Tienes derecho a tu opinion pero tengo derecho a no respetarla

El régimen chavista ha trabajado mucho en alterar nuestro idioma para poder imponer sus ideas, debilitar nuestro pensamiento y afectar nuestra ética. Ya George Orwell nos explicaba ese fenómeno totalitario en "1984" o "Rebelión en la Granja".

Palabras abundan, como eso de "fortalecer" todo para esconder y justificar la erosión institucional. Otra es "libertario". O "apatrida". Etc.

Pero existe una expresión muy en boga ahora que ya no puedo tragar mas: "respeto tu opinión". Inclusive el periodismo la ha santificado a punto de olvidar lo que significan palabras tales como "hechos", "concreto", "seguimiento", "verdad".

Primero, está demostrado ampliamente que el chavismo no respeta nada, y menos una opinión. Preguntenle a Leopoldo López en Ramo Verde, el más dramático ejemplo. Piensen en todos los exiliados políticos.

"Respeto tu opinión" es en realidad una forma de decir con un mínimo de cortesía que tu opinión no sirve, no tiene sustento, no merece ser respetada, que la mía es la única que cuenta, la única con validez. ¡Una hermosura de dialéctica negativista!

Pero miremos hoy en dia todos los chavistas en el gobierno usando esa expresión.

¿Cómo puede tener validez la opinión de, digamos, el diputado Pedro Carroña Carreño? ¿No nos dijo ayer que las elecciones son un lujo prescindible? ¿Es eso respetable?

¿Cómo podemos respetar al vicepresidente Aristóbulo Istúriz cuando nos eructa que el abastecimiento va mejor porque hay menos colas? ¿No ve que las colas siguen? ¿Que si aparentase tener menos colas es que ya no queda nada que comprar?

Esto ya no es a nivel de propaganda política, ni siquiera de provocación y burla. Eso ya es a nivel de cuestionar el raciocinio del otro, de su capacidad de observación, decisión, pensamiento. Es deshumanizar al otro.

Así las cosas. Yo no sé lo que harán ustedes pero este aqui ya no respeta más las opiniones absurdas y sesgadas. El chavismo, y mucho radical de la oposición, tiene derecho a sus opiniones pero yo ahora recupero mi derecho a no respetarlas. Total, tienen años sin respetar las mías.

Options against the dictatorship

I am happy about yesterday annulment of the Recall Election. I know, it is perverse but I have my reasons.

First, there is no need to discuss anymore the dictatorial nature of the regime. Under Chavez there were elections at any turn. Now, there will not be elections, not even for dog catcher. The last argument that chavismo could use internationally "we never lost the boatload of elections we do" only works if you have regular elections.

The consequence of this is that any opposition group that does not call the regime for its true nature will lose quickly its supporters. These simply will fail to understand how faced with the truth their "leaders" do not react more assertively. I agree that increased polarization is dangerous, but at this point, what else can we lose?

Second, as a consequence from the above, the opposition alliance MUD needs to purge itself of its wishy washy elements. Either you support the regime (silence counts), or you oppose it. Again, dictatorial regimes can only be dethroned through unity (or foreign disaster like invasion). See the examples of Chile where all allied against Pinochet. Or even Mexico when all rallied behind the right wing PAN to kick out the eternal PRI and its "perfect" dictatorship. Never mind the exit of Fujimori where the unity of the opposition behind Toledo allowed international sanctions to be effective.

Third, and surprising, any negotiation to get out of the crisis is now more likely to be successful if the opposition unifies better, becomes more assertive. By blocking any election the regime in fact traps itself into a repression must that is not acceptable today in Latin America, at a time where even the Castros are starting to be questioned. Through negotiation we may not get quick regime change but a true negotiation which includes a real progressive release of the tools of power by the narco regime may be a better outcome for the country than ousting suddenly a corrupt elite that will immediately sabotage whatever the incoming administration will try. One reason why some inside the opposition are not as assertive as others is that they simply do not want to deal with the mess.

[NOTE: I am painfully aware that Venezuela is a neutered country. The sacrifices seen in Chile or Peru are not going to happen here. There are too many of us that can only be deranged for a looting party. There is a perfect French word without direct translation to characterize what I think of the bulk of the Venezuelan population: veule. a mix of spineless and coward. And I include there those that are keyboard warriors, calling for all sorts of action from the MUD that they have little intentions to lead themselves. Never mind the chavista colectivos who only attack under pay and military protection. Certainly there are steel soul heroes like Lopez but the indignation only goes so far.]

In front of all this what are the options?

It is time for the MUD to put its neck forward. It has been 24 hours since the CNE did what was foretold. Last night the only minimally acceptable answer for the MUD was "We are not accepting this. We knew it was coming and we have plans. We will not reveal them now because we needed first the details to complete them. Tomorrow we will tell you".

We had to wait a couple of hours until finally someone said something without any further immediate perspective. In short, the MUD is not sure what to do. I assume, hope, they have an idea, that the delay is part of a strategy.

Clearly, if the MUD does not react we are in for a full Maduro term with utter destruction of the country.  Never mind that the regime will use the two years left to destroy physically the opposition and plan for a totally fraudulent presidential election in December 2018. Or later, as the crisis is an open door for all sort of excuses.

Today, for good measure the high court TSJ annulled yet another key vote from the National Assembly. And yet this is where the resistance comes from. The National Assembly needs to vote the illegality of the regime, just as the regime decreed its irrelevance. How to do that? A few things, in no particular order.

Refuse to discuss the budget. Once this one is passed by a TSJ fiat, vote a resolution that any lender is going at its own risk, that the Assembly will not recognize debts contracted through that budget that are not duly monitored. Bankrupt the regime. You may say that the propaganda of the regime will put the blame of the famine on the opposition but I doubt it at this point. And the MUD can always say that they refuse to give money to thieves.

Reduce taxes, in particular sales tax and see how the regime can finance itself.

Claim article 350 of the constitution and start an organized campaign of civil disobedience. The beauty of that is that you do not need to obey the TSJ anymore.

Vote the destitution of the latest TSJ appointment as illegal and announce that the rulings do not need to be followed anymore by anyone in the country.

Vote the destitution of the current CNE board. That it will delay future elections? At this point who cares!

Etc.

There are means that can be acceptable for the international community while the regime would be either pushed to capitulate or become a new Cuba.

But for this you need a unified opposition willing to face down the regime and stand the risks that come with such a fight. I do not see it, or at least not the unity required for this. Nor the vision.

I hope to be corrected, to be proven dead wrong.

