Electoral scoundrels

No, this is not a post about the constant pro Chavez partisanship of the electoral board CNE. No, this is not a post about the government abuses on the campaign trail. No, this is not about the impossibility of the opposition to voice its political offer on any nation wide network.

This is a post about the scoundrels that flourish under a neo-totalitarian regime like the one Venezuela called for and now suffers from.

Electoral campaigns can be a way to bring the best in people but in general it tends to bring the worst. I am going to detail two recent stories.

William Ojeda

The first one is for the turncoat supreme, William Ojeda. This lackluster character/journalist came to his 15 minutes of fame when he published about 20 years a go a book titled "How much is a judge", pretending to illustrate how corrupt was the judicial system before Chavez. That the judicial system has become infinitely worse since is not the point here, the point is that actually some of the tenets of his "investigation book" have been questioned since. That should have given pause to a few wishing to associate with him.

Whatever. At first Ojeda was with Chavez. When he did not get what he wanted, namely Caracas East mayor job (Petare) he went opposition to the point of entering fist fights with pro Chavez folks. He was eventually compensated by getting the nod in 2010 to be Petare's representative.  So far so good. Except that for reasons that are not explained directly to this date he went back to chavismo within two years. This betrayal to the electors that voted him in has been a constant source of problems and resentments, the more so when Ojeda not only started voting some of the most unpalatable and anti democratic recent laws, but tried to lure through bribes inside chavismo more opposition figures. (1)

Needless to say that the opposition was not going to renew its name on its list. What is more curious is that the regime delayed until it finally gave him the nod. See, after extensive gerrymandering the regime has been able to take away 2 out of the 5 seats that the opposition has been winning in the greater Caracas. Ojeda previously elected in a two seat constituency is now running in a pared down district that albeit still including juicy portions of popular classes neighborhoods is considered as lost by the regime.  Which certainly explains why the regime eventually relented and allowed Ojeda to run for "reelection".

The observant reader would say: so what? The so what is that that Ojeda is already on campaign even though this is not allowed. His district is now covered with huge posters like the one above I am forced to gaze at several times a week when stuck in traffic. All of them say that "Sucre deserves better" or "Sucre does not deserve this." Sucre is the official name of the district that includes the core of Petare's favellas and the tonier districts of North Eastern Caracas, Macaracuay, the Californias and El Llanito. So what, again?

The problem, for one, is that Ojeda is not running for mayor so blaming current holder Ocariz, who is doing a rather good job considering all the sabotage he has had to endure, is not only unfair but out reality. The second, and worse objection, is that Ojeda has been representing the district for 5 years and yet he has partaken in the effective sabotaging of Ocariz's rule even if that affected directly its constituency. That is, not only he betrayed his electors, but then he went on to screw them.

Voters are not fooled and his nomination has faced significant criticism inside chavismo as can be read from its Aporrea portal directly. In fact, you can find elsewhere in Aporrea more complete criticism of Ojeda than I could hope to write up myself! Even in popular districts of Petare Ojeda is not only disliked but he is booed when he tries to pretend that he works for the community. There is a certain Shakespearean quality to Ojeda's plight except that I doubt an ethically corrupt mentality like his can notice. (2)

Jacqueline Faria

The second case is shorter to deal with. We are talking of Jacqueline Faria who is one of the biggest frauds of chavismo. Her main non-achievement was to clean up the sewer that runs through Caracas so that Chavez could go for a swim together with Evo Morales. Today when we cross any bridge over the open air sewer once known as Guaire river we can see that the millions assigned to her for that purpose have gone anywhere but. The problem with Faria is that she pretends to be for el pueblo when she is in reality a snob, rumored to even go from official position to official position with her personal cook in tow. I do not know how true that thing may be but we all know about her comfortable life as a highly inefficient bureaucrat who would never think of sending her child to a public school or public hospital. Milagros Socorro wrote a few days ago an excellent review of the main lies that Faria blurted out without any hint of shame or even self awareness.

Finally all caught up with her when she said that the long lines were "sabrosas" and that it was what Maduro ordered so we should just pick our shopping bag and go along with it.  I kid you not, video below. To understand well in full what a mockery Faria did of all the chavista crowds standing for hours in line, under sun and rain, you should understand that sabrosa in this context is a concept word not directly translatable in English. Sabrosa means here highly enjoyable, very funny, to be sought for, to be done without any remorse. Needless to say that chavismo is not amused by Faria as can be read in Aporera, also. Oh, I forgot, Faria is also running for representative in an area where standing in line for hours has become a full time occupation for some, amen of being an area where buhoneros and bachaqueros hit particularly hard the locals with very high black market resale prices.





Ojeda and Faria mock equally the long suffering electorate, in different ways for sure, but cruel mockery it is.

So there you are, now you know, how chavismo has filed scoundrels to run for office since, well, no one decent would run on that record...........

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1) Ojeda barely used Twitter account as an opposition representative still exists. He cannot even get around to delete that previous account!  I have saved a screen shot in case.

2) There is also another issue about the plastering of billboards in Caracas by Ojeda: who is paying for that? PSUV is not "directly" involved. It is never mentioned in any poster, nor the color red appears. In fact Ojeda uses blue mostly. The excuse is that a minor opposition party, MIN, has been hijacked through a judicial fiat. MIN color is blue and the new board, judicially appointed, seems clearly bent on sabotaging the MUD opposition unity (from which it was promptly suspended). MIN has named Ojeda as its candidate though no one knows how it is possible that suddenly MIN can pay for one of those billboards, never mind the dozens that sprung.