When the statist state runs out of ideas (and other's people money)

AS expected the rise of general Vladimir Padrino as co-president of Maduro has changed nothing. After all Venezuela has been a dictatorship for a while, of a new XXI century kind certainly, but a dictatorship nevertheless. It was all just a formality.

Padrino cannot succeed in his attempt at putting food on the table of Venezuelans. His multiple inspections, in combat drag, of food producers have revealed no scandal so far, no hoarding, no lack of manufacturing will. The reason why there is no food production in Venezuela is simple, it is because there is nothing to make food out of.

For better or for worse, and with chavista bred officers it is likely for worse, Padrino seems to have been put there to prepare, or chair, a transition out of Maduro's mess. We already have the first signs on how doomed this might be as clashes between radicals and pragmatists, military and civilians have come to the forefront this past week.


One, for example, has been setting up a system for forced labor. I kid you not. A decree states that the regime can draft workers from private agribusiness to work for up to 60 days (and 60 more if needed) in the state agricultural undertakings. That is right, I repeat, workers from agribusiness, even myself, could be forced to go to work where the regime decides. I am not insulting the intelligence of readers discussing the historical precedents that say that forced labor never ended up in something positive, and always brought different levels of tragedy. No, the details are more interesting in a decree that cannot be applied.

First, there is no provision as to what would happen to a worker refusing to go to a state run facility (employers MUST part with the employees drafted while preserving their social benefits and their penalty does not need to be expressed since we know by experience what the regime does to us). Second, those business that still produce something could well come to a stop if they lose their trained personnel. Where would be the food relief in the country?.

One chavista union official quickly went to say that no one would be forced to serve against their will. But that is quite hollow when you read the decree where only different forms of expressing obligations can be found (I highlighted them in the scan from the decree on the right, if you can read Spanish).

I find it interesting that besides being an extraordinary sloppy job of a decree it is also so direct and self assuming of its importance. If you ask me it is from the hand of a military turned bureaucrat, used to give orders and be obeyed. But in real life that does not work.

Another example of the confusion reigning inside the regime comes from a "debate" between the head of the state oil monopoly PDVSA and Elias Jaua, a representative of the more radicalo-communist wing of the regime. It all started with del Pino saying that the nationalization of the services of the oil industry in Maracaibo Lake by Chavez in 2009 was a mistake. It is a taboo in Venezuela: oil industry should belong to the state. At least some good sense had prevailed in letting competitive services manage a large chunk of the oil industry, usually the more delicate work that required nimbleness, something that was not a given even in PDVSA best days.

In short what del Pino was suggesting is that the private sector should not be banned outright from Venezuela's oil industry. Something very pragmatic since oil output has been dropping after 2009 and that with current oil prices and Venezuela bankruptcy we do not even have the money to keep the current level of production for much longer. That is anathema to the radical left that is unable to come to grips that the Chavez and Cuban models have failed, that the country is broke and that we have run out of food and medicine. In their minds there is a course traced by Chavez (Plan de la Patria) and it should be followed, period. Elias Jaua even goes one more stating that the said plan was discussed and voted upon and turned into law (it was an emanation of Chavez and thus was never properly discussed to begin with, and a monstrosity to read by the way).

And thus we see the plain division between the "civilian" groups of chavismo, between those who think that something should be done and those that think nothing should be done, that we are all doing fine and that the only thing needed are yet more regulations, more controls, and now forced labor.

It is interesting to note that even if one were to agree with the need for some strong initiative to restart production these come too late for Venezuela. When Chavez came to office in 1999 there was already a strong tendency for the state to rule over everything. On that aspect Chavez simply did one better, pushing the system to its last consequences, benefiting of disproportionate and undeserved oil rent to smooth things over and thus pretending that the private sector was not needed. Now there are voices inside chavismo that want to re discuss the model, and there are even admissions that only the private sector can take us out of the mess, After all, the forced labor decree is simply a way for the regime to force technicians from the private sector to work for derelict state companies. This is an admission, if any, that the public sector is incompetent, at least on that front to be charitable.

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).

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).

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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.

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

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

What has not changed

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

Period  1.

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

Period 2.

What has changed

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What are the current exits

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

So that is that.

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

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

Diary of Venezuelan businesses demise

It is now vox populi that Venezuela is suffering a major politically induced economic crisis which has yielded bread lines and people dead from the lack of medicine. The two root causes are well known. Historically it starts with a dependency on a major resource to feed a dysfunctional patronage and welfare state; oil. Populism has been the continuing line of politics since the late 60ies, a line dramatically expanded by Hugo Chavez since 1998. To this tradition Chavez added incompetency, empty ideas, willful prejudice, corruption and even drug traffic, the lone prosperous industry in Venezuela these days.

It is not the aim of this entry to detail the catastrophe that has befallen Venezuela. I will only write some of the key events that have happened to my business, making it nearly bankrupt not through my own possible incompetency but through regulations that have strangled the life of all private business that are not associated with the corruption of the regime.


Chavez started with a new constitution that had a "free property, but..." feel. At first things kept as they were in 1998 which is to say not very well. But we could work, we could import raw materials to work, an important element since already in 1998 Venezuela was a net importer of raw materials and semi processed goods. Still, my business, agribusiness in nature, was able to do some small exports and was poised to expand these significantly to Colombia. Other plans included a project to export to Europe a choice crop from our family farm once our volume justified the export needs and costs, a farm for which we had obtained organic certification.

Then, slowly but surely the regime started to establish a series of controls that wrecked the economy. I am not going to go through them chronologically, just giving a main list.

