Tal Cual today carries the latest IVAD poll, and it confirms what other pollsters have been saying for a while: there is a general weakening of chavismo, and the trend down is slow but solid. I am not discussing IVAD because I particularly like it, I highlight it because for once a poll is published rather complete, and about the stuff that is of more interest of readers to blogs like this one. Personally, if you are a long time reader, you know that I have lost trust in polls since 2004 and that I use them as an additional source of info at best. This caveat out, let' see the relevant numbers.
First, the good (?) news for Chavez: he still has 48% of favorable on the poll. But if we remember that last February he was floating around 60% and still only got 54% on February 15 vote, we can see that the good news is quite relative. When you look at other numbers, Chavez can surely get scared, explaining a lot of his recent moves.
When people are asked whether they think Chavez is dealing with the hard the harsh realities of the country the numbers are equally harsh: 67% think he does not do enough to fight crime, 74% that he does not care much about unemployment, 62% that he could care more about electricity shortages. The awareness of the people about the government bad faith is revealed when they are asked about their trust in justice: 61% do not trust the Venezuelan judicial system (only 7.8% have "a lot" of trust, we know who those are).
80.6% want Chavez to stop giving money to foreign countries. Imagine that!
And more interesting numbers. All speak loud and clearly for themselves. I think it is easy to guess what should be the opposition platform for next year. What are they waiting for its publication?
-The end-
Monday, November 16, 2009
The revolutionary line of the year comes from Weeds
Over the week end I was watching season 4 of Weeds.
I highly recommend the series for those who do not know it, very funny , incredibly cynical and extremely corrosive of the US way of life in California. And impeccable acting. Anyway. At the end of season 4 Celia Hodes out of rehab goes to ask for forgiveness to the daughter, Quinn, she banned to Mexico in season 1. It turns out that Quinn has shacked up with a Mexican underground revolutionary and they had decided to hold Celia as hostage until her family pays the ransom. Once Celia passes out on her food the boy friend says something about the things that one must do for revolution. Quinn replies "Fuck your faggy revolution! I am taking the 200,000 dollars and move to Belize".
I wonder how many of those who voted at the PSUV primary today have had similar thoughts during their career through Chavez rule.......
-The end-
I highly recommend the series for those who do not know it, very funny , incredibly cynical and extremely corrosive of the US way of life in California. And impeccable acting. Anyway. At the end of season 4 Celia Hodes out of rehab goes to ask for forgiveness to the daughter, Quinn, she banned to Mexico in season 1. It turns out that Quinn has shacked up with a Mexican underground revolutionary and they had decided to hold Celia as hostage until her family pays the ransom. Once Celia passes out on her food the boy friend says something about the things that one must do for revolution. Quinn replies "Fuck your faggy revolution! I am taking the 200,000 dollars and move to Belize".
I wonder how many of those who voted at the PSUV primary today have had similar thoughts during their career through Chavez rule.......
-The end-
Chavez helping the opposition? "elections" at the PSUV
As I was putting together the previous post over the week end the PSUV held its internal elections. Or so we are asked to believe.
The first thing to know, of course, is that no matter what the results of these "elections" will be, nothing will happen without the approval of Chavez. To ensure that this is the case, that no surprise will arise, Chavez is himself the grand elector of 200 of the 772 delegates to the party congress to be held in a few weeks. And just in case he will also be the one setting the "debate" agenda. If to this you add that supposedly there are three tendencies within the PSUV fighting it out today it is safe to assume that Chavez will enjoy a very sycophantic majority in the coming congress as he will be playing whomever he wants against whomever he pleases.
Of course, no matter how flawed that internal PSUV election is (note, this is NOT about primaries for 2010, it is party internal election) it is still good enough for chavismo to try to use it as a propaganda tool. It even reaches the routine hysterical paroxysms of Celia Flores, Nazional Assembly chair, whose lovely disheveled study in red is worth illustrating this red day post. After all, believe it or not, the only opposition party that has held internal "elections" is AD. PJ had some kind of layered elections and UNT is trying to put its act together on that.
