I suppose I should write about the annulation of the Recall Election. I had guessed long ago that it would not happen. The intensity of the dislike toward Maduro is so strong, even among chavistas, that the regime could not allow CNN document the huge lines that would have formed for three days this week. They had no stomach for that, it was better to use an idiotic legal sophistry and send it all ad patres.
To concur with the prevalent head line this week end that Venezuela is officially a dictatorship is an hypocrisy. I have long said it so and I am actually upset at some people having trying to avoid the D world finally pouting it. As if annulling the Recall Election was more despicable than, say, having political prisoners, forcing those freed into exile, stealing the budget of the nation, and more,
I will just comment on how ridiculous the pretext to kill the Recall Election was. In short, a sub judge in Podunk decided that the CNE had not done its job to vet all the signatures for the 1% collection to start the process. The ridicule, of declaring themselves incompetent through their beloved electoral ministry, CNE, is something they cannot worry about anymore. The obsessive objective is to never leave office. All considerations be dammed.
That is all that there is to it.
Now what?
Showing posts with label recall election. Show all posts
Showing posts with label recall election. Show all posts
Saturday, 22 October 2016
Wednesday, 21 September 2016
Thy electoral CNE shoe droppeth
There will be a lot of brouhaha in the next days about the ignominious decision of the CNE to do its utmost to violate the constitution in order to block the Recall Election against Maduro. Let me try to make it clear for readers still hanging around here.
1) The motivation in any case is to annul the Recall Election, or in the very worst case push it to 2017 which means that the regime remains in office until January 2019 at the very least.
In fact, the regime has announced today through one of its formal provocateurs, PedroCarroña Carreño, that voting was not a fundamental right, that there was more pressing needs like food or medicine than elections. The provocation is, of course, the public knowledge that the crisis is the regime fault and thus it will never win an election again, and it knows it. Never mind that there might not be money for elections but there was cash for the useless NOAL summit in Margarita last week that could have easily paid for an election. Nevermind on how much medicine could have been bought out of the food given, say, to Mugabe.
In short, before I go into details, as I already wrote in previous entries, the regime does not want elections. Period.
2) The constitution states clearly that any recall election must be asked by 20% of the voters in the district that elected the said person. The electoral board CNE today announced that even though Maduro was elected nation wide the opposition will need to collect 20% in each and every state. So, even if, say, 30% nationwide signed for the recall election it is enough that in a single state there is ONE VOTE missing for the 20% to annul the whole experience. The article 72 is clear and precise, there is a need for a 20% nation wide and it is irrelevant if that number is reached through 100% of voters in state X while state Y has 0% signatures.
Thus we have right there a flagrant violation of the constitution. If they do that so bluntly what can we expect for the "details" next?
3) The CNE said that it would give the opposition only 3 weekdays, 7 hour week day, with one hour for lunch for the CNE workers. That is there will be a Wednesday, Thursday and Friday allocated, from 8 AM to noon and from 1 PM to 4 PM. That is, unless your boss gives you the time to stand in line for hours you will not be able to sign up for the recall election. Never mind public workers who will be tightly controlled those days and fired on the spot if they are out of office during that timetable.
4) And to make sure that this timetable is even more difficult to fulfill the CNE has allocated only 5,392 finger printing machines. Let's do some simple arithmetic.
If all goes well, no electric outage, no sabotage, no violence, etc, etc... we have 21 hours per machine. Let's assume that each machine can collect one signature per minute in such perfect conditions. The maximum signatures that can be thus collected in those three days are:
5,392 X 21 X 60 = 6,793,920 signatures.
We need, besides the per state quota difficulty, 3,893,129 signatures. That is not bad you may say. Think again. I have assumed that the 21 hours will be indeed perfect 21 hours. Also, there are always imponderables and we know from experience that the CNE has a proclivity to annul signatures at will, even if collected by themselves. The "safe number" is not 20% per state, it is 25% per state, which is above 5 million nationwide.
A couple of rainstorms across the country is enough to already make you lose half a million. A few well designed power outages and there you have another half a million gone. Since it is to be collected state by state all those that cannot return to their home state will not be able to sign. Etc.....
Not collecting on a week end makes it, just becasue of logistics, very difficult to get that 4 million signatures. Since elections are on Sundays, you can appreciate in full the hypocrisy and cynicism of the CNE in deciding on working days and working hours for signature collection.
