A crumbling country and Darth Chavez

Friday was a sweet day for the history lover that I am. At the same time horrified by what is going on, I could not help but enjoy the moment, all so predictable for anyone who knows history, and Venezuela.

la voix de son maître

On the political front we had the new National Assembly formally installed. There is no point discussing in depth who is going to preside it(1). Suffice to say that the new president, Nicolas Maduro was awarded the prize “fascist of the year” by Venezuela News and Views (2); the vice president is renown hypocrite Desiree Santos Amaral, journalist by trade who under the guise of “home and homely” journalist-deputy was one of the main architects of the “gag law” that would silence her more talented colleagues (3); the second vice-president will go to an old communist, Roberto Hernandez, who used to defend leftists in trouble, such as Teodoro Petkoff in his old days. Now he can sponsor new laws to silence Teodoro if he wishes to.

Embarrassing at it was to install an assembly that represent only 15% of Venezuela, Maduro was not afraid to dig further the hole of illegitimacy by claiming in his speech that if the assembly was not ‘pluri-political’ it was ‘pluri-social’, a lamest excuse for suppressing democracy, used under one guise or another to justify the domination by a group of people pretending to speak on the name of one social class. I suppose soon that we will be able to skip elections altogether as Chavez will be able to name a “democratic assembly” just by making sure that each trade is represented. It was called corporatism under fascism. Yet another example of chavismo drift to fascism (4).

All was in cadena, of course. But that was not all, to add further embarrassment to a rather pathetic moment Chavez was in attendance and gave a speech, probably even longer than the new Assembly president sycophantic speech. One must love the symbolism and appreciate the gall of Chavez: on a day where he had so much to do, when the country is crumbling all around, he had time to go to a function of a supposedly independent power to make an anti-everything speech and demonstrate that the National Assembly was indeed his, and his only. Don’t they use Public Relations people at Miraflores?

Indeed, the Chavez intervention Friday was one of his crassest in a long series of crass and cynical interventions since he has become president. And it followed quite a few setbacks highlighting the negative aspects of his regime. Let’s look at some of them.

A bridge too far

Wednesday the main bridge of the Caracas La Guaira highway finally expired. No point detailing the sad story so well told elsewhere. Let’s just underline that La Guaira carries 20% of the maritime traffic of Venezuela, and basically the most critical imports of the country (food and medicine for Caracas 6 million metro area). Let’s stress that Maiquetia airport manages about 80% of the international passengers load, and is the main national terminus. Let’s stress that Chavez will have been in office for 7 years in a few days, that he was elected to finally solve problems such as the fallen bridge, but that he preferred to run and waste money on political social programs designed mostly to maintain his incompetent clique in office. The collapsed bridge consequences, if not fixed in a very few weeks, are by themselves able to trigger at least a minor recession and add a few inflation points to the national index. Chavismo knew all of this of course, but refused to act until it was too late.

It would be easy to focus and advantageously criticize Chavez from this incident, but unfortunately there are so many other on crumbling infrastructure in Venezuela that one is hard pressed to decide where to start. For example in my very own Yaracuy El Nacional reports that a key bridge to the Yumare area was whacked again. It was a provisional bridge while the 50 year old bridge was replaced. A 50 year old bridge that should have been replaced long ago, but well, you know, chavismo did not like the old Yaracuy governor. And so one could list all sort of roads, bridges, hospitals collapsing while we do not even have the pleasure to see new, supposedly vote getting, structures inaugurated. We have been waiting for 7 years for the second Orinoco bridge, the new Caracas subway line, the Maracaibo and Valencia subway, the railroad to Valencia and what more! All planned under previous administrations. But of course suddenly many of these are scheduled to be inaugurated during the 2006 reelection campaign. Imagine that! They might even hope that the stupidity of many chavista supporters will help chavismo pretend that they were the ones planning all of these major projects.

Somebody should tell them that a new subway line in Caracas will be rather useless if the La Guaira bridge and the Cabrera bridge in the Valencia direction are collapsed and no one can reach Caracas…

An intellectual insult too far

But while the country collapses, while we still hear excuses such as a changed climate or a 48 hours coup d’etat to justify the sheer incompetence of the regime, this does not stop Chavez to give money away. Here, some recent “gifts”. 300 millions for a road to Jamaica. 30 millions to Evo Morales a couple of days ago for no real reason. A new refinery for Brazil when we could refine all that oil here and ship finished products that Brazilians would buy anyway. Subsidized heating oil to Boston while the Anauco stream in Caracas claims again a few lives two nights ago. Etc, etc… (Read the fabulous memo of Gustavo Coronel to Mari Pili Hernandez, the light weight chavista apologist already duly exposed in this blog, here and here)

Imagine for a second if all that money was actually spent in Venezuela. Less unemployment, more functional roads. Better production and commerce. More prosperity for all of us. And more money for all Venezuelan citizens to import more goods manufactured by all the people who we supposedly help with money grants.

And some people wonder how come only 15% of the Venezuelan people went to vote last month in spite of all the pleas of chavismo, and coercion too.