But the barbs are really not directed at the opposition internal processes: all parties in Venezuela have had always a significant amount of vertical Leninism. Besides, the PSUV has no moral ground in criticizing the opposition inner democracy since the PSUV does not even respect formal democracy as we saw what happened after the 2008 regional elections. Any opposition leader can quickly refresh people's memory on that and deflect this cheap criticism. No, the barbs have two targets: make the PSUV feel better about itself and discredit any primary process within the opposition before this one takes place. After all, we all know that the PSUV 2010 primaries will be a sham since no candidate will be allowed to run unless accepted as safe enough by Chavez. The more the reason to have at least a third of the nomination processes for 2010 settled through real primaries. Chavismo is afraid, really afraid of that.
The fun note, to discredit further the PSUV efforts at discrediting others. We have been told that the PSUV has more than 7 million members but only a little bit shy of 2,5 millions were allowed to vote today. Funny, no? What explanation? Are there first class PSUV members? Or was that 7 million a fantasy number from the start.
Anyway, Chavez and his PSUV are giving a golden opportunity for the opposition leadership to show how internal elections or primaries should be held and organized. Will they rise to the occasion?
-The end-
The first thing to know, of course, is that no matter what the results of these "elections" will be, nothing will happen without the approval of Chavez. To ensure that this is the case, that no surprise will arise, Chavez is himself the grand elector of 200 of the 772 delegates to the party congress to be held in a few weeks. And just in case he will also be the one setting the "debate" agenda. If to this you add that supposedly there are three tendencies within the PSUV fighting it out today it is safe to assume that Chavez will enjoy a very sycophantic majority in the coming congress as he will be playing whomever he wants against whomever he pleases.
Of course, no matter how flawed that internal PSUV election is (note, this is NOT about primaries for 2010, it is party internal election) it is still good enough for chavismo to try to use it as a propaganda tool. It even reaches the routine hysterical paroxysms of Celia Flores, Nazional Assembly chair, whose lovely disheveled study in red is worth illustrating this red day post. After all, believe it or not, the only opposition party that has held internal "elections" is AD. PJ had some kind of layered elections and UNT is trying to put its act together on that.But the barbs are really not directed at the opposition internal processes: all parties in Venezuela have had always a significant amount of vertical Leninism. Besides, the PSUV has no moral ground in criticizing the opposition inner democracy since the PSUV does not even respect formal democracy as we saw what happened after the 2008 regional elections. Any opposition leader can quickly refresh people's memory on that and deflect this cheap criticism. No, the barbs have two targets: make the PSUV feel better about itself and discredit any primary process within the opposition before this one takes place. After all, we all know that the PSUV 2010 primaries will be a sham since no candidate will be allowed to run unless accepted as safe enough by Chavez. The more the reason to have at least a third of the nomination processes for 2010 settled through real primaries. Chavismo is afraid, really afraid of that.
The fun note, to discredit further the PSUV efforts at discrediting others. We have been told that the PSUV has more than 7 million members but only a little bit shy of 2,5 millions were allowed to vote today. Funny, no? What explanation? Are there first class PSUV members? Or was that 7 million a fantasy number from the start.
Anyway, Chavez and his PSUV are giving a golden opportunity for the opposition leadership to show how internal elections or primaries should be held and organized. Will they rise to the occasion?
-The end-
Sunday, November 15, 2009
The 2010 National Assembly vote in Venezuela: the general picture
It is time to wrap up this first series of post on the elections coming for 2010. First, we can feel a certain shift in the air maybe indicating we might be at the edge of significant changes; thus it is a good time to take stock. Second, the end of the year is coming up fast, less time and need to write while I expect significant news to take place as Chavez will not stop the campaign through the holidays; and for once the opposition might not. Thus this updated summary of the preceding texts, including recent developments. I am just going to address a few of the points made before, in no particular order.