5) And at this point we do not know yet other details such as where the limited numbers of collection centers will be located. If you vote here but you need to go over there, preferably in a rough neighborhood, to sign up, will you?
6) But just for good measure the CNE has announced that it will take its sweet time to decide whether the signatures have indeed been collected. Nevermind that they collected them themselves, with their people, their machines, etc. They blithely said that the Recall Election "could take place" during the first quarter of 2017. Thus annulling its desired effect, as I mentioned above.
Voila!
This being said.
Technically there is still a possibility for the recall election to be held before January 10. After all, January 9 IS in the first quarter of 2017. All will depend of course on what the opposition MUD will do in the coming days and how willing is the army to repress as needed.
Right now, today, it would seem that the regime has accepted to remove Maduro from office. But that is all, he must be replaced by someone inside the regime, WITHOUT presidential election. That is right, if Mauro were to be recalled in the first quarter of 2017, the vice president HE NAMES one day before the vote would be the one that would complete the remaining two years of the term. AN UNELECTED PRESIDENT, AN APPOINTED PRESIDENT FOR TWO YEARS. If you think that this will solve the political crisis........... think again.
As I have written several times, the solution to the crisis is not electoral, it is political through a show of force. The easiest exit is for Maduro to resign today and we elect a new president (in office for only 2 years, so incoherent is the 1999 constitution). The opposition would win that election and for two years would have to deal with the horrendous crisis. Thus in December 2018 chavismo could make again a case to be returned to office.
But that would be if chavismo were in the hands of democrats which is not the case. Chavismo is owned by a military-narko-mafia which will be indicted in many an international court. A mafia controlled from Havana at that.
Tell me, is there a possible pacific electoral outcome? No. No way. The only outcome is through a break up inside the army to force out of office the most corrupt elements. That is, chavistas against chavistas. The best we can hope is for Maduro to be forced to resign.
The Recall Election is not an option but it is about the only pressure the opposition has right now. Unless we go into civil disobedience, a constitutional assembly election (mbwahahah!) or something of the sort.
--------------------
Two not quite related comments.
1) it seems that chavismo wants the opposition to do the dirty job of removing Maduro and only that. It is almost as if the regime wanted the opposition to give up on the Recall Election and negotiate something like a power sharing arrangement which would allow for some legal protection for the narko-personnel.
2) observe that the CNe conditions do not make it absolutely impossible for the opposition to get the 20% it needs but it makes it impossible for the opposition to get more signatures than the votes Maduro got in 2013. At least that humiliation would be spared the regime, if worse came to worse for it.
1) The motivation in any case is to annul the Recall Election, or in the very worst case push it to 2017 which means that the regime remains in office until January 2019 at the very least.
In fact, the regime has announced today through one of its formal provocateurs, Pedro
In short, before I go into details, as I already wrote in previous entries, the regime does not want elections. Period.
2) The constitution states clearly that any recall election must be asked by 20% of the voters in the district that elected the said person. The electoral board CNE today announced that even though Maduro was elected nation wide the opposition will need to collect 20% in each and every state. So, even if, say, 30% nationwide signed for the recall election it is enough that in a single state there is ONE VOTE missing for the 20% to annul the whole experience. The article 72 is clear and precise, there is a need for a 20% nation wide and it is irrelevant if that number is reached through 100% of voters in state X while state Y has 0% signatures.
Thus we have right there a flagrant violation of the constitution. If they do that so bluntly what can we expect for the "details" next?
3) The CNE said that it would give the opposition only 3 weekdays, 7 hour week day, with one hour for lunch for the CNE workers. That is there will be a Wednesday, Thursday and Friday allocated, from 8 AM to noon and from 1 PM to 4 PM. That is, unless your boss gives you the time to stand in line for hours you will not be able to sign up for the recall election. Never mind public workers who will be tightly controlled those days and fired on the spot if they are out of office during that timetable.
4) And to make sure that this timetable is even more difficult to fulfill the CNE has allocated only 5,392 finger printing machines. Let's do some simple arithmetic.
If all goes well, no electric outage, no sabotage, no violence, etc, etc... we have 21 hours per machine. Let's assume that each machine can collect one signature per minute in such perfect conditions. The maximum signatures that can be thus collected in those three days are:
5,392 X 21 X 60 = 6,793,920 signatures.