Thy electoral CNE shoe droppeth

There will be a lot of brouhaha in the next days about the ignominious decision of the CNE to do its utmost to violate the constitution in order to block the Recall Election against Maduro. Let me try to make it clear for readers still hanging around here.

1) The motivation in any case is to annul the Recall Election, or in the very worst case push it to 2017 which means that the regime remains in office until January 2019 at the very least.


In fact, the regime has announced today through one of its formal provocateurs, Pedro Carroña Carreño, that voting was not a fundamental right, that there was more pressing needs like food or medicine than elections. The provocation is, of course, the public knowledge that the crisis is the regime fault and thus it will never win an election again, and it knows it. Never mind that there might not be money for elections but there was cash for the useless NOAL summit in Margarita last week that could have easily paid for an election. Nevermind on how much medicine could have been bought out of the food given, say, to Mugabe.

In short, before I go into details, as I already wrote in previous entries, the regime does not want elections. Period.

2) The constitution states clearly that any recall election must be asked by 20% of the voters in the district that elected the said person. The electoral board CNE today announced that even though Maduro was elected nation wide the opposition will need to collect 20% in each and every state. So, even if, say, 30% nationwide signed for the recall election it is enough that in a single state there is ONE VOTE missing for the 20% to annul the whole experience. The article 72 is clear and precise, there is a need for a 20% nation wide and it is irrelevant if that number is reached through 100% of voters in state X while state Y has 0% signatures.

Thus we have right there a flagrant violation of the constitution. If they do that so bluntly what can we expect for the "details" next?

3) The CNE said that it would give the opposition only 3 weekdays, 7 hour week day, with one hour for lunch for the CNE workers. That is there will be a Wednesday, Thursday and Friday allocated, from 8 AM to noon and from 1 PM to 4 PM. That is, unless your boss gives you the time to stand in line for hours you will not be able to sign up for the recall election. Never mind public workers who will be tightly controlled those days and fired on the spot if they are out of office during that timetable.

4) And to make sure that this timetable is even more difficult to fulfill the CNE has allocated only 5,392 finger printing machines. Let's do some simple arithmetic.

If all goes well, no electric outage, no sabotage, no violence, etc, etc...  we have 21 hours per machine. Let's assume that each machine can collect one signature per minute in such perfect conditions. The maximum signatures that can be thus collected in those three days are:

5,392 X 21 X 60 = 6,793,920 signatures.

We need, besides the per state quota difficulty, 3,893,129 signatures. That is not bad you may say. Think again. I have assumed that the 21 hours will be indeed perfect 21 hours. Also, there are always imponderables and we know from experience that the CNE has a proclivity to annul signatures at will, even if collected by themselves. The "safe number" is not 20% per state, it is 25% per state, which is above 5 million nationwide.

A couple of rainstorms across the country is enough to already make you lose half a million. A few well designed power outages and there you have another half a million gone. Since it is to be collected state by state all those that cannot return to their home state will not be able to sign. Etc.....

Not collecting on a week end makes it, just becasue of logistics, very difficult to get that 4 million signatures. Since elections are on Sundays, you can appreciate in full the hypocrisy and cynicism of the CNE in deciding on working days and working hours for signature collection.

5) And at this point we do not know yet other details such as where the limited numbers of collection centers will be located.  If you vote here but you need to go over there, preferably in a rough neighborhood, to sign up, will you?

6) But just for good measure the CNE has announced that it will take its sweet time to decide whether the signatures have indeed been collected. Nevermind that they collected them themselves, with their people, their machines, etc. They blithely said that the Recall Election "could take place" during the first quarter of 2017. Thus annulling its desired effect, as I mentioned above.

Voila!

This being said.

Technically there is still a possibility for the recall election to be held before January 10. After all, January 9 IS in the first quarter of 2017. All will depend of course on what the opposition MUD will do in the coming days and how willing is the army to repress as needed.

Right now, today, it would seem that the regime has accepted to remove Maduro from office. But that is all, he must be replaced by someone inside the regime, WITHOUT presidential election. That is right, if Mauro were to be recalled in the first quarter of 2017, the vice president HE NAMES one day before the vote would be the one that would complete the remaining two years of the term. AN UNELECTED PRESIDENT, AN APPOINTED PRESIDENT FOR TWO YEARS. If you think that this will solve the political crisis........... think again.

As I have written several times, the solution to the crisis is not electoral, it is political through a show of force. The easiest exit is for Maduro to resign today and we elect a new president (in office for only 2 years, so incoherent is the 1999 constitution). The opposition would win that election and for two years would have to deal with the horrendous crisis. Thus in December 2018 chavismo could make again a case to be returned to office.

But that would be if chavismo were in the hands of democrats which is not the case. Chavismo is owned by a military-narko-mafia which will be indicted in many an international court. A mafia controlled from Havana at that.

Tell me, is there a possible pacific electoral outcome? No. No way. The only outcome is through a break up inside the army to force out of office the most corrupt elements. That is, chavistas against chavistas. The best we can hope is for Maduro to be forced to resign.

The Recall Election is not an option but it is about the only pressure the opposition has right now. Unless we go into civil disobedience, a constitutional assembly election (mbwahahah!) or something of the sort.

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

Two not quite related comments.

1) it seems that chavismo wants the opposition to do the dirty job of removing Maduro and only that. It is almost as if the regime wanted the opposition to give up on the Recall Election and negotiate something like a power sharing arrangement which would allow for some legal protection for the narko-personnel.

2) observe that the CNe conditions do not make it absolutely impossible for the opposition to get the 20% it needs but it makes it impossible for the opposition to get more signatures than the votes Maduro got in 2013. At least that humiliation would be spared the regime, if worse came to worse for it.

There we are not, at freedom

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

.

A short summary of what happens in the video.

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

Too close for comfort?

"Margarita follies": a cheap vaudeville in 5 acts

Prologue

PSUV tent city
Courtesy Elides Rojas tweet

In the fair city of Caracas, Henry Ramos gathers a few friends for a big party. Nicolas Maduro is not invited and he tries to sabotage Henry's party by complaining to the police for loud noise, and trying to hold a party of his own on a red shirt theme. His party is a bust: even people walking by Nico's party with red shirts take them off to go to Henry shindig.