The date. We have a potential date although this is not officially published. The CNE has proposed a mid to late September vote. The government cannot wait any longer than September. It knows that it cannot dispose of as much income to buy votes as in previous elections and thus has decided to compensate in part this by putting the vote at the end of the school vacation period, when supposedly the anti Chavez middle class votes the least. Not that this would change significantly the results but an increased middle class abstention could give chavismo an extra couple of seats (Caracas? Valencia?). This is the type of calculation chavismo has been forced to do as its situation deteriorates more and more. Also vacation time implies less electricity consumption, less water consumption, less traffic, less reminders of how failed chavismo is at managing the country. There is no accident at how suddenly electricity and water collapsed last October as a national crisis: summer holiday neglect following years of neglect followed by a return to business activity. That is why instead of holding the vote as it should be scheduled, late November or early December, we will vote in mid September.
No other election. This series was tagged in plural because I was going to write an additional post covering the elections to the local councils and the essential election for a new mayor of Maracaibo (plus some other overdue). But the CNE seems willing to violate electoral law once again and put off to 2011 the elections for municipal councils, an amazing two years overdue!!!!! The other votes are not decided yet but all seems to point out that they will also be put AFTER the September election. The interpretation is very easy: chavismo has decided that the lone priority they have is to retaining a majority at the National Assembly. Failure to do so will imply opposition financial control , the possibility of inquiry into the dark accounting practices of the regime AND a reverse on some measures of the regime such as its strangle hold over the media. This simply cannot be allowed. If the elections for the Assembly are lost, it really does not matter for chavismo whether it wins councils and Maracaibo: Chavez will be forced into making his final coup or he will be tossed over by some disgruntled faction of the PSUV. The decision seems to have been taken that nothing can distract from the National Assembly campaign, the essential key if Chavez to install a system that will make it impossible for the opposition to challenge him in 2012.
Chavismo problems. Over the last couple of months chavismo has been going from bad to worse and for the first time since 2002 Chavez numbers start appearing in some polls below 50%. What is worse the measured index of dissatisfaction of these polls suggests that the slide down of Chavez could keep going on to very dangerous levels. The reason is very simple: chavismo and Chavez have done to themselves what nobody so far was able to do: open a weak flank. This was courtesy of years of neglect, of a deliberate refusal by the incompetence of chavismo to follow the sensible plans laid for the country before he came to power, plans that were simply taking into account the natural growth population to build the necessary infrastructure to provide water and electricity (and other services, by the way, which are more time bombs in waiting). It is very difficult for any government to recover ten lost years in a few months, and much more difficult when a government is led by a bunch of sycophantic corrupt and incompetent officials. Chavismo already on the defensive since the mid of the year has had suddenly to change its electoral strategy. The first try was the “war” with Colombia, trying to exploit cheap nationalism, the well known last refuge of the scoundrels. So far, it seems not to work very well unless we see this as an excuse to purge chavismo before the end of the year and made it more radical for next year campaign. We could see the surprise ousting of the more corrupt leg of the triumvirate now in charge: Diosdado Cabello who seems to be given more and more apparent power so as to make him take the fall for all of Chavez failures. This could be the big end of December move of Chavez. That “war”objectives could also include the ousting of Tachira opposition governor.
Opposition growing pains. We seem to be having good news from the opposition leadership. It seems, with still quite a few screeches, that the political leadership has understood that unity is the only way to go, no matter how low chavismo numbers fall, a number that no one in his or her sane judgment should expect to go below 40% before September 2010. As we have seen with 45% chavismo can still take a National Assembly majority against a more or less unified opposition, and trash a divided opposition with as little as 40% of the vote. The problem of course is how to reach the holy unity grail. Small steps seem to be taken. That the date appears to be finally set has brought forward opposition united candidacies and electoral programs due dates Easter 2010. That is, the opposition has 5 months to put its act together, no time to waste with a Chavez in brutal campaign mode already. This is probably part of the explanation of Leopoldo Lopez finally sitting down with the other guys. We do not know exactly why it took so long, but it seems that the points he raised were at least partially valid, shook a little bit the “establishment” and the opposition realized that he was better inside than outside. On the other hand, Lopez starting his own brand new party might have realized that he could not take upon himself the possible blame for division. With AD, PJ, UNT, PODEMOS, COPEI and now Lopez TU, all the big players are talking together. The minor to very minor ones should now realize that a back seat at the table is better than no seat as the mood of the country will not favor the “saboteurs”. Still, let’s not open the champagne bottles, we will only be able to breathe more freely next year if the current trend persists during the Xmas holiday.