We need, besides the per state quota difficulty, 3,893,129 signatures. That is not bad you may say. Think again. I have assumed that the 21 hours will be indeed perfect 21 hours. Also, there are always imponderables and we know from experience that the CNE has a proclivity to annul signatures at will, even if collected by themselves. The "safe number" is not 20% per state, it is 25% per state, which is above 5 million nationwide.
A couple of rainstorms across the country is enough to already make you lose half a million. A few well designed power outages and there you have another half a million gone. Since it is to be collected state by state all those that cannot return to their home state will not be able to sign. Etc.....
Not collecting on a week end makes it, just becasue of logistics, very difficult to get that 4 million signatures. Since elections are on Sundays, you can appreciate in full the hypocrisy and cynicism of the CNE in deciding on working days and working hours for signature collection.
5) And at this point we do not know yet other details such as where the limited numbers of collection centers will be located. If you vote here but you need to go over there, preferably in a rough neighborhood, to sign up, will you?
6) But just for good measure the CNE has announced that it will take its sweet time to decide whether the signatures have indeed been collected. Nevermind that they collected them themselves, with their people, their machines, etc. They blithely said that the Recall Election "could take place" during the first quarter of 2017. Thus annulling its desired effect, as I mentioned above.
Voila!
This being said.
Technically there is still a possibility for the recall election to be held before January 10. After all, January 9 IS in the first quarter of 2017. All will depend of course on what the opposition MUD will do in the coming days and how willing is the army to repress as needed.
Right now, today, it would seem that the regime has accepted to remove Maduro from office. But that is all, he must be replaced by someone inside the regime, WITHOUT presidential election. That is right, if Mauro were to be recalled in the first quarter of 2017, the vice president HE NAMES one day before the vote would be the one that would complete the remaining two years of the term. AN UNELECTED PRESIDENT, AN APPOINTED PRESIDENT FOR TWO YEARS. If you think that this will solve the political crisis........... think again.
As I have written several times, the solution to the crisis is not electoral, it is political through a show of force. The easiest exit is for Maduro to resign today and we elect a new president (in office for only 2 years, so incoherent is the 1999 constitution). The opposition would win that election and for two years would have to deal with the horrendous crisis. Thus in December 2018 chavismo could make again a case to be returned to office.
But that would be if chavismo were in the hands of democrats which is not the case. Chavismo is owned by a military-narko-mafia which will be indicted in many an international court. A mafia controlled from Havana at that.
Tell me, is there a possible pacific electoral outcome? No. No way. The only outcome is through a break up inside the army to force out of office the most corrupt elements. That is, chavistas against chavistas. The best we can hope is for Maduro to be forced to resign.
The Recall Election is not an option but it is about the only pressure the opposition has right now. Unless we go into civil disobedience, a constitutional assembly election (mbwahahah!) or something of the sort.
--------------------
Two not quite related comments.
1) it seems that chavismo wants the opposition to do the dirty job of removing Maduro and only that. It is almost as if the regime wanted the opposition to give up on the Recall Election and negotiate something like a power sharing arrangement which would allow for some legal protection for the narko-personnel.
2) observe that the CNe conditions do not make it absolutely impossible for the opposition to get the 20% it needs but it makes it impossible for the opposition to get more signatures than the votes Maduro got in 2013. At least that humiliation would be spared the regime, if worse came to worse for it.
Tuesday, 20 September 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...)
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?
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
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?
Wednesday, 10 August 2016
No recall election in 2016: one hidden motive
As a supplement of yesterday's post where I explained why there would not be a Recall Election , or any election for that matter, we got some declarations today that definitely rule out a recall election in 2016. That is, these declarations technically do not rule out such a referendum but they describe very well that chavismo simply will not accept a recall election before January 10, 2017. After, we'll see but do not get your hopes high and at any rate it would be useless, ta-ta...
Now let's look at what is "new" today. Nothing really, just more clarity, so to speak.
First, we had one of the electoral board CNE rectors coming out to defend the speech of Lucena yesterday. Sandra Oblitas repeated all the same crap that they cannot be pressured, that they respected all the rules (it is a matter of public knowledge that this is a lie), etc... But what is important here is that she took a potshot at Rondon dissent yesterday. That hinted at a surprise for the regime 4 CNE agents. The dissent was hard enough, surprising enough for them that they sent Oblitas for some desperate damage control. When I mean desperate I do not mean this as a mark of them feeling threatened, but that their lies were so easily exposed that they had to attack Rondon lacking any other argument.
