No need to hold your breath on oppo/regime negotiations

 A few days ago I was writing about the regime apparent willingness to consider that maybe, it was an hypothetical hypothesis that well, you know, we may talk to someone in Guaido's office to see if we could borrow the pencil sharpener.....

And then we got Guaido making a rather dramatic statement as to be willing to ask for lifting a few sanctions AFTER the regime shows positive concrete signs of serious negotiations with preliminary results. In a Tweeter thread I posted on that:

(1)This could be a major development. @jguaido offers a global negotiation of measured give and take. In short: as the government allows more freedom, decent elections and international help free of regime control the Guaido opposition may ask for a progressive lift of sanctions https://t.co/qFCXuy0J7p

— daniel duquenal (@danielduquenal) May 12, 2021

And then we have Maduro accepting to negotiate through the EU and Norway intermediaries, though adding a suitable set of insults towards Guaido. It is to be noted that according to Ultimas Noticias, a pro regime newspaper, he cited a misleading Tweet from EFE, the Spanish press agency where it says that Guaido has proposed to eliminate sanctions. Guaido never said that, and at any case he would ask for a partial suspension of sanctions AFTER the regime makes concessions first. Then again EFE has not much credibility when reporting on Venezuela, only too often to burnish the image of the regime.

While we are discussing pro regime news outlets, Ultimas noticias writes that Jorge Rodriguez, head of the "novel" national assembly will negotiate once the opposition has beaten its mea culpa. That is, he wants the opposition to acknowledge its mistakes and crimes, that there should be no amnesia __ and then we negotiate. One has to admire the ability of chavismo to commit all sorts of crimes, including those against humanity, and pretend that the real criminals are others. The chutzpah of these guys will never cease to surprise.

Lets pass on the fact that the regime is the one most interested into lifting sanctions since those ones are largely directed at people inside the regime hierarchy, where their ill acquired riches are often blocked on off shore accounts. They want the loot back....

Maduro and Rodriguez are contradicting each other? The regime has not made up its mind? Can it make up its mind?

Whatever it is we must understand that the only ones willing to do a serious negotiation are those in the opposition. This one has not only something to gain out of successful negotiations, but it also cares about the humanitarian crisis inside the country. Or at least it cares way more than the regime who is still unwilling to establish a coherent vaccination plan against Covid, for a burning example. Yes, that is right, Venezuela is now dead last in the number of vaccines applied. Any time soon a Venezuelan variant is about to appear!!!!!

For the regime on the other hand the lone objective of negotiation is to give in as little as possible so that its leadership gets to recover its funds and travel outside to spend them in "la vida alegre". Period.

Needless to say that I am not holding my breath whatsoever.

Chavismo reshifting roles

 Now that we have a novel National Assembly, who is speaking for chavismo? (1)

One "surprise" is that Jorge Rodriguez is the new chair of the nNA. Well, not that much of a surprise since he was sent to run while he was occupying high positions inside the chavista nomenklatura. He has been mentioned enough in this blog so I will not review his extended life serving chavismo. From an alleged impartial electoral umpire in the early 2000 elections he ended up as Vice President of Chavez in the many positions he occupied. He, and his sister currently the vice president (2), are now the main operators of Maduro, sort of representing the civilian side of chavismo.

Carvativir as the symbol of Covid Maduro's failure

It is now common knowledge that Venezuela's dealings with Covid19 have been a failure. The best that can be said is that the regime has bet secretly on herd immunity because, well, there is nothing else the regime can do.

And yet in the midst of this abject failure to preserve the health of Venezuelans, the regime manages to outdo itself in its abjectness. Now Maduro on TV has revealed himself a snake oil promoter. Rarely I have been as angry at the regime than after seeing the clip below.

Well, against his incapacity to deal with COVID and much less to vaccinate the country @NicolasMaduro has decided to sell snake oil. With "carvativir" he claims that 10 drops under your tongue every 4 hours will kill 100% of the coronavirus.
Let's delve: https://t.co/0CpLkxz0Eb pic.twitter.com/Rms6HYcN8v

— daniel duquenal (@danielduquenal) January 25, 2021

What is behind all of that charade?