The campaign platform. Discussing the opposition unity brings us to discuss the program and nomination process. If the chavismo campaign platform is perfectly predictable (Chavez 365/365) the opposition is less so. The first trap is to avoid presenting an agenda that looks more like a presidential agenda rather than a legislative agenda. The ambitions growing with Chavez decreasing numbers could play a bad trick on the opposition. And yet, a simple legislative agenda can be quite powerful if well presented, and for one very simple reason: a legislative agenda does not require as much money as an executive agenda would and thus can be presented as promises that can actually be fulfilled. In addition the erratic nature of chavismo these days could probably bring it to make mistakes politically costly. For example the Colombia whiplash can be used as a peace platform for the opposition. A few examples of possible points below, in no particular order:
A) Respect for human rights: an amnesty law, a return to freedom of information through a reform of CONATEL, a pledge to force the regime to manage jails better and build more, etc…
B) Decentralization: point out that the centralization of Chavez has brought the current disasters. Offer to force part of the revenue to be distributed directly to state governors to fix on their own water and electrical distribution (advantage: puts on the touch chavista local officials to content with Caracas taking decisions, thus diminishing their effectiveness on the campaign trail)
C) Finance control: offer public hearings on where the money went; promise inquiry on specific items such as electricity, water and weapon purchases
D) No more gifts: offer that no credits will be voted for the ALBA (or anyone else) unless reciprocity is ensured. All Venezuelan money stays in Venezuela
E) Administrative control: a varied lot. For example, offer that part of the Misiones should be controlled by governors pointing out that a majority are chavistas and as such should be working harder at ruling their states
F) Security: promise to vote more funds so that mayors and governors get better police condition, under a national law as an umbrella for police quality but not police control. Those funds will be taken from planned weapon purchases
G) Proclaim again Venezuela general neutrality and announce that the next National Assembly will condemn officially the FARC as terrorists, thus voiding in part any alleged ill intention of the US and Colombia toward Venezuela
H) Reverse laws attempting private property. This should actually be the only true economical issue discussed. Promise to allow the long established city squatters (ranchos) to obtain genuine property rights as well as the peasants installed on the seized lands. Make illegal land grabbing while stating that the government stole all that the productive land and we are importing more food than ever
I) AND AVOID for the time being complex issues such as the new education law, the need to revamp the judicial system, the refurbish the Central Bank, etc… There is a need to keep it simple, addressing the current pressing problems of the population
The nomination process. To conclude this post, this item in three sub categories.
The list vote. There are 52 representatives to be elected through a list vote, a vote at large at state level (roughly 33% of seats). These should be nominated by a grand agreement between all political parties. The “safe seats”, about 20-25, those that the opposition is almost sure of winning, should be given to established politicians or public figures that will require to campaign less for their seats and that would be willing and even eager to campaign for all the guys running in more difficult districts. That is, we are talking here of the creation of a super campaign team of at least 20 national or regional figures, a team illustrating the diversity and the unity of the opposition at least to preserve democracy.
District votes. The problem is not solved here. The CNE will announce as late as possible the gerrymandering it is preparing. Thus the opposition should decide as soon as possible a nomination process that will ensure a speedy nomination once the CNE speaks. This would be a mix of primaries, political agreements and polls, depending on the area. It has been pointed out to me that the opposition has a major conceptual flaw: it accepts to run under the CNE rule but it will not accept to have the CNE run its primaries. I was also told that primaries run by the CNE would be cheaper than those run by the SUMATE or any other volunteer organization. Why not use the CNE? One thing is certain, CNE or not, gerrymandering or not, by January the opposition must have at least the method on how to chose a candidate. Whichever decisions are reached there should be a significant amount of primaries involved to motivate the electorate. I probably will revisit that issue soon.
