Chavismo has lost any democratic character, if it ever had one

One nice thing about Chavez was that we could measure the democratic content of chavismo by looking at him. Since on very rare instances Chavez had a democratic word, we could assume that perhaps inside chavismo there were people more democratic in nature than he was, that they were just repressed, closeted democrats, and that someday they would prevail.

We have been proven wrong: there is no democratic bone inside chavismo, and for all that I know, whatever democrats co existed inside may have been purged by 2007 at the latest.


A few days ago I reported on already two videos showing how public employees were prosecuted just under any suspicion that they may not be ardent supporters of Maduro. Things have been getting worse this week as reports come from all around the country of massive purges inside the public sector (1). I am not going to go into the many details, limiting myself to what is becoming viral, the video from Ricardo Molina saying that in his "habitat and housing" ministry he will personally fire whoever does not resign because of their support of Capriles. Nothing new really, you may say, but in the video, besides wearing the new fascist arm band of Venezuela, Molina says that he does not give a shit about Venezuelan labor laws. He will proceed as he wants, period.



This, my friends, even if you cannot understand Spanish, is the portrait of fascism in Venezuela; the look, the manners, the violence. It is all there, he just needs to get started. And he surely will get his chance because even after this speech Maduro CONFIRMED in in his ministerial job......

And yet that is not all.  Iris Varela, the crazed minster for Venezuela jail system, at which she has dismally failed but to which she was ratified by Maduro this week end, decided today that she had a cell space for Capriles. In an official capacity she extended herself lengthily on how she was going to put Capriles in jail, on how she was preparing one adequate for him,  where noting would happen to him. Amazingly implying that she did not control jails but she could control parts of them. The woman was putting herself as accuser, judge, jury and warden. Fascism again, let's not be shy with words here.

And yet, Maduro having already two minsters who should be fired without any contemplation dares to call for "dialogue". But you should see the quality of that dialogue. First, he names a commission of three to talk. They are Diosdado Cabello who slammed down the microphones at the National Assembly, Jorge Arreaza, the Chavez son in law reputed as the leader of the pro Castro radical left and Cilia Flores, his "wife in waiting", who has had a distinguished career in making life miserable to anyone that disagreed with them. Really, Nicolas......

And yet it is not all: Maduro will not talk with Capriles, only those inside the opposition that do not agree with the ultra neoliberal right wing model or some similar adjectives. He will talk to them individually, not even as a dissident group. So there goes the strategy: Capriles is the head honcho so we need to weaken him by prying a few away, buying them as needed I suppose, until propaganda can work out some form of claim that he is not the leader of the opposition. The final objective is clear: to liquidate politically Capriles the way they did with Rosales in 2007.  But times have changed and this time erasing Capriles is not going to be enough.

I wonder what else is needed among some of those supporters of chavismo that still persist in trying to make us believe that Venezuela is a healthy democracy (here and here for the latest inanities that were sent to me today alone).

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1- One thing also needs to be mentioned: not only the private sector is cutting down on its work force because of the crisis, but the public sector is also doing it. See, there is just no money anymore, and economic activity is expected to take a major hit this year. I suppose that it is also part of the calculation of the regime, to fire as many people as they can under political excuses so as not to admit lay off for economic policy failure. It sounds crazy, it is very clumsy, but these people are losing it fast.....