Act 1 Nicolas at Pinkyville

Nicolas is furious at Henry and his friends, In particular those with orange shirts that accepted to don white ones at Henry's party. To get fresher airs he decides to go out of Caracas to visit a homestead where he is told lot's of people love him and would have gone to his party had he be willing to foot the cost. Lo and behold, when he reaches Pinkyville he finds his friends very pissed off at him because he took all of their food for his party in Caracas. Furious, they bring out a protest steel band of pots and pans to accompany their protest song. We will never now for sure but there may have been a exchange of more than just insults. Nico must make a quick exit and go back to Caracas swearing that all of these people have been sent by the folks of Henry's party.

Act 2 The revenge of the bitter

At Miraflores Palace Nico and his gang are sulking. They need to avenge themselves of so many humiliations even though the bard Vox Populi tells them that they asked for it. But she is a relative of Cassandra and everybody hates that bitch even more.

There is also the problem of that chic gathering to start soon next door to Pinkyville, where all the faded B list will gather to toast Nicolas who is paying for the drinks. Short of time, they decide to start taking on the orange shirts of Henry's party accusing them of street noise and killing kittens with farts. For good measure, to warn other people who attended Henry's party they send to the slammer Braulio who we learn apparently commutes back and forth from work with thousand of dollars in his car. It seems he did not know that such things go under mattresses,

Act 3 The neighborhood complains

All these people held against their will, with all sorts of made up excuses, manage a lot of noise. All sorts of neighbors complain, in particular Braulio's father who would like to know at the very least where is Braulio held. Nico's Friday girl Delcy vulgarly tells Chile Wine Export, the company of Braulio relatives to fuck off which not only infuriates further Braulio's Dad but brings out his uncle Almagro and the neighborhood watch HRF.

Some suggest that Delcy's therapist should not be his brother as it compromises the ethics of the trade and creates such unpleasantness and incompetency in such an insecure petty creature.

Act 4 Nico's fraternity bash

Considering all of this real and imaginary saboteurs, depending whom you ask, Nico's gang decide to lock up Margarita Island so nobody from main land could go to Pinkyville. Not even Henry who wanted to tell the guests that Nico stole his money to pay for the lavish party, money that was to be given to charity like taking care of children with cancer.

Enrique also wanted to go to Margarita to visit his God Mother on her birthday. He was trapped at the airport by a gang of red shirts who even grabbed their junk in offering to Enrique. This one filmed it all and this may have been the first case of live fascist porn on Periscope. The passengers going along with him enjoyed the show and backed Enrique refusing to leave the place so much fun they were having. Soon the good people of Pinkyville was rumored to be on their way to the airport and thus the red goons decided to retreat protected from video cameras and steel bands by the Venezuelan security apparatus.

To avoid further surprises Nico's gang decided to be able to sleep tight in their luxury hotel by having a few hundred red shirts come over. Since they were service they were put to sleep outside, in tents with rudimentary hygiene on some dirt undeveloped property. That way they could watch them form their AC suites and call on them as needed.  Any similarity to slavery or indented labour is purely coincidental.

Act 5 What if you give a party and (almost) no one shows up?

So Nicolas launched his party without witnesses to which more than 100 head of gangs were expected. Apparently not even a dozen came and none of the stars, though plenty of underlings came to enjoy all sorts of amenities at Henry's cancer struck children expense.

And yet Delcy did all what she could to entice them to come, waiting for the few of them that came on the tarmac itself, with lots of hugs and offers to carry their bags and free them from customs duty. Unfortunately the luminaries that came where those that had no choice. Rouani came because he had to pass the bills to Nico from past bashes; Raul needed to get his monthly stipend; Rafael because he has nothing better to do and Robert, who is not invited to any other party around the World, would not miss that one.

While the bash took place another formal diner party was held elsewhere. The guests decided that Nico would not be welcome anymore to their parties because he cannot stop acting like a brat and never pays his bills. Jose from Brazil made it a point to underline that Nico had not met any of the obligations he was supposed to meet in order to join that southern club.

Epilogue

Back at Miraflores Nico and the gang realize that they are more lonely than ever, that even paying for people party is not enough to have them show up. Someone suggests to jail all of Henry's friends around Miraflores so that nobody would know about such isolation.

The opposition MUD alliance great political victory

There is no way around it. Today the opposition political umbrella alliance MUD scored a brilliant victory. Here is why.

It resisted all sorts of terrible pressures to prevent the meeting in Caracas, from blockade of people going to Caracas (Sometimes even robbed by soldiers) to the jailing of half the leadership of Voluntad Popular  (And some of other parties for good measure).

In spite of all of this pressure it managed to hold at least three major gatherings in Caracas. The safe one where I was in Cafetal/Chiao. The less safe but of expected higher output along the Miranda Avenue. The definitely riskier one from Western ex Chavez-strongholds which gave us the better video of the day when a small group of forlorn red shirted creeps could do nothing against thousands walking in white.

The pictures are clear, a flood of people reaching at least a million walked. Probably more than in 2002 with way more threats than then.

In many places inside Venezuela rallies were held. Even one in New York Saint Patrick.

In spite of all fears the rally/marches run smoothly except for some localized incidents that for all that I know where caused by undercover chavista agents.

But the best evidence is the reaction of the regime. We had all sorts of desperate counter propaganda clearly destined to the remaining lumpen chavismo,  because charitably I cannot find another way to express it.

Of course, the regime called the rally a failure, but claiming that there were at most 30,000 people when the whole world is putting, sometimes in front pages, specific local shots that by themselves show more than that number?  Diosdado  Cabello went one further by posting a possibly altered picture of a Chavez rally at Bolívar Avenue in 2012 as it were today when not even the cameras of state TV could hide the low turnout of Maduro there this afternoon (with a heavy dose of light brown shirted militia to fatten up attendance). What has been more amazing is that in spite of a quick refutal  of the fraudulent picture many governors and chavistas posted it as true, even in far distant Bogota where ex mayor Gustavo Petro made once again a fool of himself talking about Venezuela.

But the most telling moment of the opposition success was when Maduro announced that he was planning to lift parliamentary immunity so as to put straight to jail any opposition member he does not like. As in all one must assume. Assorted with truly vulgar insults that should be censored on TV. The democratic option  is not in chavismo plans.

There is no arguing the success of the MUD today. The question now is what next.
------------------------
I am not putting links for lack of time tonight but a lot of it can be found in my time line on tweeter 

1S coverage by VN&V

Since last night post things got worse. A bevy of journalists have been barred from entry in or outright expelled from the country (useless unless they also expelled those that are already installed as fixed correspondents). Human Rights organizations count already 37 arbitrary arrests in the last 48 hours. Access to Caracas is nearly blocked. Threats from the regime have reached a new high pitch. Etc.