In fairness not all chavismo intents were nefarious. For example the LOCTI law was voted to promote investments in technology by the private sector. That law created a tax that you could be exempt of if you used the tax amount in an investment project. That is, if your project was approved you could purchase, say, research equipment and then import it tax free to Venezuela. You could also include in the deal expenses to develop the system in your business. It was not a tax break per se, but autonomy in using some of the tax money for a productive project. An incentive to invest, in other words.

We did that, we purchased an analytical tool worth at the time 50,000 dollars, including miscellaneous expenses. Plenty of people did as we did, small projects like us or large laboratories set ups. But we should have known that such goodwill and constructive legislation would not last. First came the state inspections to verify whether we had actually done what our project stated. One day I saw a contingent of a dozen people arrive unannounced to inspect our purchase. We wasted two days explaining everything. We passed with flying colors, of course, but we already noticed the growing distrust of the regime as to anything private. And the increasing bureaucratic nature of the regime to send a dozen people where a single inspector would have sufficed, for one day at most.

You could be forgiven to believe that our track record would have allowed us to invest in yet a new piece of advanced technology, but this was never to pass. The regime saw LOCTI as a way to distract tax revenue for the state, not for the technological advances it brought to the country, in addition of creating new high paying jobs. The LOCTI was modified. Now only if the government approves the project would you get from the government the money for it, allegedly out of the tax pool collected. That is, first you should keep paying the LOCTI tax required without any guarantee that someday you could recover part of it in a suitable project. Of the diverse companies I do business with, not a single one has had a project approved in the last 7 years (never mind my own group). LOCTI is now just an additional tax burden. Note that one of the LOCTI goals was to finance public research. This one today is nearly zero. Nobody knows where LOCTI money goes but we all must pay.

Another shock came when currency control was installed in 2003. From then on you had to seek an import permit from the government to obtain the foreign currency you needed for such an import. This generated an extraordinary graft industry, a self explanatory consequence that I will not detail. What it meant to us was the creation of three job positions of people devoted only to tracking all the required paperwork. That is, these three people do not take any part on the purchase decision process, they only do the paperwork. Their only "productive" contribution, occasionally, is to supervise the arrival at harbors of some of our imports.

If this above is a direct cost, and if corruption is an indirect one, there is major indirect cost associated with such a control system: the impossibility to draw a coherent developing plan. All your projects are at the mercy of a bureaucratic erratic delay and when you deal with perishables you need to be conservative and slow down you growth since the failure to receive in a timely fashion corn for your feed or fertilizer for your crop can ruin you. In other words, you cannot start producing until you are certain that you will get it all at hand, a process that can add months to your production delays. Never mind the costs from holding stocks.

Speaking of erratic supplies. These were made worse by the policies of expropriation of good land and good farms. As rice farms were intervened, as supplies for cash crops was interrupted through expropriations of agricultural giants like Agroisleña, it became increasingly difficult to obtain a regular supply for your crops and animal feed, hence the continuous drop in production in these fields, to today's shortages. And never mind that the currency exchange control fostered corruption to the point of favoring for years overpriced imports that destroyed the local production which is today missing.

This already would be enough, but it is not all. Another apparent good intention of the regime was to improve workers safety. Unfortunately this one through the LOPCYMAT law did not even have a few halcyon days like LOCTI did. This new law was conceived from the start not only as an improvement on mandatory safety measures for workers, a commendable goal by any standard, but also as a way to infiltrate politically the work place. It is a requirement that elections are held among workers to set "safety delegates" personnel who benefits of union privileges, namely impossibility of being fired during their tenure.

That is still something we can work around. What is not is that these elected representatives must attend, at business expense, monthly day long seminars which are basically an exercice in indoctrination against the evils of capitalism that is intent on killing workers or something to that effect. These seances come with red Che posters and assorted insults if the safety delegates do not show enough enthusiasm for their mission and if they do not report enough irregularities from their employers. Never mind that to face the sometimes ridiculous requirements of the law we have had to hire special consultants to organize the safety books, organize the workers elections for safety delegate and what not. Needless to say that after an early sense of empowerment those safety delegates became tired of the whole charade and now business must beg for workers willing to run for these elections and in our case even offer bonuses for those willing to put up with the chores imposed on safety delegates.

Other bureaucratic workers right were reinforced. Although not properly a bureaucracy, the near impossibility to fire workers also generates many costs. Besides the need to negotiate in advance settlements with nasty workers so that they "willingly resign their job" there is a whole addendum of paperwork required that we did not use to have. For example we now have several lawyers on call to deal with those situations. This in addition of increased HR departments work as we now have to provide, for example, "entertainment" for workers and their families. This gives you an idea of the paternalistic functions which are foisted on business.

Another ruinous aspect is the price control system. Fortunately the products I work with are not subjected to price control. Yet in theory we cannot have more than 30% pricing over our production costs. So this adds increased pressure on the costs department, more work, so that we have a finely tuned cost system and we can keep our benefits at no more than 28% and avoid those ruinous inspections that can block for days all the workings of a company. Yes, when these inspections come by law the inspectors can demand any paper they want and you must provide for them no matter what you are doing. That is, for the duration of the inspection you can only attend to the very basic needs of your company as these inspectors literally suck the life out of you. Let me remind you that a 28% gain with an inflation in the three digits means that you actually lose capital over time. Never mind that you need to adjust prices at least once a month, hence more calculations. But I digress.

