Reviewing the "10 de enero" myth: the end of the road

Three weeks ago I was commenting how dire the situation was as the fateful date of January 10 approached. Today things are clearing up and we may get surprises.

First, a brief recall.
1) An illegally elected Maduro on May 20 needs to be sworn in by the National Assembly.
2) the NA powers have been voided by the high court TSJ in an illegal way. No law passed by the NA is valid. Yet the swearing in itself is not a law and thus there is no way to annul the NA on that prerogative. 3) Maduro will not go to the AN for swearing in because not only he cannot do so legally but he cannot appear to be caving in to the NA legitimate demands.  You could talk about the Mexico wall deadlock, but you ain't seen no nothing compared to the deadlock here since 2015.
4) The NA cannot compromise with Maduro because his election was outside of the constitutional requirements, both in date and organization. If a fraction of the opposition would break away to make a new majority pact with chavismo representatives (absent since late 2015) it still would be illegal and that portion of the opposition would have no chance ever to get votes in future elections.

Maduro constituent assembly for dummies

So many things today!  But before I address them in a following entry, it is urgent to explain what the constituent assembly called by Maduro truly means. About 2 hours ago in his speech at a pauperly attended chavista rally on Bolivar avenue Maduro announced that the only way to stop the coup against him was to call for a new constituent assembly, killing the jewel in the crown of the Chavez years, his so called legacy. Ending once and for all the Chavez years and entering into a brave new world. But I digress.

Why is Maduro holding such a catastrophic action when there is no food nor medicine nor jobs in Venezuela?

1) It is an excuse to annul any election until the new Constitution is voted, besides, of course, the votes necessary for the constitutional assembly and ratification. That is, the overdue governor election, the ones for mayor and municipal councils in December, and the president one for late 2018 will all have to wait for a new constitution to take hold. IN SHORT; MADURO´S REGIME GIVES ITSELF AT THE VERY LEAST TWO MORE YEARS IN OFFICE.

2) We do not know exactly how the scheme will be set but the details are already irrelevant. It is announced that at least half the constituents will be elected by "groups" and thus most likely without secret suffrage. Thus the regime grants itself, say, 45% of the seats from the start since these groups are the ones that it already controls (consejos comunales, colectivos, regime trade unions and the like). Surely, allowing for the fraudulent electoral board actions, enough of the elected seats to be elected will add to that 45% so that the regime can control the constitutional assembly proceedings. Even if fair elections would have been a rout for the regime.

3) As of 1) and 2) it is obvious that elected chavista officials will be in place, even with their term more than expired, to help controlling and manipulating the constitutional assembly elections.

4) Of course, if such an assembly is elected there will be no further control on the regime by current "institutions" so that the regime will have free rein to root out dissent and secure final approval of what will be, without a doubt, a constitution of corporativism principles, in the grand tradition of fascist states.

All of this is of course illegal in the current 1999 constitution but there is no point discussing the details now until we know for certain how will the convocation decree reads.

THE POINT OF THIS ENTRY IS TO MAKE THE READER COMPLETELY AWARE THAT MADURO CALL FOR A CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY HAS NOT A SINGLE DEMOCRATIC BONE IN IT, IT IS NOTHING MORE THAN A COARSE WAY TO FIND A JUSTIFICATION FOR THE REGIME TO PERPETUATE ITSELF UNDER THE PRETENSE OF SOME LEGALITY. THAT IS, AN EXCUSE TO AVOID FAIR ELECTIONS UNTIL KNGDOM COMES. OR MADURO (RAUL CASTRO?) DIES.
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Just for you to see what a poor attendance Maduro rallies enjoy

AMAZING
This was the skimpy attendance at @NicolasMaduro speech announcing the constituent assembly
And those woul'd be ones allowed to vote https://t.co/9jV2FnDapt

— daniel duquenal (@danielduquenal) May 1, 2017

Week 1 of dictatorship: article 333 and 350 against 337 and 338

What happened today?  Much more than a simple protest march.

Chavismo was unable to put up a counter march worth its name. Apparently a mere couple of blocks sort of filled up, a salsa band and some very dangerous speeches. Today's words of Aristobulo Isturiz, Freddy Bernal and Diosdado Cabello are enough to be added as definitive evidence on their dossier for The Hague. And furthermore, if the opposition had a huge march in Caracas, it also had many significant marches in the provinces. None that I know of from chavismo. And the opposition did all that in 24 hour notice.

