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

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

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

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

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

The billboard deserves a speedy semantical analysis.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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





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

A month and a half to play it out in Venezuela

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maria Corina Machado to the front line?

It has been a good weekend for Maria Corina Machado, if you call notoriety good in times of crisis and repression. Suddenly she is top billing above Capriles in Maduro's paranoia, and she gets two major interviews, one in El Universal but one also in La Nacion of Argentina. And she got two top journalists for that, Roberto Giusti and Hugo Alconada respectively, this last one having become an expert on Venezuelan and Argentinean corruption since the Antonini case of the 800K bucks in a suitcase.

Of course, MCM has never been too far away from the front pages, miscellaneously having her nose broken in the Venezuelan National Assembly while more serious parliaments go out of their way to receive her with all the respect she deserves. Yet we must be surprised that Maduro went out of his way this weekend to suggest that she is the one chosen by the US to replace him by leading an upcoming transition.

The words of Maduro have, of course, no credibility on that matter. After all, if we were to take his words at face value, if his words were to verify in real life he would have probably been killed long ago in one of the multiple attempts against his life. But unfortunately for him, the fact of the matter is that there has been NO SERIOUS case against his life that could be sustained in court of justice. And each time Maduro goes yet deeper in ridicule.

No, we must search elsewhere the reasons why Maduro suddenly brings her to the front line.

"Ustedes saben que hay un cambio de línea en Washington, porque creen que pueden nombrar presidentes en Venezuela. Ahora han ungido a una dama, y la están preparando. Miembro honorífica de un apellido de 200 años de alcurnia. Ahora ella está ungida del poder y le han dicho prepara tu imagen, debes ser moderada, ahora debes vestirte de rojo y parecer chavista,..."You know that there is a change of line in Washington, because they think that they can name presidents in Venezuela. Now they have anointed a lady, and they are preparing her. Honorific member of a last name that has 200 years of prestige [Mayfloweresque?]. Now she is anointed by power and they told her to preapre her image, you need to be moderate, you need to dress in red and look like a chavista....

Of course, this is absolutely preposterous and quite frankly idiotic, oriented to the lumpen chavismo that Maduro has more and more trouble to stir, emote, motivate. Besides the obvious, to try to divide the opposition by questioning the leadership of Capriles there is something else. In a time of crisis, when people are getting desperate, even among some sections of the armed forces, strong language like the one held all along by MCM may start having some effect. Capriles soft chavista light approach did not work in 2012. His rising his tone a notch worked better in 2013. But Capriles has remained the same since and there is a hunger for sterner sentences which MCM provides. Heck, she evens stirs nationalism by accusing Maduro to give up Venezuelan territory to Guyana, something that cannot fail to be noticed by an uncomfortable military forced by Cubans interests to put Cuban policies above Venezuelan national interests. Yes, they are paid to accept that loss but still...... At any rate, whether her words had an effect, the Venezuelan navy took in custody this week a boat working for Guyana.

The problem for Maduro is very basic: he has neither the education, the formation, the competence, the charisma to be a president of Venezuela and the contrast against some of the most, best articulated politicians in the country is starting to be noticed. Certainly people like myself have been monitoring with keen interest people like Leopoldo Lopez of MCM above Capriles and other. But today it is quite possible that the language of Lopez and MCM is reaching deeper than what many would like......... Maduro is thus, in his increased repressive alienation, forced to deal with more than Capriles and preemptively takes on MCM, the more so as she promises to be a top speaker at the National Assembly debate on the enabling law.

And yet MCM is simply repeating what she has said for years now. She is clear in her mind and her interviews cited at the start really do not bring anything new for those who follow.  The novelty is, for example in the Argentine interview, that she looks down on Brasil, reflecting the general disappointment in Brasil and outside with Dilma Roussef. But what she is more direct than ever is her categorical statement that Maduro's tenure should be numbered in months, because not only of the crisis but because  his incurable illegitimacy does not allow him to tackle the crisis, amen of his personal flaws. And that of course, is nightmare material for Maduro.