Still, I think that this is absolutely counterproductive and for anyone that will stay home scared, a newly pissed off one will decide to hit the streets tomorrow.


I, for one in a million, I hope for, will be there. But the sector where I am supposed to stand in the "taking of Caracas" is not the most glamour one, nor scenic. The objective of the event is to have a sea of people stand in the three main road axis of Caracas besides the main one, the central autopista. Mine from El Cafetal is the Rio de Janeiro avenue that follows the right bank of the Güaire river. Next to the smell of the open sewer that Chavez promised years ago to clean up so he could take a swim with Evo.

I supposed that one advantage will a be less crowded network usage so I may be able to post things real time on Twitter and Instagram.  In normal marches rallies closer to downtown some times you cannot even send a text! You have on the right side of this blog the links to both. Keep in mind that I am the last one of the historical bloggers still reporting from Venezuela in English. And who knows for how long...

Also if you have something to share send it to me. If I can download it and put it up I will. Or at night tomorrow.

That is all for tonight, going to bed hoping to forget for a few hours all the crazy going on,  including dangerous remarks by Maduro, remarks that by themselves would get him a spot on one the The Hague benches. It is that crazy for these creeps...

See you tomorrow starting sometime after 9 AM , maybe, depending on how the country wakes up.

Kalends of September for chavismo, or so it seems

The regime has made its business to turn into a fateful day the vast opposition rally planned for next Thursday September 1st. The regime has a lot to lose on that day, but it made sure that its losses would be greater than necessary. And, personally, at this point I do not see how the regime could rake any gain.

It all started when the opposition tired of waiting for a Recall Election date decided to mount a massive protest against Maduro's regime, that is, demanding his exit as soon as possible. Of course, the chosen way is to hold a Recall Election before January 10 2017. The opposition to Maduro has nothing to gain from any unconstitutional settlement of the political crisis: all polls give the opposition soaring numbers since last December stunning electoral victory. Besides, even if the opposition did not enjoy a 70+ against Maduro and wanted to do a stunt, how would it do that? The Venezuelan opposition has been deprived of arms, newspapers, TV, and even of its politicians as many are in jail.


The regime knows all of this, certainly. It also can read polls. And it knows that outside of the likes of Cuba or Nicaragua it has no international support left, at least of the kind that would speak favorably of Maduro. Even supposed allies like Putin or Correa are, well, rather discreet in their praise, if any.

The battle for the regime is lost. They are unwilling to change the economic system, to open up. As such the economy will keep spiraling down and soon there will be outright bouts of near starvation with all the political mess that comes along. The laws of the economy are finally speaking up in Venezuela and there is no hope that the only economic policy left for the regime, oil at 80 USD a barrel, will happen in the near future. And never mind its personnel as Venezuela is the only country we know of where its interior and security minister cannot travel out of the country least Interpol grabs him and sends him to a trial in the US. Needless to recall the awaited fate of other regime's luminaries.

Faced with what is predicted to be the largest anti regime rally since 2002/2003 the regime decided against the wise move: let it happen and ignore it the best you can, using this as a demonstration that democracy is not dead in Venezuela. Instead it has chosen the worst way to prove that this is indeed a dictatorship.

All sorts of means to block the rally are attempted, too long to list. Here follows the main ones.

- Threats of all type, verbal menaces from higher up in the regime
- Outright fascist firing of public employees that dare criticize in any way the regime's results (examples here, here and here)
- Forbidding Al Jazeera journalists from entering the country to cover the events
- Forbidding any private flight, even drones, until September 5, so that there would be no evidence of the large turnout, as if roof tops were not enough to establish that anyway. And it does not matter as the opposition announced it will fly drones anyway (so I can illustrate for you the mood)
- Blocking access to Caracas for the possibly 100+ thousand people that will show up from all parts of the country
- After months of absence reopen food fairs like Mercal so as to try to divert folks from the march to go and get some of the scarce food. Though it is not clear if it is just counter propaganda planted by the regime.
- Call for its own counter rally downtown Caracas to block the opposition possible march there
- Promises of all sorts for Caracas, all to be done by Christmas
- All sorts of conspiracy theories as to the opposition wanting to reedit April 11 2002 (from the hands of the Empire in the North, of course)

Etc...

But the worst assault has been on Voluntad Popular, the political party of Leopoldo Lopez, the cause celèbre of political prisoners. For the last week there has been an onslaught against the leadership of the party, from accusing the mayor of El Hatillo of smuggling arms, to take San Cristobal mayor from his sick bed in the middle of the night to send him to jail, to outright kidnapping of militants. The vindictiveness of the large concerted attack on Voluntad Popular is simply amazing. Other political parties are not buying: they know they are next. And the OAS least raised its tone as its secretary has issued, in Spanish for now, a long letter which resumes all fo the above and can be read as a stern warning against the regime.

We must wonder what is the regime seeking. Can it be so clumsy? Is there some master plan behind?

I am afraid that the regime seeks an act of violence that it can provoke easily itself by sending under cover to the rallies Thursday delinquents that will pretend to pin on the opposition a violence that the regime will have started itself. That would explain all of the conspiracy theories blurted these past few days and the arrest of Voluntad Popular leadership which will presumably bear the brunt of the accusation. The ridicule for the regime's cause that Voluntad Popular would have committed the crimes AFTER their incarceration does not seem to have been considered. But that is not the point.

A desperate regime is building a narrative to justify its September repression in the eyes of the followers it still has. In short, the regime is preparing itself to cut loose from the civilized world and drive into oblivion the Venezuelan populations just as the Cuban one was pushed down to nothing within months of the arrival of Fidel in 1958. All seems to point out to that strategy, from ignoring the OAS to put in jail Voluntad Popular leadership, the most active in the streets, the one that apparently must be threatening the most chavismo.

Let's not forget that the loudest voices inside chavismo are the ones most likely to go to jail as soon as they set foot outside of the country. They have nothing to lose anymore. Hence...

Which does not mean they will succeed and as they fail, well...

FARC soon at a Venezuelan arepera next to you

ABC journalist and bete noire of chavismo for all of the insider leaks he has been reporting, Emili Blasco, writes a piece in ABC about how the FARC is preparing its retreat to Venezuela once (before?) any peace treaty is signed with the Santos administration.

