Day 2 of dictatorship: just the morning and a bang

This is moving folks.

Day first of dictatorship: the local fate

Well, folks, I never thought in my already long life that I would live in a country that has been officially declared a dictatorship.


And those are not my words, there those of many newspapers, countries and foreign dignitaries. As far as the civilized world is concerned Venezuela is now a dictatorship. Only creeps like Bolivia pretend it to be otherwise. But then again Bolivia is about to annul the referendum that Morales lost, so what would one expect...

What can the opposition do now?

As an appendix to the preceding blog entry this short post. Short because there is not much the opposition can do.

And thus it came to pass: Venezuela's high court ends National Assembly's functions

Of course, this is not a surprise. The regime has been diligently eroding all functions of the Venezuelan National Assembly (NA). For this it has used the packing of the Venezuelan High Court (TSJ) in December 2015, just in the days between the election of a 2/3 dominated opposition NA, and its swearing in of January 2016. Since then a bevy of decisions without a single dissenting vote have been pronounced that ended up this Wednesday when a final decision declared that the TSJ will from now on assume all the duties of the NA while they refuse to obey the TSJ dictates.  This thus adds a new shade of meaning to "Damned if you do and dammed if you don´t".

For good measure last Tuesday the TSJ voided the parliamentary immunity of the NA, allowing the the regime to send representatives to military courts under accusation of high treason for supporting the OAS latest moves.

So that is that. What is next?

Actually, is a split in Venezuelan opposition unavoidable?

I was musing about the opposition divisions becoming more intractable. And they are.

What makes me think the opposition alliance, MUD, will divide is paradoxically, in a way, an editorial of Rafael Poleo in his magazine Zeta where he attacks Diego Arria (not available on line). Whether Poleo is right in his assessment is irrelevant to our discussion. What is relevant is his vehemence against Diego Arria and what he supposedly represents.

In praise of the two MUD solution: 2- Solutions? Really?

Let's see.

What a difference a "revolution"
makes! Maikel from truant to boss.

The president of Venezuela, his excellency Nicolas Maduro Moros, has two of his nephews in jail in the US of A because they were found guilty of drug trafficking. This after a trial where the defense lawyers used were the best money can buy.

The vice president of Venezuela, albeit a by-appointment office but second in charge nevertheless, his worthiness Tareck El Aissami, was put a few weeks ago on the OFAC list by the Treasury Department of the US of A for drug trafficking, capital laundering, terrorism abetting through fake passports or what not. I cannot keep up.

The newly sworn head of the TSJ, the high cum supreme court of Venezuela, Maikel Moreno has a police mug shot from previous criminal offenses for which he was declared guilty. I mean, one may believe in second chances but there are limits.

So, what can a democratic opposition do when it has in front of it a publicly recognized criminal state? A state that has no intention whatsoever of relinquishing the faintest parcel of the power it accumulated? A state that does not blanch at the sight of the extensive misery it has created? A state which now wallows in gratuitous cruelty, by the way.