Chavez seeks open conflict

When it rains it pours.  As if the arrest of Alvarez Paz was not enough for a single week, Chavez added today the arrest of Globovision chair Guillermo Zuluoga AND in the latest development, the arrest of Representative Wilmer Azuaje because of some obscure incident in which he would have banged the table of a female bureaucrat at the division of motor vehicle.  As if you never wanted to do that yourself.....

That this is all planned is out of doubt as the Nazional Assembly has agreed ALREADY to hold a session to lift Azuaje's immunity. Apparently violating a few of the procedures to do such a momentous action.

On the hot grid spot analysis is required:

• chavismo has decided to attack and silence an opposition that cannot be allowed to be critical as it is considering that the country is crumbling and that the government incompetence is making it easy for folks to criticize
• the situation is made further more dramatic considering that polls reveal that Chavez Teflon seems to be scratching significantly
• with such attacks who include the "enfant terrible" of chavismo who defected to start exposing the sudden wealth of the Chavez family it is clear that chavismo is feeling weak, in danger, in real threat to see its power crumble, as chavismo knows very well that without Chavez they are nothing

But why now and not, say, in June, a couple of months before the elections? Because:

• Chavez and his folks cannot wait any longer
• probably the visit of Cuba's Ramiro Valdes was about steeling their nerves and give them their marching orders which included muzzling political and media criticism, and Internet among many
• the international situation is also degrading fast for Chavez where the recent faux pas of Lula over Iran and Cuba are distracting/depriving him of the only ally he had left of any weight
• any suspension or postponement of elections is best made now than a very weeks before the actual election

What next?  Chavez and his sycophants are seeking confrontation, internal and probably external if necessary.  The objective here is to taunt the opposition into making some false move.  

If these arrests were not enough we learn for example that the Nazional Assembly has also asked today to investigate the primaries of the opposition because they are charging the primary participants for running into the election.  Admittedly, this is not very kosher but then again what other financing means are available?  Besides, is it not enough to point this to the gain favor against the opposition?  Amen of the supreme hypocrisy of pretending to ignore that the state finance all but any of the PSUV electoral activities.  This proposed investigation is a mere additional provocation because in the end it would focus more public opinion on the differences between opposition and PSUV internal processes, to the detriment of the PSUV where we all know that Chavez will decide most of the candidates anyway.