Since it is in Spanish a short summary follows, plus what I wrote on that already in 2012:

The argument of Blasco is that the closing of the Colombian Venezuelan border since last year was in fact an excuse to justify removing some of the military contingent there and allow thus for less surveillance. The objective would have been to ease the transfer from Colombia to Venezuela of some of the FARC weaponry, drug manufacturing and guerilla personnel that cannot remain safely inside Colombia once a peace treaty is signed (forget about a referendum on  it and an eventual enforcing, these are another matter).

That may be true, Blasco makes a good case. I would add to his case that the delay ad patres in governor election due this December is a powerful argument in his favor, something he did not mention.  Effectively, as chavismo is almost certain to lose most state houses, it is crucial for them to finish any resettlement of the FARC while finding ways to preserve at the very least the states where the FARC will find refuge. This is a tall order unless the regime decides to annul the elections or do a massive and obvious cheating, always a possibility with these desperate crazies. Then there is also the possibility of a negotiated election where the opposition gets all state houses except for those of Zulia, Guarico, Apure and Amazonas. It is not outlandish [sigh...]

In 2012 I did draw this map below where that whole chavo-narko-FARC strategy was put together (retaken in 2013).

How chavismo plans to offer refuge to FARC.
In light mauve the zones in Colombia where FARC and ELN concentrate before crossing over to Venezuela.

There you have it.

The saddest part of it all is that the FARC as well as the regime are absolutely oblivious of the consequences for the population' suffering that such a resettlement would entail. There goes to tell you how soulless a narko system becomes. Let's not forget that Castro has always sponsored drug trafficking to democracies as a way to weaken them. In Venezuela he seems that he has succeeded and in Colombia he is getting a new start courtesy of Santos (who in addition of his weaknesses will likely face soon million of hunger refugees from Venezuela). As far as chavismo, Castro and the FARC are concerned, poverty and violence are a good tool to control the populace.

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

Hat tip for the Blasco article to my friend Fausta, always on top of such stuff.

Tales from the breadlines

Two short tales on food lines.


There are breadlines everyday in front of the bakeries that will be making bread. Not all do, some because they cannot deal with the mess and others because, well, they have no flour. The lines start forming around 11 AM or 5 PM. That is that.

The other day I was in El Recreo district and stuck in traffic I watched what is a short line. Yes, a short breadline. I have seen some that are 3, 4, 6 times as long as the one you can see in this Instagram video I posted. Being bored I did make a croquis of that line, to locate the picture below.

This is the little tail on the map below where
it says foto.

On other news, a tale from my cleaning lady.

Now she needs to go a get a number the day before her appointed day for shopping (note: for certain items you can only shop on the day that corresponds to your last number of your ID card). That line to get the number by itself lasts a couple of hours, at least, if you want to be sure to get a number. And then you still need to go early next day and do, at least, another couple of hours standing in line if you want to make sure supplies are not exhausted before your turn comes.

This is already bad enough but it gets worse. See, while they are in line people chat, get comfy, start exchanging phone numbers so they can text each other when things arrive. So far so good. But the bachaqueros, those people making a living out of buying and reselling what they get in line, have noticed. So they play the friendly game without passing for bachaqueros and THEN, when they happen to not get as many number line as they wished for, they start calling people and threaten them if they refuse to give up the number they got.

In other words, within the long line there is a now a surveillance network of bachaqueros that notice who are the weak links and when they do get a number. Then, voila, extortion on those poor friendly souls.

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

Added in proof: I just learned that the regime is now threatening to close/fine the bakeries that have lines outside. Apparently Maduro says that there is enough flour and that the bakers, in a giant conspiracy I suppose, want to force people in line to give bad propaganda to the regime.

Now I can die, I have seen it all.

Esau would get a good deal from Jacob in Venezuela

The new minimum wage increase decreed by Maduro is of course a fraud. No need to insult the gentle reader reminding him or her that the inflation has already pre empted any increase Maduro may give us; and the relatively large but very insufficient increase will not solve the workers purchasing power problem while adding yet more fuel to inflation. Only chavistas do not know that, or worse, do not care about that.

The new minimum wage is officially 22,576 VEB. At the SICADI exchange of today we see that the VEB is at 645 to the USD. In short the minimum wage is officially 35 USD PER MONTH.

There goes the glorious bolivarian revolution in the name of workers.

And do not complain, I could have used the black market rate of 1,007 instead of 645 because that is the only one I can use to buy dollars with my 22,576 VEB. It would be, well, 22 USD.  How people can live off such a paltry amount is a mystery beyond belief, less than 1 dollar a day.


Ah! but the well informed reader will tell me that I forgot about the food bonus!!!!  That is right. And I will explain that next.

For reasons too long to explain Venezuela has a complicated system of severance payments. That is, when you fire someone, or they simply resign, you have to pay them X amount of money based on all the income that person has gotten while working for you. The trick here is how do you define income. One way the Venezuelan government, before Chavez already, found to go around ballooning severance sums was to give its employees bonuses not counted as regular income. The most creative way was to establish a food bonus for lower scale wages. First it was limited to large business. Then it spread to small business, then everyone got it, not only lower scale workers. Now, I have been informed that even as an associate in my business I could get fined if I did not receive that food bonus, something that I have refused to receive until now.

Chavismo in recent years has steadily been increasing the food bonus as a way of slowing down the amount of severance pay that the state today cannot meet anymore, by the way.  The pay increase I refer above raised stupendously the food bonus to 42,480.  Yes, that is right, the food bonus is now almost twice the basic monthly wage.

So why should I complain? Very simple: that food bonus comes through tickets or a bank card AND can only be used in food stores. Guess what? the worker may want to use part of that 42K to buy such things as public transportation to go to work or medicine for her children. And one of the few ways to make good on that 42K for cash is to go to certain grocery stores that will give you cash in exchange (illegal, of course) but at a 20% discount.

So there you go, no matter how positively you try to look at that minimum wage hike it is a fraud to the worker, its severance pay will be negatively affected and s/he can only buy food (which incidentally cannot be purchased through that food bonus from black market).

But it gets worse.  Today I got from a relative in France a a tweet and a picture.  The tweet is from Miro Popic, food editor at Tal Cual.

Bs.3.995 el 1/2 kg. de lentejas. Nuevo salario mínimo dará para 2.82 kg. al mes. pic.twitter.com/rut7ewJwTg

— Miro Popic Editor (@miropopiceditor) 16 de agosto de 2016

Cheaper and yummier

So about a pound of lentils in Venezuela costs 3.995 which at the SICADI in euro of 727 is 5,49 Euros. Why Euros? Look at the picture on the right on how much is a pound of lentils in France this week: 1.73 Euros.