At any rate, the threat that Oblitas also mentioned that the MUD would be outlawed is the favorite theme of Jorge Rodriguez, mayor of Caracas West and former real boss of the CNE at the time of the first fraud systems circa 2003. I am not going to comment on what is now the calculated hysteria Rodriguez exhibits as his assigned role (could it be otherwise, that he was assigned such a role?). The point of commenting him is that he said that the earliest date for any referendum is late February 2017. This is interesting. First, by late February the opposition will have lost any interest in the referendum and something else will be at the forefront. Second, his subconscious admits that there will be an election next year and the only one I can think of is the governor election (which are due in December 2016 and are quietly forgotten by the regime). That is, the regime knows that sooner than later it will have to face a poll of some sort that it will not win.
What Rodriguez truly hints at is that the failure to hold the recall election this year will be seen by the country as a political defeat and thus they will gravitate back toward chavismo as the only force available. That is exactly what Maduro hinted at last night in one of his vile cadenas (in English here). This poor and vulgar soul had the temerity to gloat over the failure of the opposition to collect the signatures for the recall vote on time. Apparently he is blissfully unaware that no sitting president in Venezuelan recent history has polled as low as he does. Were he aware he would have the good sense not to gloat while his regime is so blatantly cheating.
Certainly the coordination between all these post Lucena declarations is no accident. However the rather hysterical combination of outburst indicates to me something else. The regime is not even intent on postponing an eventual recall election, what the regime truly is seeking is to stop the collection of signatures. By discouraging such activity the regime does not hope to void the recall election (for this it has the high court annulation of the opposition party in the works) but it hopes that were the signature collection to become a must the 20% would not be passed too badly. The problem for the regime is that the way things are developing there will not be 20% signing to recall Maduro: there will be more people signing for his recall than actually voted for him. And this political disaster is simply too much for chavismo.
At least if the recall is held after January 2017 there is the hope that discouragement of the populace will yield no more than, say, 30% signatures of the electoral body. Enough to oust Maduro in a vote but not enough for regime change.
The opposition truly has its work cut out.
Now let's look at what is "new" today. Nothing really, just more clarity, so to speak.
First, we had one of the electoral board CNE rectors coming out to defend the speech of Lucena yesterday. Sandra Oblitas repeated all the same crap that they cannot be pressured, that they respected all the rules (it is a matter of public knowledge that this is a lie), etc... But what is important here is that she took a potshot at Rondon dissent yesterday. That hinted at a surprise for the regime 4 CNE agents. The dissent was hard enough, surprising enough for them that they sent Oblitas for some desperate damage control. When I mean desperate I do not mean this as a mark of them feeling threatened, but that their lies were so easily exposed that they had to attack Rondon lacking any other argument.
At any rate, the threat that Oblitas also mentioned that the MUD would be outlawed is the favorite theme of Jorge Rodriguez, mayor of Caracas West and former real boss of the CNE at the time of the first fraud systems circa 2003. I am not going to comment on what is now the calculated hysteria Rodriguez exhibits as his assigned role (could it be otherwise, that he was assigned such a role?). The point of commenting him is that he said that the earliest date for any referendum is late February 2017. This is interesting. First, by late February the opposition will have lost any interest in the referendum and something else will be at the forefront. Second, his subconscious admits that there will be an election next year and the only one I can think of is the governor election (which are due in December 2016 and are quietly forgotten by the regime). That is, the regime knows that sooner than later it will have to face a poll of some sort that it will not win.
What Rodriguez truly hints at is that the failure to hold the recall election this year will be seen by the country as a political defeat and thus they will gravitate back toward chavismo as the only force available. That is exactly what Maduro hinted at last night in one of his vile cadenas (in English here). This poor and vulgar soul had the temerity to gloat over the failure of the opposition to collect the signatures for the recall vote on time. Apparently he is blissfully unaware that no sitting president in Venezuelan recent history has polled as low as he does. Were he aware he would have the good sense not to gloat while his regime is so blatantly cheating.