There are more examples I can give but to finish this let's revisit the organic crops we were planning on developing to get enough volume to justify exports. Sometime in 2002 or 2003 if memory serves me well Chavez decided that Venezuela should not export food, that it was a crime against the Venezuelan people to sell its food overseas. I am not going to insult the reader intelligence discussing the ignorance of Chavez as failing to understand that it is OK for Venezuela to export tropical fruits in exchange of apples and wine.

The fact of the matter is that not only we had to stop the small exports we were already making, and lose all the marketing made before, losing those markets, but even the organic farm project was stopped. We did not renew our organic certification. We stopped planting new land. We basically maintained what we had, at a loss, in the hope that someday exports be authorized again. To which I must add that the devastating insecurity that now hovers all of the farm land of Venezuela has made it impossible for us to visit the farm for the last 4 years. We have to rely on intermediaries and hope for the best. Owners of land simply cannot reside on their lands anymore as they will, within days, be attacked by armed gangs bent on ransom. If you persist then you must pay for armored vehicles and at least a couple of body guards. More costs that not every business can afford.

There are also two other factors straight from bureaucratic hell that counters any attempt at improving production. Some stuff can only be bought through the government now, for example grain for feed. Needless to point out how delays increased and corruption costs became prohibitive: in some cases businesses have had to pay 6 times over the official price on some of the grains needed, money paid through false factures for false services rendered. Another beauty is that nothing that is used to manufacture food for human consumption can circulate on Venezuela roads without government permit. That is, if I want to deliver a truck of, say, morning cereal, I need to declare it on line, await permission and declare it again once it has been delivered before my customer can use it. Imagine the delays in a country where Internet is more and more deficient. The information must even contain the ID card number of the driver! Any missing detail and you risk confiscation of your goods on the road at one of the Nazional Guard check points. You can figure out the added costs, including corruption of guards that check you out on the roads.

I trust that after this text you will understand better how come there is no food on the shelves in Venezuela. If I were working in the pharmacy sector, or textiles, or whatever I could probably write a similar tale of bureaucracy run amok. There is no mystery as to why Venezuela is not producing anymore. It is not due to the fall of oil prices. It is due to the incompetence, neglect, and stubborn ideology that is the core of the Chavez project. Let's not forget that in addition to bureaucracy there are many problems with production: devastated infrastructures, from roads to electrical plants; outdated production methods that make us non competitive since we have been frozen for 10 years now; difficult living conditions which make workers less productive (like when they rush out of office during working hours to stand in line for a pound of flour). Etc.

All business in Venezuela still operating and involved in the production of hard goods are nearly bankrupt, holding for dear life. There is no security, not to your property, not to your persona. You cannot plan your production in a rational way. The crisis aggravation has made it nearly impossible to get foreign currency from the regime. Our production system is falling behind the rest of the world in quality and competitiveness. In short, we work harder than ever for less production than ever, while struggling to stay alive as we see all our gains basically end up in the pocket of corrupt officials while el pueblo stands in line and starves.

There is only one question to be answered in future history books: how much of this destruction was willfully planned from the start. It is frightening to think that a regime deliberately planned for the impoverishment of its fellow citizens. But there is no other explanation that holds, in particular since Maduro replaced Chavez in 2013. Then the price of oil went down and the regime found no other palatable solution for their needs but to increase control and keep the level of corruption money, discovering that blackmailing el pueblo was easy if that one was hungry.

What we need, fast.

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?

A letter to Brexiters who think they are on top

So you won yesterday by a hair thin margin on such a transcendental question. You got rid of Cameron and you probably will get "common man" Boris or Farage as prime minister in charge of dealing all the unpopular mess that is coming your way. But I guess the Sterling Pound today is already having a few of you wondering if they did the right thing. Heck! No more cheap vacations in sunny Europe for the time being.

But if somethings could well change, some others cannot, no matter what you may believe.


To begin with, Brexit is not done deal yet. There will be a tough negotiation and when the final package comes I bet the "agreement" will not pass the muster of a general election or even a referendum. And if it were to pass, my money is on the UK changing its name to Little England as there is no reason why the Scots should be dragged down into your folly. Let me put it this way, your feel good vote of yesterday may end up in a bitter disappointment as you try to effectively "change" things.

And for all your new born chauvinism there are things that cannot change. Let's take France, for example.

No major countries that I can think of have such an intimate common history than France and England. We made each other what we are today.

The invasion of French words into English language may only be matched by the invasion of English words into French.

You may have won the Napoleonic wars but France had won the Hundred Years one before, and courtesy of both wars England and France became true nations.

You may have kicked out France from India and Canada but the French made you lose the big enchilada of the 13 colonies.

You may disparage French garlicky concoctions but the French drink better tea than you do.

We may have been rivals for ever but our best and brightest elites always spoke French AND English.

Montesquieu wrote the main texts on separation of powers and civil society, but he wrote these because of the impressions England made on him.

You keep buying countryside homes in France but the French have truly made London their favorite foreign capital to vacation and live.

And let's not forget freedom for the world owes to France and England mixing their blood in two world wars and resolute unity on many crisis afterwards.

And you think that Brexit will erase all of this? Think twice.

Father's day

It has been a rough week for your truly. On Monday I was mugged with all the problems that this entails for the rest of the week. And the week ends on Father's day, with a melancholy.


What happened Monday is that I was bringing supplies to the S.O. who is in the mid of a bad chemotherapy bout. I was cornered as I was getting out of my car by two motor bikes with two people on each. One of them a woman. I did not stand a chance, happy that they did not kidnap me, or steal my car or shoot me for sport.

