In extremely reluctant praise of Ramos Allup

Today the MUD coalition voted on who would be the chair for the first year tenure of the National Assembly elected on 6D (NA). The winner is Henri Ramos Allup (1). I am very far from overjoyed but I also must make a great effort to understand the historic moment.

The new troika: majority whip (Borges) MUD secretary
(Torrealba) and NA chair (Ramos)

The negative first.

Henri Ramos Allup is the secretary of Accion Democratica, AD, the old grand party of the pre Chavez years. From the wreckage he did save some of the furniture but at the cost of being a kind of little tyrant, happily purging a few, in a very chavista way. But the reader should keep in mind that chavismo is mostly coming from the AD low rung hacks that were kept in check for their hardheadedness, incompetence and the like. Once unleashed we saw the dramatic results over these last 15 years of looting and incompetence. I am not pinning on these transfuges the narco state: that one comes straight from Fidel Castro and the FARC who had no problem recruiting into the diverse lumpen that joined Chavez.

The inevitable confrontation: let's begin by unseating a few representatives

As I have been writing through December in any possible way that I could come up with, the confrontation between the regime and the opposition new National Assembly is inevitable. And started in all earnest today. By demanding that almost a dozen MUD representative election is to be questioned, the regime has deprived the new majority of its supernumerary majority of 2/3 which would have allowed it to change some of the worst and more repressive and manipulative laws approved under Chavez. Namely the laws that ensure the regime's near dictatorial nature such as freedom of expression and control of the judiciary by the regime (absolute, 100% control by the way as nobody remembers the last time the regime lost a case in the high court TSJ).

True, the Assembly still preserves the 3/5 super-majority that it needs to control fiscal aspects of the regime, but the ones that matter, the ones that can bring back democracy to Venezuela, are, for the time being, lost.  Let's look at some details.

The priorities ahead

And thus I am on December 28 in a hurry to write something as events keep going on in Venezuela. There is no time for a holiday pause. What, with the regime's shenanigans and the opposition division and only 7 days left for the new National Assembly to be sworn in!

The now you see, now you don't see the constitutional coup {UPDATED URGENT}

Guys, this is it, the real thing. The regime cannot accept the electoral result of December 6 and has started this week to pull real moves to make sure that it keeps firmly in control of the country, or at least the essential, namely that its leadership does not go to jail (not even keep looting, there is not much left to loot...).

In short the regime is holding a coup d’état except that instead of having tanks rolling down the avenues it is packing the courts and removing representatives recently elected through that packed court. Il suffisait d'y penser (1)

Left press review

On a slow Saturday night I decided to do what I have stopped doing long, long ago, to examine the misinforming to plain idiotic articles supporting the bolivarian farce. But two upset readers sent me these pieces and by sheer courtesy I read them and went ahead to comment below.

Chavismo these days illustrates very well the difference between fascism and communism

The behavior of the regime since December 6 allows us to illustrate some of the differences between fascism and communism. NOTE: they are both equally evil, just different ways to reach the final goal of a small group to control a totalitarian state.

Somebody home?

I wonder if anyone is aware of the chasm ahead. From what I can see it would seem like no, nobody is taking notice. But then again I may be wrong. Hopefully.

The hysteria of Diosdado and Tarek

The stupendous defeat of the regime two Sundays ago is just starting to unleash all demons within chavismo.  There are two little items that are worth noting.

The 2015 results: polarization, when thou hold us enthralled!

This entry is for the anecdotal part. There were some "independents/dissenter" candidates. What was their fate?

The polarization of the country rolled over them without pity.

The last days of Maduro. Or is it of Cabello?

I will try to be short. The actions that Maduro and Cabello are taking are playing against them. One could almost call them suicidal.

The 2015 results: Caucaguita (and Caracas) sweetest moment for the MUD

No need to go in where the opposition did its best score, the 112 new 2/3 majority speaks of itself, the blog entry to cover it all would be too long. Instead let's go where the opposition victory may have been the sweetest: Caracas and greater Caracas.

The title of a recent blog entry was "As Caucaguita goes so will the election". I did not know I would be proven so right. Unbelievably the opposition took Caucaguita, going a long way to explain how the MUD took the double seat district of Guarenas and Guatire (and the rest of the country). I was expecting at best, from the graph of that entry, an even score. Well, in Caucaguita the opposition list won with 50.21% against the PSUV list at 46.95%. The closest result for the opposition in Caucaguita were 5 years ago when the opposition list got 80% of what chavismo got. This time it got 110% of the chavista vote....

But if Caucaguita remains justifiably for this blog the bellwether district, the smashing win in Caucaguita was the reflection of the smashing win across the country, none as sweet that the conquest of Caracas and almost all of the greater Caracas. If a popular, urban, low income district like Caucaguita went MUD, how could similar districts of Vargas, Libertador, Petare do otherwise?

The 2015 results: stable majority, where art thou?

I am talking of course of who holds the majority inside the 112 elected representatives. This is of utmost importance because there will be the need for a common front to resist the assaults of the regime, from incarceration to plain bribery. Amen of the required speed to pass urgent laws and go above Maduro's sabotage. The stable majority is also required to agree on a more than likely constitutional reform.

Data gathered from Tal Cual who has assigned party labels to the 112 elected folks.
I have roughly distributed them according to suspected ideology.
Note that in Venezuela EVERYONE claims to be at the very least left of Center.
VENTE (Maria Corina Machado) is the only one openly right of center.
Colors assigned are inasmuch as possible, through Excel, those of the political parties.

100 days of MUD

I suppose that the tradition of the cabalistic "first hundred days/measures/laws" comes from the first famous 100 days, the ones of Napoleon return to Elba which ended in Waterloo. The regime may want to ponder about that history tidbit, the more so that Waterloo bicentennial was celebrated earlier this year.

The 2015 results: general

Now that the CNE has finally announced the final result we can start more detailed analysis. They will be interesting and I will have a few posts on that through the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned. But first an evaluation of my own predictions.

The CNE does not publish vote count as too embarrassing for the regime, You could be sure that had the PSUV won the election, the vote count would be posted. Never mind, there are people that do so and there is a tweet on this matter:

When consoling the troops makes you certifiable political ass

It is always necessary for the leader of a political party to try to comfort a little bit the troops by promises of keeping up the good fight. If this cannot be done by the harshness of the score or the temperament of the leader then there is always resigning your position. What Maduro did tonight was resigning his subordinates and through Cabello announce open season on the new Assembly.

Chavismo is not taking it well

True, even Nicolas Maduro preferred to concede defeat rather than taking to the streets. But his concession was like the Chavez one of 2007, "victoria de mierda" but more banal in its content, "defeated by the economic war" that nobody but chavistas seem to understand what it is about. Which allows us to think that the economic war is just a myth a la Cuban embargo.