 town-halls against 68 for the opposition. This apparent majority should be tempered by noting that a majority of the large districts are held by the opposition (4 in Caracas, Maracaibo, etc...) and thus about 40% of the country lives under an opposition mayor. We can say that if chavismo manages to retain more than 200 districts it can still milk that result as a victory of sorts even though it would most certainly mean that now more than 50% of the country has voted for an opposition mayor. The only "psychological" victory the regime may expect is if it were to take Maracaibo and retain Valencia. We should note that chavismo deciding not to hold primaries for its candidates will likely constitute a handicap as many an activists of the PSUV will stay home, dissatisfied by being ignored once again and this time by Chavez cheap underlings. It is thus very possible that the PSUV may not reach that magical 200 that would allow it to claim victory even if it gets less votes than the opposition.

The opposition starts with several advantages. A majority of its candidates are primary winners who had time to forge a consensus around their name.  Also, the opposition has been steadily increasing its share and there is no reason to see it become otherwise. If indeed December 2012 was a bad surprise when it managed to retain only 3 states, the numbers of that same December would have already reflected a gain in town halls! We can thus expect that no matter what the regime throws in electoral fraud the opposition should be able to reach this time around 100 mayor seats. I think their goal of 134 is at this time overly optimistic.

But the opposition victory should be measured elsewhere, in the quality of its gains. For example, recovering the town hall of Valencia is almost a must for the opposition. In Miranda, winning Los Teques and, why not, Guatire, would go a long way in shoring up Capriles and demanding a recall election against the state assembly that sabotages any of his activities. Another couple of wins that would strike the spirits is for the opposition to pick up Barquisimeto and Cabudare in Lara. Barquisimeto in particular would be one of the harshest defeats that chavismo could suffer. And should. Some other less certain but possible victories could be Maracay, Puerto Ordaz and maybe, just maybe, Barinas. Even if chavismo retains its 200+ majority, if this list of 8 cities goes to the opposition, any claim of victory will sound deeply hollow, even for the chavista core. Amen of the big enchilada which is Caracas/Libertador.....

Conclusions

There is really one single conclusion: these elections are going to be particularly complex as national interest will be dramatically juxtaposed to local ones in a bigger way than ever since Chavez was elected first in 1998.  Nothing will visibly decant until, say, late September.

I simply have no time nor any desire to track down such an ethereal situation, the more so that from the start I am in disagreement with the way the campaign is starting, with a boring Capriles at his helm. I know that some of you appreciate these analysis but this time I find them futile. It is not that I will not cover the election but I have the feeling that I will write no more than 2 or 3 posts on that subject, maybe one of them commenting on why the elections have been once again postponed.......

The opposition challenges 2,320,490 votes of April 14 (15.4% votes cast, margin of victory 1.49% votes cast)

A few days ago Capriles challenged the whole election.

Today, there were quite a few voting centers which results of April 14 where directly challenged. In short, what the opposition demands is that the vote is repeated in those centers which are enough to not only reverse the result of last April but could give Capriles a better margin of victory than what Maduro claims (amen of the voters loss the regime has experienced in two weeks).


To understand what today means you need to understand that Capriles challenged the WHOLE election process, from the time it was called to the time Maduro was "proclaimed" in a rush.

What has been done today is a specific account of those voting centers that had unacceptable problems on April  14, problems that can cast legitimate doubt about the results in those centers (remember, from outside violence to the infamous "voto asistido" assisted vote). The opposition strategy is thus different: the judicial body is forced to look at the collected evidence, one by one, and explain why it accepts it or not. It is a lose lose for the regime's courts because if they say yes, Maduro will try to punish them and if they say no, not only the country will not accept it but all that evidence will travel ipso facto to international organizations that are more than certain to accept many of these. Exposing the lack of justice in Venezuela once again but in terms that truly can be understood overseas where unfortunately stealing an election is a graver offense than jailing Afiuni.

Do not be mistaken about the importance of today: while Maduro tries to buy legitimacy through contracts in a tour of Mercosur, the opposition renews its challenge, perhaps even legally stronger this time. Do you want to sign contracts with a guy that may neither have the time of the ability to fulfill them?  Maduro's improvised tour is fast becoming a major mistake.........

Electoral fraud mode confirmed: it is in who voted, how many times they voted, where they voted

Wrecking her life work at the very end,
and in pink innocent girl!

It came as no surprise a few minutes ago: the CNE has announced that the audit it will allow DOES NOT include the books where voters must sign after they vote. Nor apparently the system that gets your fingerprints. In other words it is a useless audit because it  indeed will count the votes that were cast but does not account for those that were allowed to cast proper votes.

What are the implications?


First, we must note the combative and bitter tone of Tibisay Lucena cadena whose words are not those of an objective umpire whatsoever. She extended in some explanations which had as sole objective to disparage Capriles and dismiss his claims  Whether Lucena is allowed to think so does not give her the right to say it aloud: she is supposed to be an umpire.  The only explanation is that she is sending a message from the regime to the opposition: screw you! For those of you that read Spanish I am linking the transcript, which of course was made available to state TV beforehand but not to others I understand.

The second implication is graver: by refusing to visit the voter registry and to check the digital prints Lucena simply admits that any irregularities in the voting process are indeed there. Thus the only way for the opposition is to demand annulment of the election where indeed they can expose the arguments of undue pressure on voters that the CNE claims it cannot receive. In short: an amiable arrangement is now impossible, show of force are becoming and almost unavoidable outcome.

The third implication is even worse: by stonewalling for so long, by trying to dismiss clumsily the opposition reasonable petition, by offering an audit that she cannot possibly lose, by refusing to examine anything where indeed irregularities could be found, Tibisay Lucena is finishing her tenure at the head of the CNE casting a serious doubt about ALL the electoral processes that she presided over. The damage she has done to the CNE in the last two weeks may well be irreparable.

Now on for the "impugnacion".

Reminder: Tibisay Lucena at Chavez funeral wearing the fascist armband
 that  chavismo has adopted