The what they took me is not really the matter. My aging smart phone is gone (but for some luck of destiny the night before I had downloaded all the pics at home). My bag had some very personal valuable items that are of no use for them, except perhaps for the knife I always carry with me as the good Frenchman I am. The bag with the supplies they did not even look at it even though it had 5 liters of very precious milk and a brick of 50,000 bolivares that I bring regularly to the S.O. so he does not have to stand by cash machines or bank tellers where his weakness could make him an easy prey, with a probable fatal denouement if he were to be thrown on the floor in the scuffle.

Rather what the event left me was a profound thoughtfulness. I realize that I was in a hurry and not quite as careful as I usually am. That is, in Venezuela today you cannot make a single mistake because dark forces are always on the look out. Always.

I compared myself with the forest floor small rodent that needs to get out and scavenge for something to eat. That rodent needs to think about a lot of things before peeking out its den. There might be a wild cat close by. Maybe it will cross the path of soldier ants that shall make mince meat of it fast. If it needs to go near a clearing some bird of prey might pounce fast out of nowhere. Of course there are the silent slithering snakes.

Same thing for me, in particular the red snakes.

The rest of the week was a scramble to get some ID papers back, to cancel credit cards, change my passwords, to buy a new smart phone, an obligation in this country if you still have a job with some responsibilities.  I had to be exposed to what were a couple of bolibourgeois buying in front of me a golden Samsung S7 Edge priced 6 times more than the more modest Grand Prime that I had to downgrade to after my  stolen S3. That S7, for your information, is worth 100, ONE HUNDRED times the MONTHLY minimum wage in Venezuela.  I do feel already embarrassed to buy a smart phone which already costs 18 minimum wages, but I have no choice if I wanted a screen big enough to read who calls me without glasses (another security concern). At any rate, the cheapest of smart phones start at 10 minimum monthly wage. So there, 17 years of chavista equality down the phone drain.

This morning I was hoping to find some solace. The S.O. informed that he was starting to recover a little. I was safe at home, café au lait in hand (a luxury by itself) reading the weekly Tal Cual edition which had a special father's day issue. And a sad one as it focused on the broken families that cannot celebrarte such dates together because of emigration. The most conservative estimates give 1.5 million Venezuelans gone into exile since Chavez was elected. Apparently there are Venezuelan communities registered now in 96 countries, from the mighty half million in the US to a few dozens in Podunkistan.

And I started thinking about those of my family and friends that have left. For a while my close family did manage to stick together, but that is not true anymore, and it is about to get worse. My parents are now unable to come back to Venezuela for medical reasons. They could travel, yes, but they would not get the adequate care they need here, never mentioning that they cannot stand in line for food. For the third year in a row a phone call had to do, and them calling me since now there is no more direct calling to Europe. See, Venezuela state phone company is so broke that the regime has decided to go back to operator assisted calls to most countries so it can charge more. Private mobile phone companies have simply stopped offering the service. and you need to dial dozens of time until an operator answers.

But I digress, the point is that I cannot have my old parents anymore here, limiting myself to a yearly visit, as long as possible. But this summer I am losing two nephews who are graduating from high school and whose sad parents have to accept the financial sacrifice to send them overseas for college even though they have been accepted at one of the last decent private universities still operating in Venezuela. It is quite possible that they may never come back to Venezuela except perhaps for a brief Christmas stay as long as the parents still live here. My other nephews will follow the same path starting in a couple of years from now for the older one still here. Maybe in 5 years from now we will have all left.

That Maduro may fall this year does not change much the situation, the country has become a pit of red snakes.

Understanding the political moment

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

L'air du temps:
Borges getting his nose broken

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


Jail for you

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


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

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

No food while we wait for oil price to rise

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

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

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

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

International paralysis

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

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

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

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

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

Where the voters are

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

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

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

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

Prognosis

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

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

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

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

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

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

That is the Gordian knot.

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Additional material

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

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

— Julio Borges (@JulioBorges) June 11, 2016

Scenes of a bitter return

Warning: absolutely non politically correct post follows (á la Trump?)
But real.

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I am coming up from the airport.  Reaching the curb from a grocery store not too far away from home I notice the food line that reaches a crossing that it never reached before. Think 6 blocks.

Since there is traffic I can observe the line. Not only these people are not from the area, but they look like goons and thugs. They are, to tell you the truth, scary. I grab the camera to film but the light goes green.

Down the hill I arrive at the store. No line there. There are plenty of cops and the line has been in fact pushed back by them two blocks away. Which explains why I found it so long. The explanation? There was a looting attempt by people who come from far away from the neighborhood.

I suppose it is just a matter of time the locals decide to loot first least these "bachaqueros" take all of their food quota first?

Welcome home Kotter.

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In my first few days at home I notice a dramatic change. There are now lines ALWAYS at any of the grocery stores of the area. Whether things arrive is irrelevant, there is a crowd, always the same type of crowd from some far starved/bachaquero lumpen that have put the area under siege. They leave around 5 PM so they can make it back to their homes before night fall.

After all, they are equally victims of crime, the more so if they back home in the dark with some food.

Oh, and yes!  These unfortunate people look as wretched, as lumpen as they looked 17 years ago when Chavez was elected. There you go with your XXI century socialism.

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My cleaning lady is upset and scared, and near tears when she tells me the stories.

In the past three weeks the area has become very unsafe in day time. People that walk the streets are now getting mugged broad daylight. And she has more trouble than ever to get food.  Why?

The invasion of bachaqueros in the area follows a clear modus operandi.