Certainly the coordination between all these post Lucena declarations is no accident. However the rather hysterical combination of outburst indicates to me something else. The regime is not even intent on postponing an eventual recall election, what the regime truly is seeking is to stop the collection of signatures. By discouraging such activity the regime does not hope to void the recall election (for this it has the high court annulation of the opposition party in the works) but it hopes that were the signature collection to become a must the 20% would not be passed too badly. The problem for the regime is that the way things are developing there will not be 20% signing to recall Maduro: there will be more people signing for his recall than actually voted for him. And this political disaster is simply too much for chavismo.
At least if the recall is held after January 2017 there is the hope that discouragement of the populace will yield no more than, say, 30% signatures of the electoral body. Enough to oust Maduro in a vote but not enough for regime change.
The opposition truly has its work cut out.
Tuesday, 9 August 2016
Recall Election all but over
Today the head of the electoral board, CNE, Tibisay Lucena announced that "if all goes well" the gathering of the 20% signature from the registered electors could take place late October. TRANSLATION: even if the 20% is gathered late October there will not be enough time to fend off legal challenges so that the Recall Election is held before January 10 2017. If the recall election is held after that date and even if 90% vote to oust Maduro, his serving vice-president will replace in office to complete the two years in the presidential term.
In other words the regime has announced that there is no way they will risk a presidential election before December 2018. And if you still do not get it, the current cabinet of musical chairs will remain presiding over the country until January 2019 at the earliest.
I will add two crusty details. Some inside the CNE have announced publicly that the MUD will be invalidated soon as a political party (which it never was) and as such their petition for a recall election is not valid. That is, the regime, just in case, has still a treacherous tool to annul the late October signature collection. The second detail is that the lone opposition sitting at the CNE board, Rondon, broke protocol and has refused to attend Tibisay Lucena announcement and instead emitted his strong declaration of dissent separately where among other things he states that there is no reason to wait for more than 38 days to gather the signatures. In short: Rondon was forced to emit a political declaration to counter what was a political declaration from Lucena, because pushing the collection to late October is indeed a political maneuver to annul the recall election.
Now, the kind regular reader may recall that on July 20 I wrote that there would not be a recall election, nor any election as long as the regime did not take the political decision to begin a transition. When, and if, such a decision is taken then there will be an election whose nature will depend on which election is less damaging for the political survival of the regime. It could be for example a presidential election following the simultaneous resignation of Maduro and his vice president. It could be a constituent assembly. It could be a trivial referendum on something justifying a change. It could be a plebiscite establishing a military regime Thailand like. It could be a declaration that a revolution does not require any more competitive elections, a la Castro-Cuba style. It could even be, why not, a Recall Election. Today's declaration of Lucena should be interpreted as such, as a delay until a final decision is taken. For all that we know next week she can decide that, considering new arguments, signatures will be collected mid September. Or never.
Let's keep in mind that the order not to have elections comes from Cuba who cannot risk to lose the Venezuelan stipend of oil that Cuba resells on the spot market. As such even the governor elections scheduled for December will not be held: such elections should have already been formally announced to prepare for them. The CNE, as far as we know, is not working on these mandatory December elections where all polls predict that the regime could lose as much as 100% of the states it holds currently. No regime can survive such an electoral loss, even a Cuban sponsored regime. As such the order also includes to postpone the governor elections.
So, the question tonight is what the opposition MUD will do? I am afraid that civil unrest is the next step. I do not see any other way out. And I am afraid that this is EXACTLY what the regime wants. It all depends on which kind of civil unrest is planned and how it is executed.
The very last "peaceful" weapon left for the National Assembly is a budget discussion which would force the regime into dissolving the National Assembly. But then you would need to elect a new assembly which result for the regime could be even worse than last December.
So civil unrest, here we go!
In other words the regime has announced that there is no way they will risk a presidential election before December 2018. And if you still do not get it, the current cabinet of musical chairs will remain presiding over the country until January 2019 at the earliest.
I will add two crusty details. Some inside the CNE have announced publicly that the MUD will be invalidated soon as a political party (which it never was) and as such their petition for a recall election is not valid. That is, the regime, just in case, has still a treacherous tool to annul the late October signature collection. The second detail is that the lone opposition sitting at the CNE board, Rondon, broke protocol and has refused to attend Tibisay Lucena announcement and instead emitted his strong declaration of dissent separately where among other things he states that there is no reason to wait for more than 38 days to gather the signatures. In short: Rondon was forced to emit a political declaration to counter what was a political declaration from Lucena, because pushing the collection to late October is indeed a political maneuver to annul the recall election.
