January 9, the eve of "10 de enero"

The fateful day is in a couple of hours.  A brief review of where we stand at. In no particular order.  But first, the way the main drag of Carcas was covered today (and I presume other venues).

Toda la avenida Bolívar de Caracas forrada con pendones de “Yo Soy Presidente”, dándose poder de algo que no es.

Al menos, yo no lo reconozco ni reconoceré #9Ene #YoSoyPresidente pic.twitter.com/P2DXL1nme7

— Luis Gonzalo Pérez (@luisgonzaloprz) 9 de enero de 2019

The banner reads "I am president" with an hashtag, you know, to make it more contemporary.

This banner defies belief.
Why does Maduro needs to shout that he is the president?
Amen of wasting money in a self esteem improvement course when many of those who will read them in that area will be lucky if they have a decent meal today.

But this summarizes pretty much the mood within chavismo.

Nobody is coming for the swearing in, except the usual suspects. Even many allies that cannot not come send the under minister of this or that as official representatives. The "high level" attendance is so poor that the regime went as far as promoting the arrival of the president of South Ossetia.  I bet almost no reader remembers where the heck that joint is.  Refresher: a piece of Georgia that Putin pried away and declared an independent state recognized by about half o dozen of other countries.
Here, the celebratory tweet where what's his name looks like the appropriate Russian mafia thug.

Damos la Bienvenida a nuestro País al Presidente de Osetia del Sur Anatoly Bibílov, quien nos acompañará en la juramentación del Presidente @CancilleriaVE NicolasMaduro pic.twitter.com/Ue7g9CDppd

— Blanca Eekhout. (@blancaePSUV) 9 de enero de 2019

Oh well.... Moving on.

Chavismo truly hurts. They called what they perceived as a bluff from the EU, Lima group, etc...  but now that they see they are not coming, not even sending the embassy janitor, they can only think of threats. Which does not stop a former ally, Ecuador, on its own to announce that they are sending no one to Caracas and further more are withdrawing their ambassador (note, last time I checked Ecuador was not member of the Lima group, just saying).

The problems when you issue threats is that when everybody knows you cannot back them, they just throw them to the trash can. As I type, several LatAm countries have decided to deny the entry to scores of Venezuelan regime office holders, a curse for them because they LOOOVE  to travel to any conference to do tourism and agitate the dwindling masses.  Pretty much what will be left to them is to go hire jineter@s in Cuba.
And it looks like more rejection is to come tomorrow.

I am not mentioning some desertions the regime suffered these days (not worth commenting, just some people trying to save their loot while they still can). Instead let's enjoy the Washington Post stating that the army chief would have told Maduro to either resign or he leaves. This would be dramatic for Maduro as apparently Padrino is the only one able to hold together the different factions within the armed forces. Probably 50% of the reason Maduro has overcome so far is due to Padrino.

And more. But now you understand better the tweet that opens this entry.

And the opposition you may ask?  Well, there are confusing stirrings but so far I still think they are holding together. We shall see tomorrow what they will do. The logical thing is to declare Maduro signature unacceptable for anything.  After all, threatening to name a transition president is nearly useless, the kind of threat that at this point you should not do if you do not have the way to back it up.

Besides, as I predicted 3 days ago, as an obvious possible outcome, the regime is rattling sabres of unconstitutionally dissolving the National Assembly after Maduro is "sworn in". That shall help the regimes image....

See you tomorrow. Gonna be exciting.