Rayma on Barreto

The cartoonist I usually use for this page is Weil, but that does not mean he is the best cartoonist in Venezuela. The other two are Rayma and Zapata, an institution by himself. But these last two have a "je ne sais quoi" of Venezuelan that does not come across as well to non Venezuelan audiences, in particular Zapata. But today Rayma summarizes all of the Barreto shameful affair in an almost impossible way.

The translation is of course very easy: sewer in Chacao, sewer in Baruta, sewer in Libertador.

Libertador is where the seat of Mayor at Large resides. For any doubt or questions you have, read the previous posts where the word Barreto appears. You will realize that Rayma does a much better job than any article written by anyone in any paper or blog.

Addenda: it seems that Barreto proposal to take over Caracas Golf Courses just because he felt like it is not meeting approval from the government. See, most embassies in Caracas are located close to, or even directly on, the golf courses, such as the spectacular house of the French Ambassador. These "homes" will cost a fortune for the government to take back once their security is threatened by whatever nincompoopy project Barreto might have. A bill to be added to the already expensive expropriations. Not to mention that La Lagunita links have not been taken over, and imagine this coincidence, many of the "nouveau riches" of the regime are building little palaces over there. Social pages have reported on the attendance of Barreto to some of these parties at La Lagunita.

Still, I am under no illusion that Barreto might have acted on his own alone. If anything this scandal is too helpful for the governrment: it hides all sorts of hot issues such as housing deficit DUE to governmental inefficiency and corruption, the escape of Ortega and three military with army complicity, the regular popular protests that dot the current landscape, the missing of sugar and other basic staples from the shelves of even Mercal, the more than successful Rosales start, just to name the recent ones.

After all, the MVR just needs to toss out Barreto (and send him to some distant embassy as payment) to come out clear and clean and moderate while people still keep discussing the golf courses defense. At least the opposition has not taken the bait: nobody has come out against taking over the golf courses IF, and that is a big IF, a real and meaningful proposal comes along. Apparently Barreto was expecting a heated reaction and he is getting more fire from the MVR than from the people he hoped to provoke. Interesting, no?