In praise of the two MUD solution: 1- a new realitity

Let's be frank about it: when Obama and the Pope imposed a dialogue on the Venezuelan opposition MUD alliance they screwed us bad. But at least there is a tiny silver lining: the contradictions inside the MUD are now apparent and must be dealt with.

The recap is simple and at this point in this blog seems redundant. Obama did not want any trouble in the Caribbean while he was trying to bring out of the cold the Cuban dictatorship. In the failed hope that it would favor Hillary electoral prospects when the political situation in Venezuela became tense last summer State sent Thomas Shannon several times to Venezuela to promote a "dialogue". To add weight to the pressure the Vatican was recklessly brought in; a Vatican, need I say, led by a Pope with what we could call more socially liberal ideas, rarely adapted to real politic when you deal with dictatorships.

Becoming a failed state (3): reversible?

We seem to agree that Venezuela is either already a failed state, or about to become one. It has a rather wretched populace. It has loss of institutions. It is unable to agree on anything. It is pretty much bankrupt, bankrupt as in getting out of the hole will take a generation or more.

The question is thus the way out of a failed state. From the reasons discussed before it seems unlikely that there is an easy way out of the dire straits we are in. And the prospect for things to get worse is not a prospect, it is a reality. Why?

The maelstrom is forming

For readers of this blog it should not be a surprise that the regime has chosen naked repression. The nomination of Tareck El Aissami as vice president was a clear indication of that. The man is a born killer, in search of a vengeance as early as his days in college.

It is not that Tareck IS the man, he is just the willing agent, the front of the "civilian" radical wing of chavismo, the one closely tied to Cuban interests to which Maduro, Jaua and some other belong. They may or may not be die hard communists, some do not have the intellectual baggage to know what Marxism is truly about. But they all have a mean anti system streak and if they have joined totalitarian regimes from the left side it is strictly a matter of historical moment.

Options against the dictatorship

I am happy about yesterday annulment of the Recall Election. I know, it is perverse but I have my reasons.

Thy electoral CNE shoe droppeth

There will be a lot of brouhaha in the next days about the ignominious decision of the CNE to do its utmost to violate the constitution in order to block the Recall Election against Maduro. Let me try to make it clear for readers still hanging around here.

1) The motivation in any case is to annul the Recall Election, or in the very worst case push it to 2017 which means that the regime remains in office until January 2019 at the very least.

The developping coup

You need to keep following closely what is going on in Venezuela. Any distraction, the more so if you are overseas like yours truly these days, and you may miss the gran finale.

1%, a world in a number

I have been very distracted by many problems and now I am overseas, among other objectives, to fetch medicines not available anymore in Venezuela for me and my SO (and others). But I could not pass on a brief comment on what should be called the 1 % affair that was held as I fixed to leave the country.

Tweet of the day

Last night I was writing about laws voted that displease chavismo. Here is the tweet of the National Assembly chair, Ramos Allup.

Onward the final constitutional crash: amnesty law and high court reform

The Easter lull came and went without making much of a difference.  The "calima" suffocated us in Caracas while the country went on a standstill to try to spare a few meters from the water gauge of the Guri dam, before El Niño, and regime's utter incompetence, forces a shut down of 50% of the country's electricity.

This is not Beijing, it is today over Caracas. You cannot even guess that there is a 2000 meter mountain range in the background. I have NEVER seen it that bad. The air stings slightly when you breathe.

Una foto publicada por daniel duquenal (@duquenal_at_vnv) el 21 de Mar de 2016 a la(s) 2:14 PDT

But the country is back at work, as much as it is possible, and the National Assembly has started the road to open confrontation not only with the executive, but on the true meaning of the Venezuelan constitution, as this one may be.

La fuite en avant or is it La politique du pire ?

French political language is rich and dates from the French Revolution where between 1789 and 1815, depending on how you count, up to 12 government systems could be identified. There are two sentences that need to be used for this entry. La fuite en avant refers as when you have no option but just make a run for it straight ahead and hope for the best (escaping straight ahead). La politique du pire refers to make the situation worse in the hope that people will want to go back to a past situation because it was less worse, grammatical mistake on purpose. Or to destroy everything so no one can do anything against you.

Today we can use BOTH expressions.

2015-2016 continuum

Something strange happened to me over the holiday: I did not see the new year coming. At least not politically. Until December 31 the regime has been busy at trying to find ways to sabotage the swearing in of January 5, taking away even the cameras from the National Assembly so that presumably there will be no way to record the ceremony (and whatever vulgarity the regime plans to do then; or to hide that Cabello will not be the chair anymore?).