They arrive in "busetas", those worn down mini vans or mini bus that can carry up to 20 people, more if necessary... These unload the bachaqueros in front of a given store. The group arrives and breaks to the front of the line threatening as needed the locals, who terrified give them sway, the more so when home made weaponry is shown (chuzos like those made in Venezuelan jails). Sometimes more busetas arrive when from some magical knowledge they learn that this particular store will get more supplies than usual. There is indeed deep internal corruption links with some of the employees of these grocery stores. They get their cut of the loot.

Remember that what bachaqueros buy is for resale at bloated prices. That is their job, stand in line every day and find more than what they need so as to make their income out of black market prices. there are no other jobs available for them in chavista Venezuela.

So you may have different groups of bachaqueros holding the line (there are inter bachaquero fights reported by the locals who flee the scene). But all within a group need not to stand in line. After all with an SMS they can quickly come back as soon as a delivery truck is spotted. So what do these do? They scour the neighborhood to track down solitary walkers, isolated cars, and the like. Crime rises. No way around it since the scarce cops that Baruta town hall can afford as budgets shrink are not enough to keep order at the front of the line.

My cleaning lady tells me that know she leaves at 4AM to get on line in the vain hope sometimes that she will beat the bachaqueros. And sometimes, if she got significant stuff she is forced to take a cab back home. A cab, needless to say, that is a heavy burden on her budget.

Poor people stealing from poor people since people like me either do not consume much of the basic price controlled staples (starch/oil) or can afford black market (up to a point that is).

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So a few days ago I am having lunch at the fast food court of the Tolon mall with somebody visiting and that wants to know more about Venezuela.

I am having a chicken sandwich and yuca breaded sticks (no potatoes so manioc will do, quite well actually). Yes, food courts are still reasonably supplied. They are expensive and less people can afford them. Thus if you can afford, the supply exists for the privileged still hanging on......

The food court is on the top of the mall and yet now beggarly characters do manage to get up there (mall budgets cannot afford guards as they should, nor do the guards would care or be able to do much about it anyway).

One comes to our table and asks money for food. Annoyed at the interruption and out of cash I try to wave him away. He points out to my yuca sticks and ask for one. Without thinking about it I grab one with my fingers and handle it to him. He picks it and goes away eating it.

This is how damaged we have all become after 17 years, all, including myself.

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Last Friday there were the first food riots about 4 blocks from Miraflores Palace as the regime has decided to grab the increasingly scarcer controlled items and to reserve them to their followers. Exclusively, through the already infamous CLAP, the new violent sect being bred to enforce a political apartheid in Venezuela. Holomodor is it already called on the net.

I may be damaged, but clearly the regime holders are now beyond any redemption.

So, are we invaded or not?

One maddening thing about being overseas is dependency on tweeter to try to follow what is really going on in Venezuela. Except for the honorable mention of El País in Spain the rest of the world has, understandably, more important matters to deal with than a suicidal asshole of a country. And yet even French TV, the all news channels that is, find time between the ridiculous "Nuit Debout" with their spoiled trade unions protests and Egyptian  mystery planes to cover recent Venezuelan events.


The point here is that no one seems to believe anymore what the regime says. True, there are some like PODEMOS in Spain who unable to hide their past financing by Chavez are still defending the regime or at least remain silent. But the fact of the matter is that Venezuela is an embarrassment for all, for having let it go so far or for having supported it so long. All want it to go away. At least this is the impression I get.

And why would it be otherwise?

Maduro publishes a super-duper emergency decree controlling everything under the sun. The National Assembly turns it down. The high court TSJ declares it constitutional, which it is not, and the way it was turned down by the Assembly was so constitutional that even the TSJ could not directly assail it. So now, for the love of the deity, I am not sure whether the decree is applicable or not. Though apparently there is a state of commotion or something at play....  You tell me.

Saturday the military exercises to defend Venezuela took place. We saw pictures of soldiers? militia? wearing Cuban flags, wielding sticks in lieu of rifles for a gran total of "troops" larger than D-day operations, if we are to believe tweeter wits. Meanwhile no one nowhere reported of any troop concentration unless you count an AWACS doing its routine drug traffic control over the Caribbean as the preparation of massive US Marine landing. If Uribe is raising an mercenary army against Maduro he learned well from the FARC on how to hide it.

But the cherry over the cake of ridicule was added by Maduro himself who with anti invasion military maneuvers, threat of coups, internal commotions, left Saturday to promote scientific and commercial exchanges with Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.

Huh?

These islands have not much to offer Venezuela, and Venezuela even less back. However Maduro goes there for one and only one reason, to start a campaign to ensure he will retain at least a third of the OAS vote he needs to stop the application of the Democratic Charter on Venezuela. If Jamaica and Trinidad vote for the sanctions the small islands will follow and Venezuela will be an official pariah state. Brazil and Argentina lost there is only some cash left to buy these island votes, cash coming from killing a few Venezuelans from malnutrition and lack of medicine. But who cares?

That much we can understand. Coups, revolt and invasion  are all smoke screens to distract the Venezuelan hoi poloi. What really matters is revolutionary respectability, and places where to hide when the time comes.

The Hague is starting to look too good for some in the regime........







.

The developping coup

You need to keep following closely what is going on in Venezuela. Any distraction, the more so if you are overseas like yours truly these days, and you may miss the gran finale.

As expected, a cornered regime has started its moves to abolish the national assembly and establish a bona fide dictatorship. It has no choice: elections are not an option for them, they cannot win them even with massive fraud. And lose they cannot because a change of government means that too many of them will go to jail. Thus in front of the perspective of a recall election on Maduro that all indicate will be a sure defeat for Maduro there is nothing else left but to block the drive for recall election.  This is underway at great risk as the mood of the country is clearly set for change. Not necessarily in favor the opposition  but most definitely to kick out Maduro.