La tarjeta unica (the single ballot card). This is in my opinion a running canard that looks more like a publicity stunt for some than anything truly serious. In Venezuela elections carry a lot of different ballots, sometimes a dizzying variety, even for a single candidate. There is that theory mostly pushed by Caracas politicians that a single ballot would do wonders to present an image of unity. Usually the less likely the politician is to receive votes, the more s/he defends the single ballot card. The counter argument of course is that not only a candidate can be supported by many parties, but there is a need for political parties to count themselves, something that can happen only at election time. Duh! The solution is actually simple: if the district representatives are going to be picked up through primaries then the general election can be carried through single ballot card. Also, since each state has list representatives, those can be voted through multiple ballot cards and the counting takes place at the state level. This evolving “dogma” needs to be addressed fast as I am afraid that some could use it to sabotage the opposition effort.
Conclusion. In spite of all the difficulties existing right now the election is for the opposition to lose. I know that 9 months is a long time but my opinion is that the opposition will win or lose the election by Easter 2010. Any fake economic recovery that chavismo might be able to coax through Venezuelan debt impossible to pay off will take effect as of March or April. If by then the opposition has not been able to articulate a plan and a team, it will be over as enough people will simply swallow the Chavez line once again turning away from of a squabbling alternative. You read it here first, remember.
-The end-
The date. We have a potential date although this is not officially published. The CNE has proposed a mid to late September vote. The government cannot wait any longer than September. It knows that it cannot dispose of as much income to buy votes as in previous elections and thus has decided to compensate in part this by putting the vote at the end of the school vacation period, when supposedly the anti Chavez middle class votes the least. Not that this would change significantly the results but an increased middle class abstention could give chavismo an extra couple of seats (Caracas? Valencia?). This is the type of calculation chavismo has been forced to do as its situation deteriorates more and more. Also vacation time implies less electricity consumption, less water consumption, less traffic, less reminders of how failed chavismo is at managing the country. There is no accident at how suddenly electricity and water collapsed last October as a national crisis: summer holiday neglect following years of neglect followed by a return to business activity. That is why instead of holding the vote as it should be scheduled, late November or early December, we will vote in mid September.
No other election. This series was tagged in plural because I was going to write an additional post covering the elections to the local councils and the essential election for a new mayor of Maracaibo (plus some other overdue). But the CNE seems willing to violate electoral law once again and put off to 2011 the elections for municipal councils, an amazing two years overdue!!!!! The other votes are not decided yet but all seems to point out that they will also be put AFTER the September election. The interpretation is very easy: chavismo has decided that the lone priority they have is to retaining a majority at the National Assembly. Failure to do so will imply opposition financial control , the possibility of inquiry into the dark accounting practices of the regime AND a reverse on some measures of the regime such as its strangle hold over the media. This simply cannot be allowed. If the elections for the Assembly are lost, it really does not matter for chavismo whether it wins councils and Maracaibo: Chavez will be forced into making his final coup or he will be tossed over by some disgruntled faction of the PSUV. The decision seems to have been taken that nothing can distract from the National Assembly campaign, the essential key if Chavez to install a system that will make it impossible for the opposition to challenge him in 2012.
Chavismo problems. Over the last couple of months chavismo has been going from bad to worse and for the first time since 2002 Chavez numbers start appearing in some polls below 50%. What is worse the measured index of dissatisfaction of these polls suggests that the slide down of Chavez could keep going on to very dangerous levels. The reason is very simple: chavismo and Chavez have done to themselves what nobody so far was able to do: open a weak flank. This was courtesy of years of neglect, of a deliberate refusal by the incompetence of chavismo to follow the sensible plans laid for the country before he came to power, plans that were simply taking into account the natural growth population to build the necessary infrastructure to provide water and electricity (and other services, by the way, which are more time bombs in waiting). It is very difficult for any government to recover ten lost years in a few months, and much more difficult when a government is led by a bunch of sycophantic corrupt and incompetent officials. Chavismo already on the defensive since the mid of the year has had suddenly to change its electoral strategy. The first try was the “war” with Colombia, trying to exploit cheap nationalism, the well known last refuge of the scoundrels. So far, it seems not to work very well unless we see this as an excuse to purge chavismo before the end of the year and made it more radical for next year campaign. We could see the surprise ousting of the more corrupt leg of the triumvirate now in charge: Diosdado Cabello who seems to be given more and more apparent power so as to make him take the fall for all of Chavez failures. This could be the big end of December move of Chavez. That “war”objectives could also include the ousting of Tachira opposition governor.