Biden's administration will have to face Maduro's regime

 As I type Biden is about to be sworn in and of course I am planning to watch it if French TV broadcasts it. One of the reasons that motivates me is that in the first hearings for his cabinet positions his nominees without a fault are quite willing to continue some of Trump's policies. Sure, the means and ways will differ here and there but on important questions such as the enmity of China or the Middle East moves, nothing much will change. And best of all Secretary of state nominee Blinken has said in his hearing that the incoming administration will recognize the interim government of Guaido and the remains of the National Assembly elected in 2015, considered the last democratically elected branch of government.

The shoe dropeth

As I was expecting the decree about the new minimum wage was officially published today when it should have been published last week, at the latest. This way no one could make adequate preparation and many lost their jobs, many a store closed. And as I am typing it is not clear yet whether and how will the regime effectively subsidize the bulk of the new wages for 3 months.

But if you thought that going 35 times up minimal wage and hence putting the whole country on minimal wage was not bad enough, we got a few more choice items for you.

Something shifted somewhere under someone's feet

Three things happened today that tells us something is brewing inside chavismo.

My important/favorite is defense minister Padrino announcing  that he is against armed colectivos.  You know, those colectivos which are nothing else but paramilitary thugs wearing red shirts and working for the regime. Chavismo version of storm troopers.

The reason was certainly the damaging video out of this weekend maneuvers that went viral and that I tweeted below (I am more active on Twitter than on Blog, the more so that it is easier now to make micro posts in Twitter)

A paramilitary group this week end in Caracas. It does not matter wether you underatand Spanish: the theatrics of violence, hate, intimidation and abuse are crystal clear.
Venezuela as the novel totalitarian state. https://t.co/XTLzRJqEsl

— daniel duquenal (@danielduquenal) February 26, 2018

2017 round up: chavismo has not changed, and can't

It is necessary to repeat this over and over: the current Venezuelan regime CANNOT yield to a democratic transition. Its leadership is way too compromised in particularly obscene corruption to which you add drug trafficking big scale.  If they lose power these people will end up in jail, in Venezuela or outside.  Even if some sort of amnesty is pronounced as they know only too well that amnesties only last so long: see Pinochet, the Argentine army, etc...

Can Sakharov save the Venezuelan opposition?

No.

In praise of "escrache"

There are so many things to write about that as usual I freeze. That is, until I come across something that summarizes the situation so well that it goes beyond belief.




It was Jorge Rodriguez turn to get insulted in public while in Mexico city.  Let me see if I can have the non-Venezuelan reader understand how momentous that silly video is. And it is momentous, trust me.

The triumphant failure of the dialogue in Venezuela

I suppose that there must be somewhere a grand design to all of this. That we are asked to swallow hard because it is all for the best. That we should trust the Vatican envoy when he is in ecstasy about the progress made. Or is it that he is claiming victory as he is on his way to the airport to leave once and for all?

So let's look at what I think is a dismal result for two weeks of expectations. I never hoped for much but this is, well, words fail me. Let's see if I can try to explain it by doing a positive and negative spin to the 5 "points of agreement" reached today.

Our Reichstag moment

It never ends well when a group uses its hordes to take a properly elected assembly (reichstag, French revolution) pic.twitter.com/EadEBmJEvn

— daniel duquenal (@danielduquenal) 23 de octubre de 2016

This is the tropics, this is a banana republic. What else could one expect but the picture above which should be making a few international front pages tonight.

No recall election in 2016: one hidden motive

As a supplement of yesterday's post where I explained why there would not be a Recall Election , or any election for that matter, we got some declarations today that definitely rule out a recall election in 2016. That is, these declarations technically do not rule out such a referendum but they describe very well that chavismo simply will not accept a recall election before January 10, 2017. After, we'll see but do not get your hopes high and at any rate it would be useless, ta-ta...

Now let's look at what is "new" today. Nothing really, just more clarity, so to speak.

Understanding the political moment

I have been back for two weeks now and events are just unfolding too fast for me to write about them, considering the depression that arises from coming back to what has become a hell hole. Let's just order our thoughts together, shall we?

L'air du temps:
Borges getting his nose broken

One way is to look at the main hard data and its effects. The reader on its own will be able to draw the general picture after the fact.