Meanwhile there is the financial question that the National Assembly controls and the impossibility to annul each and every single law the assembly votes. The OAS is getting ready to apply the Democratic Charter and time presses. Using the silly excuse that a foreign ex-president can by himself raise a mercenary army able to defeat the Venezuelan one last week end Maduro decreed a state of emergency with wide ranging attributions for Maduro. One of the worrisome ones is that PSUV committee for food distribution control, CLAP of recent creation, will have power to collaborate with army and police for public order. Translation : civilians from Maduro political party will become gauleiters directing armed folks to control non chavista folks, in particular those demanding a recall election. From denial of food to outright repression is how it will work.

Sure enough a few minutes ago the National Assembly exerted it's constitutional right, and duty, to reject the said decree established to defend, allegedly, the fatherland. Now we are left to see how Maduro and the rubber stamp cum private regime attorney high court TSJ rules out such a momentous and necessary Assembly vote. Beyond constitutional considerations just on ethical parameters, the decree of Maduro cannot be accepted. Period.

And thus we are now on the "my way or the highway" moment we were all awaiting eagerly.

Is Maduro going to be allowed to "defend" the country at any price, including democracy, human rights and parliamentary representation?

Is the Assembly to be allowed to control an executive clearly going bonkers?

Time's up

UPDATED: unknown to me as I was typing this overseas, Maduro was in cadena announcing a new emergency decree rendering moot the National Assembly and annuling Recall Election efforts for all practical purposes. In short confirming all that I wrote below.
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I have the feeling that the fall of Dilma in Brazil is going to speed up the conclusion of the Venezuelan farce. For the Narko-Cubano-Colonial regime action is required before the Temer presidency gets a chance to settle in. Not that the odds are with Temer, but Raúl and Maduro simply cannot take the chance.

I do not agree on the way that Dilma was pushed out. The nominal excuse was silly. But that she richly deserved what was coming her way, she did. What sealed her fate was naming Lula minister to protect him from prosecution. Such a breach of ethics makes any sitting president unfit for office. They, Brazilian congress, simply decided to act on what was in the mill and the lack, so far, of popular support for her and Lula show that "o povo" has a hard time to rally, or at least is not convinced that keeping Dilma in office is going to improve its lot.

Temer and his new cabinet are far from inspiring confidence. But if you have bothered reading the hisstory of Brazil you will know that they are used to such shifts and that they will likely give him a few weeks, maybe months. After all there is the technicality that Dilma may win her trial and be reinstated within 6 months though the impeachment tally makes that highly doubtful.

This being said the Castros and Maduro/narco-military have lost their main support. The head of Odebretch is in jail, provisional president Temer may chose, or not, to ventilate corruption cases to silence Lula and Dilma as needed since he is the one with the key to the files now. Even a return of Dilma cannot guarantee the strong support of yore.

What would Brazil do if there were a massive constitutional and human right violation in Venezuela? If Brazil goes against Venezuela it is likely that Uruguay will follow and Mercosur will be unanimous in its condemnation.  Once Peru election is held in June even Unasur would go against Venezuela (and the recent hurried support to Dilma by Unasur secretary, the highly discredited puppet Samper, betray that worry).

Thus the time for Castro to give the order to Maduro, and/or the narco-military to take the initiative to dissolve the national assembly once and for all is now. It is still possible that the OAS could fail to get enough votes to apply the democratic charter to Venezuela after Maduro acts. But once Temer decides to act against Venezuela, with the support of Macri in Argentina, the US and Canada, Mexico would follow. Small countries then will chose the big countries against a flat broke violent Venezuela and game over: Venezuela would be a pariah state and go the way of Cuba out of regional organizations.

But with the narco-military still in charge. Or that is the plan anyway.

And thus it is the time to act for them, the thugs, now, before Temer even has a chance to look at Venezuela. All that has been going on since last Monday points that way.

1%, a world in a number

I have been very distracted by many problems and now I am overseas, among other objectives, to fetch medicines not available anymore in Venezuela for me and my SO (and others). But I could not pass on a brief comment on what should be called the 1 % affair that was held as I fixed to leave the country.

In short, the electoral board, CNE, established fictitious requirements to request for a recall election on Nicolas Maduro. The constitution previews that the requirement to force a recall election  on an elected official is to gather 20% signatures of the registered voters of the given electoral circuit. But the CNE in a crass delaying tactic decided that even though Maduro electoral district is the whole country the MUD alliance needed to get first 1% in EVERY state and THEN it would be allowed to collect the needed 20%. The objective was simple: the regime hoped that in very chavista, very dependent states like, say, Delta Amacuro, the MUD could not manage the 1% holy grail. There is, after all, the infamous Tascón List precedent of the 2004 recall election that affected the lives of hundreds of thousands of folks, including yours truly. If this was scandalous enough by itself there were plenty of other road blocks set by the CNE, quite often of a very childish nature.

To make a long story short, after quite a long arm wrestling the CNE finally released a specific form (la planilla) to collect that 1%. Yet, in a rushed and improvised operation within three days the MUD collected around 8%. That is right, the regime truly thought that the MUD would have trouble collecting in 3 days in all states the fateful 1%. The MUD largely overtook that goal in every state, probably by the end of the first day.

Now, that was a political miscalculation......

