Medina at El Ciudadano

And to close the cycle of El Ciudadano interviews the old warrior came to the show.  As I was watching Pablo Medina, the sixth Unidad presidential candidate I was thinking about Diego Arria.  In a way they are very similar, and I am not referring to their desire of calling for a constituent assembly.  No, they come from other times and both are reminding us of what was good in the decried "4th Republic".  Maybe Arria had all the options, maybe he made a success of himself, but Pablo Medina, trade Union warrior before Chavez came to wreck it all, is also a product of those days, where for many core ethics and personal responsibility did not depend on how successful you were.

Pablo Medina has made many errors in his political life, something he freely and refreshingly acknowledged tonight.  But yet his message surprised me by a renewed freshness and candor from his part.  Watching him and knowing that there is no chance in a frozen day at hell that he will win next February (he may not be last, though) I still was drawn in his arguments.  After all he is admirable in that he is able to learn from his errors, that even though he belonged to the Constituent Assembly of 1999, he was one of the first ones to break up completely with the chavista system (he admitted never having liked Chavez but following at first in the perceived need for an initial collaboration to change the system, another one of his errors).  The man tonight, from all fights in the Guyana labor struggle, CausaR, PPT and what not has learned that free enterprise is the only way to create real prosperity, that in spite of all of its excesses it is still much better than whatever crap Chavez is trying to do.

And there resides his importance for this campaign because he is the honest harbinger of what is yet to come, that the working class will start finally to understand that state control and all the power to the soviets was never for them but for a reduced crewed taking politikal advantage of it.  It is too bad that Medina did not have the caliber or experience or breaks Lula did because tonight he showed us that in Venezuela it is possible to have now a true social democrat.  Thus Medina  is essential for this campaign where comeflores fight it out with right wingers: Medina is understood by the people and maybe by many of the NiNi that the Unidad needs so much to win next October.  I, for one, wish him to get at least 5% of the votes so that whomever wins sits down with him and talks serious business.

This being said there was really nothing original in his offering tonight, besides the fact that he was the one offering the stuff.  But, if you ask me, he made a better case for the constitutional assembly than Arria did.  After all Medina says that as an ex consituyente he did agree with 95% of the current text and thus his real goal was to replace the high court and all of the corrupt chavista that will be blocking his action as a president.  He probably his right and we should recall that Arria said that Chamorro allowed for a "reconciliation" when she ousted sandinismo in Nicaragua and we should look where is Nicaragua at today....  We certainly should seek some form of negotiation with a defeated chavismo but a general "pass" as proposed by Perez or Capriles will undermine their own tenure, real fast.

Yet, his rather chaotic way of thought, even if meant it in the best of terms, makes him unfit for the presidency and reluctantly, note,  I have to give him the last slot in my general ranking which ends up as following

Leopoldo, Machado and Arria, Perez, Capriles, and Medina last.

But then again this is a ranking on their ability to withstand an Interview with El Ciudadano who has given us a great service in opening the best window so far in how the mind of these guys do work.  I do hope that he will pull some related stunt before the campaign ends, perhaps moderating a presidential debate himself?


Pablo Medina en Aló Ciudadano por Globovision