Now, the kind regular reader may recall that on July 20 I wrote that there would not be a recall election, nor any election as long as the regime did not take the political decision to begin a transition. When, and if, such a decision is taken then there will be an election whose nature will depend on which election is less damaging for the political survival of the regime. It could be for example a presidential election following the simultaneous resignation of Maduro and his vice president. It could be a constituent assembly. It could be a trivial referendum on something justifying a change. It could be a plebiscite establishing a military regime Thailand like. It could be a declaration that a revolution does not require any more competitive elections, a la Castro-Cuba style. It could even be, why not, a Recall Election. Today's declaration of Lucena should be interpreted as such, as a delay until a final decision is taken. For all that we know next week she can decide that, considering new arguments, signatures will be collected mid September. Or never.
Let's keep in mind that the order not to have elections comes from Cuba who cannot risk to lose the Venezuelan stipend of oil that Cuba resells on the spot market. As such even the governor elections scheduled for December will not be held: such elections should have already been formally announced to prepare for them. The CNE, as far as we know, is not working on these mandatory December elections where all polls predict that the regime could lose as much as 100% of the states it holds currently. No regime can survive such an electoral loss, even a Cuban sponsored regime. As such the order also includes to postpone the governor elections.
So, the question tonight is what the opposition MUD will do? I am afraid that civil unrest is the next step. I do not see any other way out. And I am afraid that this is EXACTLY what the regime wants. It all depends on which kind of civil unrest is planned and how it is executed.
The very last "peaceful" weapon left for the National Assembly is a budget discussion which would force the regime into dissolving the National Assembly. But then you would need to elect a new assembly which result for the regime could be even worse than last December.
So civil unrest, here we go!
Wednesday, 20 July 2016
Recalling the recall
The news today, allegedly good, is that the CNE would have recognized that the 1% per state required signatures to call for a collection of a 20% required signatures to call for a recall election has been reached. Already from this sentence you know that the Recall Election this year is far from a sure thing. In fact, no matter what this tweet of Ocariz says, the date of a recall election is not going to be set before the January 2017 deadline after which the recall election is deemed useless (1).
Let's take the just proportion of this necessary but useless achievement (yes, Venezuela the country of oximoronism). As I wrote a couple of days ago a recall election is not the favored outcome for the regime official party, PSUV. Since all polls indicate that Maduro is going to be trounced badly, no matter how much discreet cheating the regime may do, it remains that the outcome is a sure thing. In fact the worse case scenario is gaining strength, that more people sign up to recall Maduro than those who voted for him three years ago. The humiliation of such an event in a fascist country which has been victim of the Tascon list since 2004 would mark not only the debacle of the regime but its political extinction as well.
So the question is why the regime seems (it is all a show of course) to accept a possible recall election. To begin with it may just be a way to add pressure on Maduro to resign and take all the blame for the current disaster, even preserving Chavez "legacy". A presidential election would follow with less disastrous results for the regime than recalling Maduro. There is also the option of gaining time while the regime decides which type of vote is best to avoid a debacle, and that decision having been made then forget about the Recall Election.
One thing is clear is that the regime does not want an election, any election. This is now officially a militaro-fascist regime and elections are not in the menu unless of a plebiscitary nature with open public vote. Or something of the sort. If you want to understand that with examples take the high court, TSJ, decision of today to exempt itself from any charge of wrongdoing. The last batch of TSJ justices was named outside of the rules for such nominations, amen of the disrespect of the requirements needed to be named high court judge. This is public knowledge and as such the National Assembly has decided to revoke the nomination process because it is fraudulent.
What has the TSJ done? In normal countries a court would have called for an independent commission to prove the National Assembly wrong and then proceed with the appropriate law suits. Here, the criminal party exculpates itself and that is that. Do you expect this lawless TSJ to rule in favor of holding elections of any type?
That was the real news today, that the TSJ is here to stay and that it will keep cancelling 99% of decisions taken by the National Assembly. And elections for good extra measure.