Now you be kind and explain to me at which level this could possibly make sense. There is certainly a speculative factor from the merchant in Venezuela, no doubt. But it is not enough.

At any rate, with the new minimum wage 65,056 VEB, food bonus included, you can buy 8 kilos of lentils. That's all you will be eating that month, lentils, 86 grams per meal (and let's forget about cooking gas, water, etc... to prepare them).

I am sorry, but unfortunately such things cannot be made up........

Me and Hillary

Around US election time I allow myself a post where I express my opinion. I am of those who think that foreigners should have a say in the US election since we will all pay the consequences of that vote. But of course, there goes another utopia. Also, I get a lot of flack from such posts, mostly from right wingers that understand any critical view of Republican candidates as pure and simple communism making Chavez too good for me, and... (more follows from puffed red faces that I can easily imagine from the comments).

Not for me at this point in life to be deterred by such comments, the more so that blogging has become an occasional hobby for me. So there I go.


FIRST! Caveat! I was a Hillary fan in 2008 so do not expect me to have changed over these last 8 years. Search my blog or blog comments if you wish, it is all there, somewhere.

Yes, I know where Hillary does come from and I NEVER liked Bill. But she is not Bill and already in 2008 I thought she was one of the best prepared and more thoughtful candidate for the US presidency. Preparation matters unless you are like Reagan and are willing and able to surround yourself with people that know more than you do without taking umbrage.  Since politicians willing and able to run for the presidency are prime donne then I shall privilege preparation over character. They are all flawed anyway, and Reagans are rare, the US having had only two of those in the XX century. I suppose perhaps that coming from Venezuela the little pecadillos of Hillary do not mean much for me, or that my French half has learned long ago that dubious private life does not mean bad governance.

It may come as a surprise to you that at first I was looking with interest at Trump as a candidate. After all, he was a businessman, of dubious qualities perhaps but more businessman than any president in recent memory besides Bush senior. In a country with such a division or power and entrenched instituions Trump did not scare me. Then again, I was coming from the Venezuelan experience.

It was thus with a great surprise that I heard the vehement condemnation of my US friends who I visited days before the Iowa caucus. To the point that I did not even dare to express my surprise and preferred to remain silent, playing the ignorance card.  But they have been proven right and as far as I am concerned Trump would be an unmitigated disaster for the US presidency. People would miss Nixon and Carter after a Trump presidency.

I can say that because I have been following this primary cycle closer than the usual. Enough to be scared about what is going on in the US.

Bernie Sanders is a geriatric socialist that has appealed to a new me generation who think that everything is their due. Plus the assorted white guilty left of the Democratic Party. Fortunately the real left, the one that needs to mark time clocks at work and knows how hard things are did not follow Sanders and stayed with Clinton. Yes, Latinos and African American are the real social left in the US, not the Joe Kennedy type that happily deals with Venezuela or the intellectual fraud like Sanders who refuses to condemn the Cuban regime.

And then there is Trump.

I do not want to take the easy way and put Trump in the same bag as Chavez. Trump is more dangerous than Chavez but he would be less detrimental to the US than what Chavez was. What Trump and Chavez have in common is a deep narcissistic disorder. But each one is affected by it in a different manner.  Trump just wants to be president and have is face and hair carved into some mountain. Chavez wanted to change the world for his glory. I have no doubt that if by mistake Trump were to be elected, within 6 months enough in the GOP would unite with the Democrats to impeach him. Yes, I trust that much American Institutions.

The danger in Trump lies elsewhere, and I am not even thinking about the nuclear red button.  Trump is a demagogue who gets power form dividing society. He preys on the insecurity of people and he is dangerously gathering around him all the social resentment that exists in the US. If he were less tone deaf about latinos and blacks he would be already unstoppable the way Chavez was.  That is what they truly have in common, the capacity to unify behind their banner all the alienated sectors of society, all of those who want revenge rather than reform. Once this is achieved the damage is done, the society is fractured and healing takes decades. I know what I am talking about, I am living the consequences of it in Venezuela where the embers of chavismo are everyday more outspoken about the need to silence people like me.

What Trump is doing is try to unite behind himself the red necks, white trash, bible thumpers, creationists, chronic jobless, the envious and the frustrated, those that cannot associate their failure with their very own character flaws. For this last group Trump is particularly effective because he forgives their sins since all their troubles come from Muslims, Latinos, immigrants, etc, but never for their own errors. True, some of their problems are chronic to the US society, but not all. We need to be thankful that the US is a multiracial society and that no politician can truly unite behind himself all these groups of deep social resentment. Chavez was able to do it because Venezuela was a deeply mixed country that Chavez tried to turn into one of whites versus non white. He succeeded, until hunger came.

The Republican party had it coming. This is not anymore the party of Lincoln. Not remotely. The Jesse Helms and Southern Republicans have preached the me or you gospel and now the chicken Trump has come home to roost.  We are seeing under our own eyes how the Republican party is unraveling, how ethics are trampled everyday for the sake of expediency and a tidbit of supposed power. How easy it is to speak Benghazi instead of Wall Building!

But this post is long enough already. My only sorrow is that the US of A has been able to produce such a mediocre crop of presidential candidates. And do not let me start on people that I consider worse than Trump, like Cruz. I do like Clinton but this time I would vote for her because there is no other option. She is not free to set an agenda like she was in 2008: now she has to secure Obama inheritance whether she likes it being irrelevant. And Trump and Sanders certainly have saddled her with chains that will be heavy on her administration. At least I am certain that she is is going to be better for Venezuela and Latin America than Trump. By far since Trump at best only knows where the Miss comes from.

I did hear the Libertarian ticket formed by two ex republican governors, which indicates to me that Libertarians are trying to go mainstream now. Whatever. I liked them enough if truth be told. If I were voting I would vote for them once I am sure that Trump will not be elected. But as long as there is a chance for Trump to make it, I will be rooting for Hillary Clinton.

Meanwhile I do hope that there are enough Republicans that will do the decent thing and at least cross their straight down ballots with Hillary or the Libertarians. Guys, you screwed up with your hysterical opposition to Obama, You even helped into creating a situation where Hillary had to go more to the left than what she would naturally be. Now it is time to pay the Piper and save what can be saved of your party, enduring for penance at least 4 more years of Obama and a Supreme Court locked in Liberal mode for at least a decade and a half. But heck guys, you have only yourself to blame for that. Try at least to retain the House and then learn to negotiate for everybody's sake. You can negotiate with Hillary more than you could ever negotiate with Trump, trust me on that one. I am coming out of 17 years of Chavez, I know a Chavez when I see one, even with a red wig. Narcissistic personalities never negotiate, they just gain time so they can screw you later, and better.