Another day, another constitutional violation (UPDATED)

It cannot be any clearer (my emphasis)

Hace 15 años votaba NO y NO

La efeméride de hoy nos lleva a 1999, hace 15 años, cuando Venezuela selló su destino con su más desatinado referendo "por ahora". Hasta Wikipedia tiene una pagina, escrita probablemente por algún chavista pagado para eso desde alguna sala situacional.

Vamos a asumir que la información de Wikipedia es mas o menos correcta, no tengo paciencia para indagar en fuentes mas confiables como los archivos periodísticos. Wikipedia, el opio del flojo. Total, bien me acuerdo de ese día para no depender ni siquiera de Wikipedia si no es por los numerosos que me imagino son sacados del CNE y que concuerdan con mis recuerdos porcentuales.

El referendo que llamo Chávez era ilegal. La constitución de 1961 en sus artículos 246 y 249 era clarísima en eso de modificar la constitución y eso no se cumplió, con la complicidad de la Corte Suprema, cuya presidenta entonces, Cecilia Sosa, se las hecha de anti chavista férrea. Algo mas de hierro hubiese sido bueno en 1999.

The repressive, dictatorship consecrating, enabling law is out

Original

So, after much, much hot air the regime had to show the enabling law it wants for Maduro to become a full time dictator. It does not matter whether the unconstitutional project is to silence the opposition or to purge the ranks of chavismo of its undesirable elements (they are all undesirable but apparently there are gradations within chavismo). The fact of the matter is that chavismo does not want its bankrupt regime to be discussed either on the air waves, or the newspapers and even less at the Nazional Assembly (yes, I am retaking the "Nazional Assembly" moniker because after this re-edition of Ermächtigungsgesetz the next step is our own version of Nuremberg Laws which the projected enabling law contemplates as an extension of our very own Tascon list).


The excuse the government offered is that there is a need to fight corruption and to face down a severe economic crisis. But the solution offered by this enabling law is to silence the opposition, find corruption there and among some token chavistas for good measure, more to make room for other corrupt chavista officials rather than any good intention.  The economic measures are fake ones as a regime whose currency went from 500 to a dollar to 50,000 to a dollar in 14 years has no credibility anymore on this respect. Amen of an inflation currently at 50% annual. As long as the perpetrators of this economic disaster remain in office no enabling law of any type will solve the problems. This is not a matter of laws, it is a matter of personnel.

Enabling law as intra chavista power play of radicals in the ascent

UPDATED There two major news today, one just breaking with the "promotion" of Ramirez to the vice presidency of Economic area while the fate of the previous holder, Merentes, is still unknown (he may retain his seat of finance minister but we have no confirmation at this typing). The second news is the expected formal petition for an enabling law for Maduro. Let's start with this later one although the first one is the more revealing news as to what is truly happening.

What happened today: the post-Chavez regime digs in and scales up repression

Certainly today's headline is the Venezuelan High Court, TSJ, emitting one of its most shameful decisions ever (and the competition is stiff). But three other events today are equally telling and all put together are true reasons to worry.

Gladys Gutierrez,
the new chavismo head bitch, dye job and all...

Let's start with the headline. The TSJ had to make a decision on the challenge to the election of last April. The problem it faced is that any decision that would imply an actual revision of voting conditions for last April would without a doubt open a can of worms. There were already two clearly established electoral irregularities that did not require lengthy study: people accompanied forcibly to vote, on video, and the lists of people "dead" that did vote. Those two, by themselves, were enough to erase the "vote advantage" of Maduro in April and examination of the other claims would reveal that Maduro lost. The TSJ, formed by regime's place holders who simply sign decisions written by political agents, were in an impossible situation: accepting to review the challenges was opening the door for proving the illegitimacy of Maduro; refusing to review the challenges was tantamount to recognize that fraud had taken place. They chose a variation of the second, which is that the 10 electoral challenges were ill written and groundless, thus inadmissible for examination. The 10 challenges! As if all lawyers of the opposition were equally incompetent! As if the videos and death roll did not exist! As if what international observers reported on April 14 was misguided!

Tensions flare

Nazional Guard happily tear gazing

I was busy this afternoon (more on that later) and there was/is a cadena for the proclamation of Maduro as the winner. Of course, in the purest fascistic-repressive tradition of April 11 2002, during the cadena repression had started at Plaza Altamira in Caracas as the two pictures shown in this post (lifted from Twitter). I personally think it is a mistake to start such street riots so soon when Capriles is calling for peace and quiet and to wait for his directions while looking very combative   But the sensation of electoral fraud is just too big, people are too upset and the regime is deliberately stoking those flames to get a reaction and justify more repression.