The sysiphean Venezuelan opposition

 Now that we covered in last post the real problem in Venezuela, the economy, and that we have examined the situation of the opposition since December 2020, we can finally look at what can the Venezuelan opposition do. If you are busy and do not want to read it all, here is the executive summary: precious little.

What is that previous little, which as we shall see is already quite herculean?

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.”

The downfall of Maduro can only come from outside

And by that I do not mean the marines landing in La Guaira tomorrow. It will not happen. We are in the XXI century and things are done in other effective ways, as needed.

The title comes because the opposition is STILL collapsing further, in an hopeless slump that stops it from benefiting from any bonus point undeservedly thrown its way.

What Josep Borrel really meant : a lost country

Spain had what is normal in a parliamentary system: there was a motion vote that ousted the sitting Mariano Rajoy which automatically replaced him with the "leader" of the opposition, Pedro Sanchez.  This one did not reach premiership after last elections since, well, he barely floated around a quater of the vote. But Spain is a country of instituions and Sanchez heads a ministry that is held in place in large part by the good will of very the leftist PODEMOS who is a big, bought, friend of chavismo.

The door opened again.
Borrel and Chavez son in law.

We need to understand this to interpret, in part only, the recent words of Josep Borrel, the new foreign office holder. He said during a meeting with Venezuela's foreign minister, the creep that got there because he married a Chavez daughter, that Spain will not spearhead sanctions against Venezuela anymore and that dialogue should be renewed [english].  Some in Venezuela interpret this as a success, some as a betrayal, both are wrong.

Just saying....

So AD is leaving the opposition coalition MUD.

On June 15 I was writing the following:

In this group [willing to negotiate with the regime] we have AD and the rest. AD would be stricter in its negotiations with the regime but since it has lost tremendous credibility after the errors of its leader Ramos Allup last October, it is probably facing serious doubts inside and seems paralyzed. The rest goes from nearly dead UNT to Falcon's failed bid (could it have been otherwise? Geez...). The problem with these remnants is that they actually think that they represent a large chunk of the opposition. They do not. Only AD still has support [a relative term, it means more support than the others but not necessarily a lot of it].

Thus readers of this blog should not be surprised about that rupture. At least since March 2017. Just saying...

What does this mean?

A way out for Venezuela: it will not be coming from the opposition

At least not as it stands right now.

The disarray of the opposition is simply breathtaking.  And if you read Twitter varied time lines, you will find out that some inside the opposition spend time attacking each other in more virulent ways than they ever attacked chavismo. Though I suspect that chavismo having long stopped reading their own incendiary Twitter replies these oppo radicals had to turn their anger elsewhere. But I digress.

Two oppositions

The Venezuelan opposition: what went wrong?

About one year ago in between tear gasses outings I thought that maybe the Maduro dictatorship was in its last throes, that the opposition in Venezuela was going to prevail. Today Maduro is coasting to reelection, fraud and all, with only the meekest of protest at home, around lack of food and medicine. The louder protest comes from overseas.

How can one explain such a stupendous change of fortunes? Hint: it is not due only to military repression.

Venezuela dialogue bust and its chain reaction

As expected the "dialogue" between the narco dictatorship and the civil opposition went nowhere.  Yesterday the chair, Dominican Republic president, said euphemistically that talks were adjourned for the time being, letting ooze slightly his disappointment at not having been able to help the regime get what it so sorely wanted. On the other hand the chosen mediator of the regime, former Spanish premier Zapatero, could not hide its bitterness at his failures, and revealed his profound bias by threatening the opposition for not signing down.  At least we gained something, Zapatero is now out of any negotiation after his words yesterday.

And check one more for Maduro: the terrible state of Venezuelan opposition

I keep postponing writing on what to do about Venezuela, the more so now that international pressure is growing in earnest. But everyday here I get new evidence that Maduro's domination (not strength, that is another matter) is at least based on half his wiles and a good portion of the opposition willingness to play bull to its matador.