No recall election in 2016: one hidden motive

As a supplement of yesterday's post where I explained why there would not be a Recall Election , or any election for that matter, we got some declarations today that definitely rule out a recall election in 2016. That is, these declarations technically do not rule out such a referendum but they describe very well that chavismo simply will not accept a recall election before January 10, 2017. After, we'll see but do not get your hopes high and at any rate it would be useless, ta-ta...

Now let's look at what is "new" today. Nothing really, just more clarity, so to speak.


First, we had one of the electoral board CNE rectors coming out to defend the speech of Lucena yesterday. Sandra Oblitas repeated all the same crap that they cannot be pressured, that they respected all the rules (it is a matter of public knowledge that this is a lie), etc...  But what is important here is that she took a potshot at Rondon dissent yesterday. That hinted at a surprise for the regime  4 CNE agents. The dissent was hard enough, surprising enough for them that they sent Oblitas for some desperate damage control. When I mean desperate I do not mean this as a mark of them feeling threatened, but that their lies were so easily exposed that they had to attack Rondon lacking any other argument.

At any rate, the threat that Oblitas also mentioned that the MUD would be outlawed is the favorite theme of Jorge Rodriguez, mayor of Caracas West and former real boss of the CNE at the time of the first fraud systems circa 2003. I am not going to comment on what is now the calculated hysteria Rodriguez exhibits as his assigned role (could it be otherwise, that he was assigned such a role?). The point of commenting him is that he said that the earliest date for any referendum is late February 2017. This is interesting. First, by late February the opposition will have lost any interest in the referendum and something else will be at the forefront. Second, his subconscious admits that there will be an election next year and the only one I can think of is the governor election (which are due in December 2016 and are quietly forgotten by the regime). That is, the regime knows that sooner than later it will have to face a poll of some sort that it will not win.

What Rodriguez truly hints at is that the failure to hold the recall election this year will be seen by the country as a political defeat and thus they will gravitate back toward chavismo as the only force available. That is exactly what Maduro hinted at last night in one of his vile cadenas (in English here). This poor and vulgar soul had the temerity to gloat over the failure of the opposition to collect the signatures for the recall vote on time. Apparently he is blissfully unaware that no sitting president in Venezuelan recent history has polled as low as he does. Were he aware he would have the good sense not to gloat while his regime is so blatantly cheating.

Certainly the coordination between all these post Lucena declarations is no accident. However the rather hysterical combination of outburst indicates to me something else. The regime is not even intent on postponing an eventual recall election, what the regime truly is seeking is to stop the collection of signatures. By discouraging such activity the regime does not hope to void the recall election (for this it has the high court annulation of the opposition party in the works) but it hopes that were the signature collection to become a must the 20% would not be passed too badly.  The problem for the regime is that the way things are developing there will not be 20% signing to recall Maduro: there will be more people signing for his recall than actually voted for him. And this political disaster is simply too much for chavismo.

At least if the recall is held after January 2017 there is the hope that discouragement of the populace will yield no more than, say, 30% signatures of the electoral body. Enough to oust Maduro in a vote but not enough for regime change.

The opposition truly has its work cut out.

Recall Election all but over

Today the head of the electoral board, CNE, Tibisay Lucena announced that "if all goes well" the gathering of the 20% signature from the registered electors could take place late October. TRANSLATION: even if the 20% is gathered late October there will not be enough time to fend off legal challenges so that the Recall Election is held before January 10 2017. If the recall election is held after that date and even if 90% vote to oust Maduro, his serving vice-president will replace in office to complete the two years in the presidential term.

In other words the regime has announced that there is no way they will risk a presidential election before December 2018. And if you still do not get it, the current cabinet of musical chairs will remain presiding over the country until January 2019 at the earliest.

I will add two crusty details. Some inside the CNE have announced publicly that the MUD will be invalidated soon as a political party (which it never was) and as such their petition for a recall election is not valid. That is, the regime, just in case, has still a treacherous tool to annul the late October signature collection.  The second detail is that the lone opposition sitting at the CNE board, Rondon, broke protocol and has refused to attend Tibisay Lucena announcement and instead emitted his strong declaration of dissent separately where among other things he states that there is no reason to wait for more than 38 days to gather the signatures. In short: Rondon was forced to emit a political declaration to counter what was a political declaration from Lucena, because pushing the collection to late October is indeed a political maneuver to annul the recall election.

Now, the kind regular reader may recall that on July 20 I wrote that there would not be a recall election, nor any election as long as the regime did not take the political decision to begin a transition. When, and if, such a decision is taken then there will be an election whose nature will depend on which election is less damaging for the political survival of the regime. It could be for example a presidential election following the simultaneous resignation of Maduro and his vice president. It could be a constituent assembly. It could be a trivial referendum on something justifying a change. It could be a plebiscite establishing a military regime Thailand like. It could be a declaration that a revolution does not require any more competitive elections, a la Castro-Cuba style. It could even be, why not, a Recall Election. Today's declaration of Lucena should be interpreted as such, as a delay until a final decision is taken. For all that we know next week she can decide that, considering new arguments, signatures will be collected mid September. Or never.

Let's keep in mind that the order not to have elections comes from Cuba who cannot risk to lose the Venezuelan stipend of oil that Cuba resells on the spot market. As such even the governor elections scheduled for December will not be held: such elections should have already been formally announced to prepare for them. The CNE, as far as we know, is not working on these mandatory December elections where all polls predict that the regime could lose as much as 100% of the states it holds currently. No regime can survive such an electoral loss, even a Cuban sponsored regime. As such the order also includes to postpone the governor elections.

So, the question tonight is what the opposition MUD will do? I am afraid that civil unrest is the next step. I do not see any other way out. And I am afraid that this is EXACTLY what the regime wants. It all depends on which kind of civil unrest is planned and how it is executed.

The very last "peaceful" weapon left for the National Assembly is a budget discussion which would force the regime into dissolving the National Assembly. But then you would need to elect a new assembly which result for the regime could be even worse than last December.

So civil unrest, here we go!

Narko-Radikalismus

When everything fails, repeat it all. In particular the parts that clearly are rotten at the root.

This is what Maduro has done last week.

The paradox in covering Venezuela lately is that change is so continuous that it is enough to write about tendency. The rest are details quickly swept under the rug, no need to write about it unless you have time on your hands or are paid for that (lucky you!).

Roughly the story.