Opposition growing pains. We seem to be having good news from the opposition leadership. It seems, with still quite a few screeches, that the political leadership has understood that unity is the only way to go, no matter how low chavismo numbers fall, a number that no one in his or her sane judgment should expect to go below 40% before September 2010. As we have seen with 45% chavismo can still take a National Assembly majority against a more or less unified opposition, and trash a divided opposition with as little as 40% of the vote. The problem of course is how to reach the holy unity grail. Small steps seem to be taken. That the date appears to be finally set has brought forward opposition united candidacies and electoral programs due dates Easter 2010. That is, the opposition has 5 months to put its act together, no time to waste with a Chavez in brutal campaign mode already. This is probably part of the explanation of Leopoldo Lopez finally sitting down with the other guys. We do not know exactly why it took so long, but it seems that the points he raised were at least partially valid, shook a little bit the “establishment” and the opposition realized that he was better inside than outside. On the other hand, Lopez starting his own brand new party might have realized that he could not take upon himself the possible blame for division. With AD, PJ, UNT, PODEMOS, COPEI and now Lopez TU, all the big players are talking together. The minor to very minor ones should now realize that a back seat at the table is better than no seat as the mood of the country will not favor the “saboteurs”. Still, let’s not open the champagne bottles, we will only be able to breathe more freely next year if the current trend persists during the Xmas holiday.
The campaign platform. Discussing the opposition unity brings us to discuss the program and nomination process. If the chavismo campaign platform is perfectly predictable (Chavez 365/365) the opposition is less so. The first trap is to avoid presenting an agenda that looks more like a presidential agenda rather than a legislative agenda. The ambitions growing with Chavez decreasing numbers could play a bad trick on the opposition. And yet, a simple legislative agenda can be quite powerful if well presented, and for one very simple reason: a legislative agenda does not require as much money as an executive agenda would and thus can be presented as promises that can actually be fulfilled. In addition the erratic nature of chavismo these days could probably bring it to make mistakes politically costly. For example the Colombia whiplash can be used as a peace platform for the opposition. A few examples of possible points below, in no particular order:
A) Respect for human rights: an amnesty law, a return to freedom of information through a reform of CONATEL, a pledge to force the regime to manage jails better and build more, etc…
B) Decentralization: point out that the centralization of Chavez has brought the current disasters. Offer to force part of the revenue to be distributed directly to state governors to fix on their own water and electrical distribution (advantage: puts on the touch chavista local officials to content with Caracas taking decisions, thus diminishing their effectiveness on the campaign trail)
C) Finance control: offer public hearings on where the money went; promise inquiry on specific items such as electricity, water and weapon purchases
D) No more gifts: offer that no credits will be voted for the ALBA (or anyone else) unless reciprocity is ensured. All Venezuelan money stays in Venezuela
E) Administrative control: a varied lot. For example, offer that part of the Misiones should be controlled by governors pointing out that a majority are chavistas and as such should be working harder at ruling their states
F) Security: promise to vote more funds so that mayors and governors get better police condition, under a national law as an umbrella for police quality but not police control. Those funds will be taken from planned weapon purchases
G) Proclaim again Venezuela general neutrality and announce that the next National Assembly will condemn officially the FARC as terrorists, thus voiding in part any alleged ill intention of the US and Colombia toward Venezuela
H) Reverse laws attempting private property. This should actually be the only true economical issue discussed. Promise to allow the long established city squatters (ranchos) to obtain genuine property rights as well as the peasants installed on the seized lands. Make illegal land grabbing while stating that the government stole all that the productive land and we are importing more food than ever
I) AND AVOID for the time being complex issues such as the new education law, the need to revamp the judicial system, the refurbish the Central Bank, etc… There is a need to keep it simple, addressing the current pressing problems of the population
The nomination process. To conclude this post, this item in three sub categories.