Clearly at this stage, in spite of the December electoral loss, in spite of the worsening economical and scarcity crisis, in spite of galloping inflation, in spite of negative unanimous polling, the regime is still underestimating popular rejection of its policies, probably still riding on the illusion that Chavez-dreaming is enough to numb the masses though hungry nights. By putting so many obvious roadblocks the regime only angered further the people, hence the opposition stunning success. The reactions of the regime shows that the wake up call was harsher than in December, at least as I see it.

The problem for the regime is not that the opposition is all but certain to get the 20% signatures it needs. The problem is not that the opposition is all but certain to win the recall election since roughly any signature represents at least two votes considering the fear political context of repression in the country. The problem is that the opposition MUD could well get more signatures than the number of votes that Maduro got three years ago making the recall election a moot point... Such a humiliation would be worse than losing any election and could cause a regime instant debacle.

The problem of the regime has not been Maduro for a while: the military have been the real rulers since the 2014 repression. The problem for the regime if not how to replace Maduro but with what. Now, with that 1% thing it has become an urgent matter.

I see two options for the regime.

The regime "negotiates" a way out through either a recall election or a Maduro resignation where it accepts that a tolerable opposition figure runs to finish the two years left in the presidential term. I do not see why the opposition should accept this or how the narco generals would even bow to that limited amount of real politik.

The regime stalls and blocks the recall election  and Maduro resigns next year letting an appointed transition vice president finish the term.  Very perilous unless it is a national agreement and the said vice president is appointed like, well, now. Again, I doubt Cuba and the narco generals will be on board.

And there is always the option to kick the game board and establish an outright dictatorship.

Genocidal class warfare in Venezuela

Last week I took the S.O. to his monthly chemotherapy. We were late by almost two weeks while he was dealing with side effects of the preceding cycle. Thus it had been nearly two months. The place is an ample room with about 15 comfy chaises for patients and an extra chair for accompanying people. Usually it is full and often we had to wait up to an hour for our turn.

What was my surprise to see that only two other chairs were taken and that the S.O. went straight to a chair of his choice!


I asked our regular nurse in a bit of dark humor whether everyone was cured or dead. She told me that there are two reasons for attendance to drop dramatically over the last two months. One, the treatments must keep apace with inflation which means that it is becoming quite a burden for many, even with insurance, as paychecks are not following inflation. But more dramatic, oncologie medicine stocks have been exhausted for many type of cancers, in particular the more common ones like breast cancers. I suppose that in a perverse irony of the Fates my S.O. is lucky to have a rarer cancer... por ahora.

We were told that for those who cannot find medicine there is only two options: suspend treatment in the hope that the regime will keep its promise of finding "generics" which are of dubious quality when triangulated with Cuba as past experience demonstrates; or shell out foreign currency.

So, what does it mean to pay your own way with foreign currency?

Let's look at some simple facts to begin. By law the regime/state has the monopoly of bringing into the country certain type of drugs: HIV, Cancer, Kidney failure, Organ Transplant and some other special cases. The reason was a good one (from the "4th republic" by the way, not Chavez): since those medicines tend to be expensive the state paid for them to allow for equal access. If you were poor you got treated at a public hospital; if you were rich or middle class with health insurance then you could pick up your practitioner and get less traumatic care than what you get as a general rule at Venezuelan public hospitals. Either way, you got treated.

But things went down under Chavez when, first, the regime decided to set up a parallel health care system that ended up in two equally deficient systems. With the crisis coming, an over saturated private system does not have the means, or vocation or the ability to replace the public system.  The more so that the regime refuses to give it access to free convertible dollars to buy medicine and supplies. As it is the case of food and general drugs, treatment and analytical supplies are also dearly missing. And this is made graver for patients who depend on drugs under state monopoly, a monopoly that the state refuses to give up even though it cannot fulfill it.

Thus, if you have access to USD, and want to get your prescriptions from the US (or Colombia or even Mexico) you will need at least one trip to establish contact with a local physician that will write you that prescription (particularly in the US where M.D. are so afraid of malpractice suits that they refuse to write anything without seeing the patient). Be it Bogota or Miami we are talking here 1.000 for a round trip, between 200 and 1.000 on staying expenses depending on whether you have relatives there, plus the medical bill that can easily reach a multiple of 1.000 depending on your ailment. This for your first month; for the rest you may bring a supply for more than one cycle if drug stability is OK, or have someone else pick it up for you upon your local physician notice, or go back to pick the next lot. All of this, of course, if the sick person is able to travel because if it cannot, then...

We are looking here at a bottom line of 2.500 USD a trip. Since the minimal wage in Venezuela is at 11 USD, that trip, for a month supply, represents 227 MONTHLY MINIMUM WAGE. Think about that for a minute.

Clearly, only the super rich can afford treatment today. If you are middle to upper middle class you may be able to pay for a few months and quickly deplete whatever savings you have outside of the country, if you have them. And then, well, join the poor.

The catch here is who are the super rich that have easy access to dollars for themselves or the relatives they chose to help. There are two groups, those that were already rich in USD before Chavez and those that became obscenely rich under Chavez. Many in the group BEFORE are either long gone anyway, or got long ago a US health insurance. Their concern, if any, is for relatives left behind. And those that did not leave the country during Chavez first years do not have an endless supply of US dollars, amen of having actually to earn these while the chavista super rich simply steal the money they need, in dollars, straight.

At this point it is simply inconceivable, it is a crime against Human Rights not to allow free, if targeted, convertibility of currency so that sick people can at the very least avoid the trip part for getting the care they need. The regime is coldly erasing through death or financial failure the historical middle to upper middle class since the only rich folks that can deal with the current situation are the ones close to the regime.

