The Pompeo storm

Today we had yet another example on how the failures of the opposition outmatch its successes.

Secretary of state Mike Pompeo had a private conversation on Venezuela that was leaked (I personally wonder whether he wanted that to be leaked). In that conversation he said two important things: that the Venezuelan opposition was very hard to organize into some form or real unity and that it was because there were at least 40 folks that wanted the US to annoint them as the next president of Venezuela. (1)

“Our conundrum, which is to keep the opposition united, has proven devilishly difficult”

“The moment Maduro leaves, everybody’s going to raise their hands and [say], ‘Take me, I’m the next president of Venezuela.’ It would be forty-plus people who believe they’re the rightful heir to Maduro.”

This is nothing new for longtime readers of this blog.  That the opposition is deeply divided is public knowledge, nor could it be any different since the only thing uniting them is their desire to oust Maduro.  The opposition goes from the left to the right so cobbling together something that can work for all is indeed "devilish". But it has happened on occasion with notable success such as in the referendum to change the constitution, or the 2015 national assembly election.

What irked me today is to find so many people upset by Pompeo, many journalists and opinion makers criticizing Pompeo.  This is not the first time that we see that. Already in 2017 I was writing on how badly the criticism of Almagro to the Venezuelan opposition was taken by my admired Milagros Socorro (and others not so admirable).  The thing here is that the Venezuelan opposition is very thin skinned and for them it is OK for foreigners to criticize Chavez and Maduro as they wish but it is an unacceptable intervention to criticize the holy freedom fighters methods of the opposition.

So, what is the truth behind the words of Pompeo (who I assume was jocular when he said 40 candidates)?  I am not going to play the opposition game of conspiracy theories and self destruction here as you can read on Twitter, ferociously (2).  I am just going to mention:

1) those that have been jockeying for top post for the last decade, willing to sabotage the others when needed: Ramos Allup, Lopez, Capriles, Maria Corina Machado, Henri Falcon to name some of the main culprits (I could add at least 10 more but they are minor compared to these)

2) those who have left the opposition alliance MUD in recent years and spend their time criticizing it, only too often for no good reason: Maria Corina Machado, Henri Falcon and scores of their followers who look more like bots than anything else.

I suppose they all have their reasons for such unproductive politics and it does not matter to me. What matters is that their selfish little interest have delayed an eventual solution to the Venezuelan political crisis, and that is public knowledge. Period.

The consequences of that are terrible, because coming up with an unitarian strategy, a solid project for the country, precise goals for a transition government is too difficult to make as too many of these leaders will not accept a goal that could delay their arrival to the presidency of Venezuela, even if such presidency may be over the smoldering embers of the country because of these delays......

For memory I am going to give you three examples of dysfunction:

• The opposition has been unable to come up with a primary system. Nobody wants to count itself in such a primary, all preferring to say that their support is bigger than polls or votes, reminding me amusingly of Fidel explaining why Cuba does not need elections.
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• There are only 4 parties that truly carry weight (for the time being), Accion Democratica, Voluntad Popular, Primero Justicia and Un Nuevo Tiempo though I suspect that today we are down to the first three. But the MUD keeps pirated by scores of minor characters and these three biggies refuse to put order and assume alone the leadership because, well, there are a few votes there that might be enough to overtake the other guys in a primary or something. That has been one of the major dysfunctions of the MUD, too long discussions, too much wavering trying to accommodate too many people that should not be sitting at the MUD meetings to begin with..
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• In 2016 the MUD decided to try multiple approach to unseat Maduro instead of focusing all of its energies on a single one (such as the recall election, the most promising one then). That happened, I have no doubt of it, because each main group favored one method over the other: constitutional assembly, revolt, referenda petitions, etc.  In the end the recall election sort of prevailed but it was too late to stop the regime from cunningly avoid its fate.

But I am starting to digress and my readers can certainly on their own add a lot of things.  Instead let's finish this discussing the intent of Pompeo through that very useful leak.

• The opposition needs to focus.  This means that concrete and simple proposals must appear, suitable for a transistion government.
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• The patience of the international community is running thin and the US is starting to have trouble herding folks from Europe to Patagonia.  There are hints that some staunch anti Maduro government are not so staunch anymore.
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• People that throw stones from the outside (I am looking at you Maria Corina) should either desist or join the MUD to push for concrete proposals. They are not going to be chosen just because they think they deserve it. They need to deserve it like Guaido does these days.
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• Their man is clearly Guaido right now. For all his possible shortcomings he has become a political phenomenon, rides high in polls and is the only reason why possibly the MUD has not collapsed once again (coming up with the Guaido strategy last year was the last brilliant MUD action, pushed by he 4 big players, but it has been downhill ever since) (3)
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• The US, in fact, does not care who the next president will be: anyone would be an improvement. The US just wants the opposition to figure out at least a way to come up fast with that name when the time comes. That person will need to have real support for at least the duration of the transition government (and preferably be pro US and free market but not sine qua non). 

Will the opposition get the message? I doubt it, but it had to be said. For all the prayers of invasion from a big sector of the population these one will not happen in the current situation; too expensive to give the country to an unknown element.   The message thus is also "if you do not do that fast, within months, or weeks, the international front will start breaking up and some countries will sit down with Maduro and you will be screwed forever."

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1) apparently Elliot Abrams gave words expanding on Pompeo but they do not appear yet on google news. His support to the National Assembly would indicate that Guaidó is their man.

2) an official said in that same Post article “They [opposition leadership] remain divided over how to take on the Maduro regime — whether or not to enter into dialogue, whether or not to engage with the military, whether or not to run a presidential candidate or boycott elections. They don’t even retweet each other.”

3) “We’ve been working, and it took this long to get to where we are today, where you have a leader — tenuous as it may be — who could’ve been arrested while we’re sitting in this room, who has managed to cobble together the opposition”