*Maduro cannot provide food.
*He names his minister of defense, Padrino, as food tsar, making him a de facto co president.
*Then, as an after thought he decides that it may have been a mistake to give such leeway to the military so he changes three of the non military cabinet position to set in three of the most radical elements he can find.
*Add to this that in the background the few ministers that have suggested change have been immediately shut down by radicals pols not inside of the current cabinet.

Explanations?

*In the previous entry I explained why the regime cannot get out of the currency control policy as its whole graft power based structure will fall in weeks. As such it does not matter who Maduro names as his co president, that befuddled person will not be able to bring diner to the Venezuelan table as the cupboards are empty and stores stopped deliveries until they get paid.

*Surely Padrino must have known that and he took the job for some other reason. Whatever the reasons are for him to become co-president (real president?) he needs to act fast because within two weeks of his nomination nothing has improved. Which were the reasons? One is that the regime being a military sponsored dictatorship it is just natural that the military start assuming a more public role. A novel XXI century military dictatorship if you like.  A velvet coup some have said.

*Alternatively it is possible that he military have decided to get get rid of Maduro and the ascension of Padrino is the first sign of a bona fide transition (towards democracy? open dictatorship? but maduroless for sure). Thus the reaction of Maduro to surround himself of radicals he is used to as a counterweight to Padrino. The real question would thus be how come Padrino did allow those changes.

It is important to note that one of the ministers fired was the lone "pragmatic" one who suggested that currency control had served its course. He was replaced by a communist and that is that (Carlos Faria). It is even more important to note that Ricardo Molina was brought back from the National Assembly to occupy one of the posts where money and graft opportunities abound. He was the radical firing any ministry worker that was not red enough to his taste. But do not think that he is a pure radical: nepotism is also his trade mark as it is apparently the case from Nicaragua to Maduro's wife Cilia Flores. Mouth on the left, privileges on the right, they all are.

And in case you do not get the point that Maduro has no better idea but to veer left/radical for his own protection by hiring ideologues that will be willing to take the fall for him, he also hired as interior minister Nestor Reverol, former Nazional Guard head. The problem here is that Reverol has just been indicted in the US for drug trafficking.  Clearly, Maduro knows that Reverol loyalty is assured since there is nowhere else for him to go.

Why this whole charade of pursuing policies that have failed, making them harsher if possible and have drug traffickers hired for protection?

Besides the obvious, that Miraflores Palace is a nest of scoundrels, assorted thugs and mafiosi, and thus they relate to what they already know, we need to look elsewhere.

This is a strategy to gain time, to intimidate and have people beyond the pale do whatever it takes to ensure Maduro's survival, even if it is for a previous few additional months.

The final question becomes thus who can possibly be so desperate to accept the utter ruin of Venezuela?

Blaming this on people like Diosdado Cabello is not enough, After all someone must have pointed out to him that sanguinary tyrants that die in their beds like Stalin are less frequent than those who meet less settled endings. People like Diosdado are hysterically radical as a way to force unacceptable conditions in an eventual negotiation.

So, who really pushes Maduro to such radicalization, harbinger of disaster without any historical exception? Only someone who will not be directly affected by the eventual collapse of the regime; or at least that will be far enough from ground zero when the day comes.  There is only one candidate that fits the bill and that is Cuba and the Castros. By forcing their creature Maduro to ravage the country to its last penny to support Cuba they know the regime dooms itself and any political future it may have thereafter. But they do not care, they need that extra little bit of money to bridge the gap until they finish negotiating with the US, Europe and even China.

Only a regime as vile as the Cuban one can prod Maduro into doing what he is doing these days. Then again the Castros have a long experience in starving people to death.

Corruption creativity

Two short posts this week end, for your reading pleasure. The first one on corruption latest updates.

The current crisis cannot be solved because the change in economic policies would result in the recognition that the robolución was a gigantic fraud. And I am not even discussing those who would go to jail. The point is that these people are not going to jeopardize their power or income. And yet these measures are possible without immediately questioning their power.

The first measures, not enough to solve the crisis but a must, are simple: stop sending Cuba its colonial stipend; remove price control and replace it with cash stipend to the populations at risk; rein in somewhat corruption so that at least a larger percentage of the state income goes to food and medicine purchase. Not that difficult, no?  Not only these measures are not even broached but corruption is worse than ever as there is less to steal. 

For example we have been offered a deal on DICOM dollars. Our contact would approve a certain sum every week so we can start paying our debts slowly, or at least purchase spare parts and the like. In exchange we need to give them 25% of what we get. That is, once we got the USD transferred to our account outside the country we are supposed to transfer 25% to a given account of a front man. Needless to say that this can only be done through the very opaque state banking system.

You would say "Daniel, that's not too bad and there is no other way to get foreign currency. Go for it!". But there is of course a catch. Once we sum up our expenses and the 25% "commission" the few USD we would get are not even 20% below the black market rate!  That is, I have in hand the proof that DICOM is just a tool for the regime to skim the private business still dysfunctionally working (and willing to pay the "mark up"). If in the middle of a national starvation and disease crisis the regime is unable to let go, even if temporarily, arbitration, then there is nothing to expect.

Note: clearly if the market is accepting a value so close to the black market value, then there is no need pretend that the bolivar value is not 1000 to the dollar.

Another corruption business model updating.

We have had recently "brokers" from Miami and Panama trying to short us on the foreign business we represent. They want them to sell and ship directly to them in Panama or Florida with the excuse that they have a client with access to foreign currency guaranteed. Since they are the ones that "found the client in Venezuela with dollars in hand" they want a commission from our provider. In exchange our providers would be paid directly in cash. No need for paperwork. Then the someone in Venezuela that has the approved USD would buy the lot from the "broker" at a mystery gross overprice (we have been offered our share if we wanted to go that way or at least shut up). It is all squared up by the "broker" and there is no need to go through decent but currency impaired intermediaries like us that, God forbid, would charge the market price. I let you ponder the multiple consequences of such schemes. 

I will just let you know that we have a pretty good idea of who that broker client is and they are, of course, tightly associated with the regime. Also, this makes sense for the "client" since the client will 1) get its share of the overprice paid to the broker, and 2) assuming that the client imports all of it, it will be more than its needs and he could resell enough of it at the black market rate to pay what corresponds to its own needs (we have advised our partners to stay clear of such "brokers").

So there you go, as long as currency control persists in the hands of these people there is nothing that can be done to improve the lot of my fellow countrymen. Regime change is the lone solution. 

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).

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




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.

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

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.