Now, I am not saying that a recall election will not take place, even though we have also reports of little activity in the Electoral Board CNE which should be now already in overdrive to prepare for the governor elections due in December. But since there is a risk of 100% state houses going oppo, you can understand that the CNE is in no rush. No, there will be a vote if the regime considers it necessary to promote an orderly transition. Such vote can be a recall election, a referendum, a governor election, or whatever they can come up that will hide the most the regime debacle. That vote, or no vote, will be decided solely by the army, whether Cuba likes it or not, whether civilian chavismo likes it or not... though there is always the possibility of a negotiated settlement with the opposition that may or not require an election. But I am not holding my breath on that one.
Unfortunately the way I see it, the stubbornness of the regime makes the opposition headed towards calling for a constituent assembly which cannot be denied in the constitution. That is, refusing to hold a referendum on whether to hold a constitutional assembly election would be akin of a total break of constitutional procedure which would force the outside world to take notice (something that the outside world has started doing, like waving Venezuela's turn at chairing MERCOSUR).
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1) If a Recall Election is held in the two last years of a presidential term then THE APPOINTED vice president serves the rest of the term even though the creep may not run even for a coop seat anywhere in his life time. That is chavista democracy for you.
Aquí está el acta que confirma los resultados de la validación por el CNE. Esperamos fecha para el 20% pic.twitter.com/dBB4rL0JM4— Carlos Ocariz (@CarlosOcariz) 20 de julio de 2016
Let's take the just proportion of this necessary but useless achievement (yes, Venezuela the country of oximoronism). As I wrote a couple of days ago a recall election is not the favored outcome for the regime official party, PSUV. Since all polls indicate that Maduro is going to be trounced badly, no matter how much discreet cheating the regime may do, it remains that the outcome is a sure thing. In fact the worse case scenario is gaining strength, that more people sign up to recall Maduro than those who voted for him three years ago. The humiliation of such an event in a fascist country which has been victim of the Tascon list since 2004 would mark not only the debacle of the regime but its political extinction as well.
So the question is why the regime seems (it is all a show of course) to accept a possible recall election. To begin with it may just be a way to add pressure on Maduro to resign and take all the blame for the current disaster, even preserving Chavez "legacy". A presidential election would follow with less disastrous results for the regime than recalling Maduro. There is also the option of gaining time while the regime decides which type of vote is best to avoid a debacle, and that decision having been made then forget about the Recall Election.
One thing is clear is that the regime does not want an election, any election. This is now officially a militaro-fascist regime and elections are not in the menu unless of a plebiscitary nature with open public vote. Or something of the sort. If you want to understand that with examples take the high court, TSJ, decision of today to exempt itself from any charge of wrongdoing. The last batch of TSJ justices was named outside of the rules for such nominations, amen of the disrespect of the requirements needed to be named high court judge. This is public knowledge and as such the National Assembly has decided to revoke the nomination process because it is fraudulent.
What has the TSJ done? In normal countries a court would have called for an independent commission to prove the National Assembly wrong and then proceed with the appropriate law suits. Here, the criminal party exculpates itself and that is that. Do you expect this lawless TSJ to rule in favor of holding elections of any type?
That was the real news today, that the TSJ is here to stay and that it will keep cancelling 99% of decisions taken by the National Assembly. And elections for good extra measure.
Now, I am not saying that a recall election will not take place, even though we have also reports of little activity in the Electoral Board CNE which should be now already in overdrive to prepare for the governor elections due in December. But since there is a risk of 100% state houses going oppo, you can understand that the CNE is in no rush. No, there will be a vote if the regime considers it necessary to promote an orderly transition. Such vote can be a recall election, a referendum, a governor election, or whatever they can come up that will hide the most the regime debacle. That vote, or no vote, will be decided solely by the army, whether Cuba likes it or not, whether civilian chavismo likes it or not... though there is always the possibility of a negotiated settlement with the opposition that may or not require an election. But I am not holding my breath on that one.
Unfortunately the way I see it, the stubbornness of the regime makes the opposition headed towards calling for a constituent assembly which cannot be denied in the constitution. That is, refusing to hold a referendum on whether to hold a constitutional assembly election would be akin of a total break of constitutional procedure which would force the outside world to take notice (something that the outside world has started doing, like waving Venezuela's turn at chairing MERCOSUR).
----------------------------------------------------------
1) If a Recall Election is held in the two last years of a presidential term then THE APPOINTED vice president serves the rest of the term even though the creep may not run even for a coop seat anywhere in his life time. That is chavista democracy for you.
Sunday, 3 July 2016
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?
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?
Saturday, 11 June 2016
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?
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!
 |
| 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
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