The unconstitutional assembly decided that those parties that did not field candidates in December elections were cancelled and had to prove again that they did exist and had following enough to deserve a voting ballot.  Not only this was a stupid (and illegal) reason, but it betrayed how upset the regime is when it "wins" by default. There is no pleasing these psychos....

Hoy no voté

Hoy por primera vez en mi vida decidí deliberadamente, sin consigna de nadie, no ir a votar.  Si tienen paciencia me permitirán explicarles.

Live! The implosion of the opposition alliance

Well, that was faster than expected.

The day Ramos Allup drove the stake at the heart of the MUD

The July 16th vote, annulled today

Today's events remind me a little bit of that type of horror movie which starts with some bloody body(ies) and a mysterious shadow drifting away. Heck, sometime the alleged assassin is shown knife in hand. No matter, after this initial screen you read something like "2 weeks/days/hours earlier" over a background of happy cheerful people that you cannot warn about what is to befall on them. Thus you need to wait until the end of the movie to figure out who was the shadow or if the alleged assassin was just set up to look so.

Today Accion Democratica (AD) secretary Henry Ramos Allup (HRA) decided to have his 4 elected governors swear in front of the unconstitutional constitutional assembly (AC) and thus within a single hour he 1) legitimizes the AC 2) voids years of opposition (MUD) efforts 3) wrecks its unity and 4) creates an image overseas that there is no need to worry about Venezuela anymore, either it is a democracy after all, or the opposition is not worthy of rescue so let them deal with their own mess.

How did we come upon that political horror scene?

Back to early July 2017.

El error de regañar a Almagro

Ha circulado con amplitud por Internet un articulo de Milagros Socorro donde se queja del regaño que el secretario de la OEA, Luis Almagro, le ha dado a la dirigencia de la MUD.  Pues a pesar de que este blog ha expresado su admiración por la acuidad de Milagros Socorro, esta vez no solamente difiero de su opinión, pero me siento obligado a responder.

Brevemente el argumento de Milagros se refiere a que toma de una manera algo personal la declaración de Almagro, como si este hubiese incriminado al elector venezolano por haber ido a votar. No lo entiendo así.

Numeral inconsistencies

UPDATED

While the opposition logistic mess (so far this is what we see) may or may not prove electoral fraud (that fraud exists from before election day, so there is electoral fraud no matter what) we can only look at some glaring inconsistencies.

Voter participation

A useless political post for your entertainement

So there we are, a new vote next Sunday. And yours truly has no interest in it, no desire to speculate on results, no clear idea of what would constitute a victory for either camp.  So, during this lunch break I gather the courage to follow the tradition of this blog and write a political post for the governor elections next Sunday. Read at your own risk.

Venezuela is installing a constituent assembly

And I am not going to talk about that.  Except for one comment: that assembly is illegitimate because it was convoked using a REGRESSION of human and civil rights respective to the constitutional assembly convocation of 1999. That is, you cannot convoke a constitutional assembly under less rights than the constitution you want to replace. Period. Anything else is discussing what is the sex of angels when they live under a dictatorship.

Tintinophiles need no translation

This being said, today the question is what is the opposition going to do about running on regional elections in December. The decision must be, like, today because by Monday it will not be possible to register candidates anymore (note that chavismo has not registered anyone but they usually wait to the last minute anyway).

The problem is that electoral board CNE has been shown to commit a major fraud last Sunday, a fraud that could cover up to 50% of the votes allegedly cast.

Idiots in the mist

So today we had a political atomic bomb with the revelation of the electoral fraud of last Sunday. On the face of it we may not see any major change: after all this is a dictatorship so who cares about how many votes the dictator got?  And yet, if we do not know where the bomb truly hit we are seeing debris falling all around us. In fact, a mist so thick in dust that many are losing their way.

Chavismo gave the extremely predictable answer.

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.

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.

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.