The dictatorship post Mardo view in Caracas

So, what are we to do with the new aggression against parliamentary democracy yesterday in Caracas?

Nothing much, unfortunately.

I am in the obligation, to start this post, of reminding the reader that as far as this blogger is concerned we are in a de facto dictatorship since the Fall of 2010 (read the posts of December 2010). Then the regime used the votes of an outgoing assembly, elected with 80+% abstention to castrate the ALREADY elected new assembly. That this came to pass and that for all practical purposes nothing came of it, that the opposition in the end meekly took their seat, is one of the reasons of all that came later. And what came later is not pretty: fraud around Chavez disease, refusal to follow the constitutional path to renew the bodies of state, electoral fraud for the reelection of Chavez in 2012, judicial coup at the death of Chavez to ensure that Maduro reached power, naked electoral fraud in April 2013 to seat Maduro, plus an assortment of other disgraceful moments such as the beating up of representatives in the national assembly, the further silencing of free media, waves of expropriation followed by waves of corruption, etc, etc..... Again, just the collection of December 2010 is enough to document the whole disaster.

And some people still try to pretend that we are in a "special" type of authoritarian democracy, missing completely how the nature of power has shifted in the XXI century and how the parameters of democracy defining have also shifted. But let's not digress...

The opposition then decided to put all of its eggs in the 2012 election basket, betting that either Chavez will die before the election or that they could actually beat him, even though it was patently clear that the 2012 election was going to be even less democratic than the 2006 vote, if possible. We all know how that went. Certainly, the treachery of the regime was not able to hid the progress of the opposition and this pushed the regime to steal outright the election in April 2013, tolerated by Latin America for reasons that they will regret someday.

A regime that has forfeited the pseudo democratic way that Chavez maintained until his referendum defeat of 2007 and that has crossed the red line of presidential election steal, is not going to stop anymore. That means, among its other obligations to keep power, that the National Assembly has to be neutered completely, recovering by all means a solid 66% majority by expelling the opposition representatives that are not willing to bend over, take bribes, switch sides or at least shut up. The regime has too much to lose, too many of its stars will find their way to jail the day the regime falls.

That serious pollsters are unanimous in saying that the opposition is ahead in polls today, not by much but by a significant number, not only gives further credence to the fraud accusation of last April, but sends the regime into panic. Hence the current increase in repression where the Mardo thing yesterday is just one of its manifestation, though of the gravest nature since it means the regime is about to expel from the National Assembly as many representatives as it wishes to do.

It is not the time to bemoan the errors that the opposition made, of which I could put dozens of links from this blog. What is done is done and the opposition politicians are paying the price themselves finally, not only us on foot. The question is what to do.

I think that waiting for the municipal elections of December is futile: the regime will simply not recognize those results, already promoting the "comunas" which went dormant last December when the shocked country allowed an undeserved Governor election victory for the regime.  With the reactivation of the comunas law it will not matter if the opposition has a landslide victory ion December 8: within months the "comunas" will have chopped off the opposition districts.

No, the time has come to a more confrontational approach, preferably one that makes UNASUR and the OAS assume their responsibilities.  Next Saturday finally the opposition has called for its first large scale protest since April 14. We shall see.