A Gauleiter first day on the job: Farias takes over Caracas

Thus Jacqueline Farias was sworn in (1). From her first declarations we have an intense feeling as for her commitment to democracy, free speech, listening and amenable public servant. Just as this old fabulously reassuring picture of her as a failed environment minister shows us, red earrings included. A sample choice for you of yesterday's words.

From El Universal:

Replying to a journalist that she got her job from Chavez magic finger pointing at her:"los dedos de Chávez son los dedos del pueblo, sus dedos quieren lo mejor para Caracas". The fingers of Chavez are the fingers of the people, his fingers want what is best of Caracas. This one is for the annals of sycophancy! Of course the handful of supporters outside started chanting "Aquí el que manda es Chávez y la revolución", here the one that decides is Chavez and the revolution. Nothing else needs to be said.

To another question she said that it was normal that her job came from Chavez because Caracas is the capital of the country and thus poor Chavez would feel "incómodo" uncomfortable being surrounded by opposition local officials. Never mind that those were elected by the people.....

Jorge Rodriguez, Caracas downtown district mayor, wanting to make sure that he would not be too far behind in the sycophancy contest with Farias who just scored really big, said that now Caracas had a mayor and a governor like every state in the country, though he did not explain why it was normal that Caracas Governor was not elected, but adding that he "felicitaba al pueblo por la designación de Chávez" congratulated the people by the Chavez appointment. In sycophancy Rodriguez plays hard ball indeed!

From El Nacional:

Jacqueline describing her job: "tendrá que velar y supervisar todos los servicios para que los capitalinos tengan una mejor calidad de vida, la nueva vida socialista" will have to care and supervise all services so that the capital inhabitants have a better quality of life, the new socialist life. Besides wondering what Rodriguez job will be (rhetorical question, we all know that his job will be now only politics while Jacqueline will be cleaning up after him, very XXI century macho socialism if you ask me) we cannot fail to be impressed by the fact that Jacquy has decided for us, be we living in the 23 de Enero or La Florida that we will all have the socialist life that SHE will decide.

Globovision helpfully reminds us that she has been a relative failure at whatever Chavez has put her. But of course the only requirement for any job with Chavez is to be a faithful, and to allow shady deals to proceed apace. So we can be certain right now that the objective of Chavez is not to improve services for Caracas.

And I could keep with more fascinating tidbits but I prefer to close this post with a much more optimist note, an interview of Ledezma for pro PSOE (socialists in office) Spanish paper El Pais. See, in Spain Socialists are all for local governments and decentralization, going as far as trying to make coalition government of sorts in the Basque country with the PP that almost bitterly opposes them in Madrid. But see, the PP and the PSOE are democratic parites and both of them know very well that there is no democracy inside chavismo. Which explains why El Pais titles its interview of Ledezma "Chávez ya actúa como un dictador" Chavez acts like a dictator.

Indeed, the chief and his Gauleiter. You cannot make up things like that! Though I am going to say something for Chavez: in Nazi Germany I do not think there was any female Gauleiter. Does anyone know?

1) in a very amusing detail the press does not seem to be able to make up its mind whether it is Farias or Faria sans S. And this even through chavista media. I suppose that for these last ones the only words that need to be spelled correctly are Hugo and Chávez.

-The end-