Jail for you

The driving force in this mega crisis is that under the concept of world justice and transparency a few dozens of the higher up in the regime know they will never be able to find peace and solace once out of office. Their fate for them is jail, tomorrow, in a decade, it does not matter. If they do not die first they will end up in jail. They know that.

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.

2015 has already started in Venezuela

And no, it is not that we have an obscure date line that we cross on our own. It is that the obscure power struggle inside chavismo is already in full swing, not waiting to be a 2015 crisis fall out.

Today Rafael Ramirez, once upon a time under Chavez the tsar of the wallet, has been demoted once more. A very few months ago having been pushed from holder of the oil purse to Foreign Minister, he is now mere ambassador to the UN. This confirms that a second group inside chavismo has lost its position and that the battle among the remaining surviving factions to occupy that space is in full swing. And the substitute to Ramirez indicates which are the factions on the rise: the lunatic left.

Versión de "La Salida" para los chavistas

La manera en que Giordani fue botado nos pone a pensar. Y pensándolo bien uno entiende que más allá de cualquier diferencia ideológica o de cualquier ilusión de cambio económico, lo que se esta gestando dentro del chavismo es "La Salida", pero de algunos de ellos, a disfrutar de lo que se han robado. Si algo ha sido confirmado estos días, aunque sea parcialmente, es lo que escribe Rafael Poleo desde hace ya bastante tiempo. Según Poleo un grupo dentro del chavismo ha decidido ir a la posición pragmática de negociar una salida. En este caso lo "pragmático" no significa un cambio de modelo, no significa mas democracia. No. Significa hacer los cambios necesarios para que los altos jerarcas puedan salir del poder de una manera "soft", y entregar el coroto a unos sucesores que cargarán con casi toda seguridad con las culpas. El cambio de Maduro de comunista barato a neo liberal de pacotilla solo puede explicarse con la decisión de Cuba de entregar Venezuela a intereses transnacionales a cambio de que él, y los Castro y unos cuantos más salgan ilesos, con una porción suficiente del botín acumulado para un retiro cómodo.

Para poder explicar y entender esto hay que entender primero cual es la situación del chavismo y de Venezuela.

Can we get a grand unified theory of political physics for Venezuela?

There are a lot of interestingly awful things going in Venezuela right now and I may dare offer a grand unified theory. Applicable for no more than 48 hours until a new universe of crap and lies suddenly opens with new laws of political physics.

Since theories are based on facts that will be proven, or not, let's start with facts.

Today there a couple of items that are noteworthy.

The first one is that the latest hearing of Leopoldo Lopez, supposedly secret, has been recorded and has been released in two installments at CÑN. So let's start with this first item: a secret hearing was leaked and not by the Lopez people who probably had their underwear searched. It was leaked by someone inside the regime. Why?

Transforming a mistake into a revamped tool of repression: the Delcy Rodriguez scandal

For all my intentions (not resolutions, never) to take a soft approach to blogging the Delcy Rodriguez scandal that started the year forces me to write a second note, this time in English.  Yesterday I wrote in Spanish that Rodriguez, minister of communication which in Venezuela is a mere ministry of propaganda with an annex for censorship, posted a list on her Twitter as to opposition leaders leaving the country for the holidays. In front of the outcry the regime went in a counter attacks though it took a few hours to launch it. In short, they were surprised by the intensity of the reaction, they realized it was a blunder and thus, as fascism always does, they decided to dig the hole deeper, if anything hoping for a shock value to silence the other people. Not to mention that if they succeed, from now on it will be routine to publish lists of "undesirables" on any excuse or political need.

Can we already draw a preliminary score card for December vote?

It seems so, when you consider who is running and who is not.

Maria Corina Machado victim of a Cuban character assassination technique (counts as XXI century fascism too)

Today the fascisto-communist regime of Venezuela (your pick!) has crossed a new line.  Maria Corina Machado, noted Venezuelan National Assembly representative, former primary candidate, one of the main members of the opposition international outreach, and the one of the broken nose during her line of duty at the Nazional Assembly has had her private conversations taped, edited and passed as if it were a conspiracy phone call. Cuban G2 modus operandi.