At least in this particular case, at this time, we can use the term "genocidal class warfare". You either die, go bankrupt or leave the country. You have no other option.

Some pro Chavez/regime supporter may point out that it is mere justice that all Venezuelans have to go though this, rich or poor.  After all, the poor do not get either the medicine, nor the health support. I will reply that totalitarian regimes do not care about what happens to their civilians. They are a mere casualty in the war for the just cause. It does not matter for the regime whether its supporters die in greater numbers, they are expendable. What matters in the end is that the opposition to the regime is broken. The end justifies the means. All methods are valid. Period.

Let me remind you historical precedents, such as Hitler not afraid to distract from its army and civilians resources for use in Jewish extermination carried out all the way to the last day of the war. Or how Stalin drive to liquidate Koulaks had no problem creating a general starvation, or how the Castros never lost a night of sleep over the balseros braving the straights of Florida or the Argentina's military sending unprepared soldiers to the Falklands, or....

The current holders of the Venezuelan regime have absolutely no qualms about letting people die of disease, and I mean not only cancer patients. Never mind those who will die soon of malnutrition and those who already die of violence in the barrios. What the regime wants is for denizens of El Cafetal, or Prados, or Altamira to stay terrified at home, looking at what next heirloom they will need to sell at low price to help buy medicine for cousin Juan. That chavista supporters suffer more, die in much greater numbers is really not an issue for Maduro.

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Note: I already wrote in Spanish a note on why there is already enough evidence to instruct a dossier on chavista leadership to send them to the Hague tribunal. I suggest that the National Assembly starts officially the procedure. After all, if Dilma got impeached Sunday I do not see why we should not try to do so with Maduro.

How long can Maduro hold?

The annulation of the Amnesty Law was so predictable that I did not bother with a post. Twitter was enough. However, what is worth a post is a meditation on how long a kleptocracy cum drug trafficking regime can hold it together.

The first thing we must consider is that by now the regime makes no pretense whatsoever. Under Chavez, at least some minimal delay was held, when possible.  Some lengthy presidential cadena "predicted" what a wished for action of other "powers of the state" should happen, and a few days later, voilá! X got to jail, Y was expelled, Z was annulled.  Now progress has been made: Maduro asks for an opinion and within a couple of days the high court, TSJ, serves notice. Unanimously of course.

There is no pretense whatsoever, not even the occasional dissent vote in the bench. You know, they could take turns to say a nay out of 32 justices. Rulings are written even sloppier than they used to be. In fact we even wonder if the court takes the time to read the annulled law. I, for one, think that as soon as a given article is voted at the Assembly, some chavista sends it to the court to prepare the annulment before the final law is even voted. How else could the TSJ beat any speed ruling record observed in any democracy, or even dictatorship for all that I know?

It is not only the TSJ that is blunt about paying no attention to the Assembly or the opposition wishes. The illegal electoral board, CNE, is writing new rules as it goes to stop any electoral initiative from the opposition. That is, the Chavez regime who went from plebiscite to plebiscite is now in the no-election mode. See, Chavez made victory credible (albeit known cheating). Today everyone knows, even chavistas, that neither Maduro nor Cabello could get elected consejo comunal dog catcher.

There are two ways to understand what is going on. Of course, what I repeat all the time, the driving force here is that the regime cannot allow to hand in power to someone else because that would mean that scores of chavistas would soon find their way to jail. Thugs and criminals and narco-traffickers are not known to surrender peacefully to popular will, no matter how lopsided that one is.

Thus the question: is this a show of strength or a show of weakness?

The weakness is easy to demonstrate. The regime has its own polls, even if it refuses to acknowledge the real life poll of December 6 2015. Popular support is fading so fast that open air meetings are rarer, least someone would take a picture of the real attendance (not long until a drone is flown over a chavista real-rally?). Thus the regime is in survival mode, a mode where chutzpah is significantly enhanced along irresponsibility and all sorts of crazy. Yes, the regime is scared, but as in cornered dog scared, biting right and left.

But the show of strength is also easy to understand. This is a regime that is in it for the long run. It is a regime that has made peace with brute force. Already legal and psychological brute force is employed from holding political prisoners to annulling even a weather report voted at the Assembly. Physical force is not as well set yet but the training has been done as we can see from how 2014 protests were repressed, but also now how food riots are repressed these days.

In short, it is a regime that knows it has the weapons and that is the holder of its own truth, a truth of having the financial power to ensure the survival of a small elite which has robbed enough for it. Golden exile is not an option for many of them anymore, but they have stashed enough to pay all the mercenaries they will need to pay to stay in Venezuela and enjoy the riches of life even though the people that placed them into office are starving and dying of unspeakable diseases that normal countries have eradicated. In short, they have become such criminals that they are beyond good and evil, they are amoral, pitiless.

Which brings us to the longevity of such regimes. Considering the continuous degradation of the standard of living, the equilibrium point is when Catia and Petare will get so hungry that they are the ones that will be starting the opposition marches instead of Prados del Este. The date? I do not know, they are not hungry enough yet, not enough of their children have died yet. But the time will come, probably sooner than expected. After all, let's not forget  that no matter how military like Padrino, the defense minister, are associated to the corruption of the regime, when they give the order to shoot to the troop this one may not follow: the troop will know why the people are protesting because, well, it is their parents and brothers, and cousins...

I will remind the patient reader that there are historical precedents where the troop refused to follow generals orders, and that was that. I see no reason for Venezuela to be any different, the more so that the troop did not enjoy the booty that their generals grabbed.

And they shall go to jail

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which brings us to the picture opening this entry.

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

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

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

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

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