The truth is that Chavez credit in Venezuela is finally ebbing some. People are starting to get bothered by so much incompetence, by Chavez considering our country as his own personal possession. More and more people are starting to feel intellectually insulted by so much official bullshit.

I wonder if Harry Belafonte and his suite visiting today Venezuela, and scandalously getting cheap oil for Maine natives (or was that Chicago public transport?), are aware that they might have some problem to get back to their airplane for their return flight. And while we are at it, what did they bring to the Venezuelan real poor, the natives that are begging in Caracas street corners and that I am quite sure mi radio colleague Bernardo Alvarez made sure they would not drive in front of? I should make a mental note of this if we cross pass on the radio again. The hypocrisy of Belafonte and Dolores Huerta should not go unchallenged, no matter how their anti Bush ideas might be justified. Shame on you Harry! Not to mention that you might be interested by the Simon Wiesenthal Center asking Chavez to apologize for anti semitic remarks. Shame, shame on you Harry!

No coffee, nor sugar, nor dry milk

Meanwhile, true to his controlling proto totalitarian instincts, Chavez has decided to block the price of coffee. That is, he decides how much a cup of coffee in Venezuela should cost. And if coffee producers do not like it, well, he will just nationalize coffee grills and toasting facilities. Meanwhile he seizes the stocks, pretending that there was hoarding (5). Hoarding or not, soon Venezuela, a major producing coffee country, one of the best coffee in the world, will start chronically lacking coffee. Who will invest in coffee if fair price and property rights are so easily mocked? I went grocery shopping Friday morning and the shelves were empty of coffee, not even the unregulated instant coffee that people probably snatched out knowing full well where all of this is leading us. While I was doing some errands this morning I noticed one of those “selling” points set up by Mercal to sell the impounded coffee. Apparently people are forced to buy other items from Mercal if they want to be allowed to get a single pack of coffee. Talk about freedom of choice! And there is also problems with sugar and dry milk. No more café au lait.

In Globovision

There is always a sure gauge to measure the nervousness of the chavista administration: its reaction to Globovision. Friday at Alo Ciudadano we saw Caracas Mayor Bernal and Vargas Governor Rodriguez San Juan visit the plateau. They even braved the callers as Globovision, unlike Alo Presidente, does not filter who calls. They were ill at ease and their usually pre-written speech from which chavistas officials never sway on the rare occasions they show up on Globovision did not work quite well. To see 2, TWO, chavista officials compelled to hit Globovision stage on the same evening is a sure sign that Globovision is the news channel that the people watch. Popular sectors, it seems, are not watching VTV when they want real news and “elected” officials know where they must go to talk to their stray sheep.

Star Wars as a metaphor

And how best to conclude that talking about an activity during my vacation? I was to watch with a house guest the 6 DVD of the Star Wars saga. Instead of comparing the hairdos of Padme and Leia, we were making comments as to some of the uncanny reminders to the Venezuelan situation that the political plot of Star Wars carries! In particular when Anakyn Skywalker was explaining to Padme that he wanted a stronger executive to solve the separatist problems in the galaxy as he was about to leave to massacre them, ex associates of Palpavez incidentally.

Well, this afternoon as I read El Universal I was struck by the words of Chavez himself yesterday:

¡Tenemos que dejar de ser la democracia boba, bobalicona y débil!
We must stop from being a silly, pusillanimous and week democracy.

Darth Vader could not have said it better. Except that his Republic/Empire did not have collapsing bridges it seems…


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1) details here in English.

2) Maduro during his speech alluded to some in the media accusing him of being a fascist. IT is amazing that a president of a legislative body would even address such an issue. That he did so is a testimony of his mediocrity, and that it hurt when he heard it (or read it in this blog? :) )

3) Santos Amaral reelection was rather contested, even in the frame of running without opposition. She almost got a real opposition from within chavismo when her constituents protested that she had not been seen in 4 years, reappearing only because Chavez decided that she should run again. The Tupamaros who had a perfectly good candidate to represent the popular 23 de Enero district protested loudly and she had to be escorted for her inauspicious campaign start. Eventually the Tupamaros relented, but the episode was quite telling of what Santos Amaral had been up to in her first tenure: apparatchik work undignified for an ex social journalist. She ahs been rewarded for her consistent boot licking.

4) RNV had a tad of pudor left when it only spoke of an "absolute majority" rather than use the term "we got ALL of them". A sure sign that the monochramatic chamber is already becoming a rather embarrassing proposition. I wonder what sense will have the "foro social mundial", the all expense Chavez paid meeting of diverse lefties hangeron to be held in a few weeks, without airport, without chavismo managing to put a single opposition seat, and only 15% of folks voting for the ticket. Perhaps that "foro" is called as Chavez now thinks more highly of foreign folks than Venezuelans who seem more and more reluctant to love him unconditionally.

5) Coffee is considered an "indispensable food item" and thus subjected to state control. See Miguel for more details on the coffee wars story.