The list vote. There are 52 representatives to be elected through a list vote, a vote at large at state level (roughly 33% of seats). These should be nominated by a grand agreement between all political parties. The “safe seats”, about 20-25, those that the opposition is almost sure of winning, should be given to established politicians or public figures that will require to campaign less for their seats and that would be willing and even eager to campaign for all the guys running in more difficult districts. That is, we are talking here of the creation of a super campaign team of at least 20 national or regional figures, a team illustrating the diversity and the unity of the opposition at least to preserve democracy.
District votes. The problem is not solved here. The CNE will announce as late as possible the gerrymandering it is preparing. Thus the opposition should decide as soon as possible a nomination process that will ensure a speedy nomination once the CNE speaks. This would be a mix of primaries, political agreements and polls, depending on the area. It has been pointed out to me that the opposition has a major conceptual flaw: it accepts to run under the CNE rule but it will not accept to have the CNE run its primaries. I was also told that primaries run by the CNE would be cheaper than those run by the SUMATE or any other volunteer organization. Why not use the CNE? One thing is certain, CNE or not, gerrymandering or not, by January the opposition must have at least the method on how to chose a candidate. Whichever decisions are reached there should be a significant amount of primaries involved to motivate the electorate. I probably will revisit that issue soon.
La tarjeta unica (the single ballot card). This is in my opinion a running canard that looks more like a publicity stunt for some than anything truly serious. In Venezuela elections carry a lot of different ballots, sometimes a dizzying variety, even for a single candidate. There is that theory mostly pushed by Caracas politicians that a single ballot would do wonders to present an image of unity. Usually the less likely the politician is to receive votes, the more s/he defends the single ballot card. The counter argument of course is that not only a candidate can be supported by many parties, but there is a need for political parties to count themselves, something that can happen only at election time. Duh! The solution is actually simple: if the district representatives are going to be picked up through primaries then the general election can be carried through single ballot card. Also, since each state has list representatives, those can be voted through multiple ballot cards and the counting takes place at the state level. This evolving “dogma” needs to be addressed fast as I am afraid that some could use it to sabotage the opposition effort.
Conclusion. In spite of all the difficulties existing right now the election is for the opposition to lose. I know that 9 months is a long time but my opinion is that the opposition will win or lose the election by Easter 2010. Any fake economic recovery that chavismo might be able to coax through Venezuelan debt impossible to pay off will take effect as of March or April. If by then the opposition has not been able to articulate a plan and a team, it will be over as enough people will simply swallow the Chavez line once again turning away from of a squabbling alternative. You read it here first, remember.
-The end-
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Oppenheimer on Chavez headline addiction
Andres Oppenheimer of the Miami Herald has an excellent perspective of Chavez delirium: head line addiction. Nothing that did not appear already on blogs such as this, but it is nice to see newspapers ridiculing more and more Chavez. Then again Chavez has made his the old saying "there is no such a thing as bad publicity".
Meanwhile the Washington Post wonders whether they should take seriously the dismissal of Chavez antics by some.
-The end-
Meanwhile the Washington Post wonders whether they should take seriously the dismissal of Chavez antics by some.
-The end-
Chavez hypocrisy on electricity
Trust "El chigüire" to unmask Chavez hypocrite stands. You do not need to read Spanish, the picture by itself is enough to understand the point that rationing is not for him.
-The end-
-The end-
Post War Venezuela
I cannot claim the originality of the tile for this post: I owe it my father who I heard as early as 2004 telling us to prepare ourselves because a post Chavez era would be like a post war situation for Venezuela. Though I did sense what he meant, I did not think that we would be living in a post war atmosphere with Chavez still in office. Thus this post as homage to my prescient father.
Certainly my parents do not deserve what is going on in Venezuela today. After all they did live through Nazi occupied France, my father as a precocious teenager understanding very well what was going on. If the realities cannot be compared at all, the mood and the consequences of Chavez war on its people can well sustain the comparison with the ones that France woke up to in 1945. That is what my father clearly alludes to when he speaks of an “après guerre” coming to Venezuela. The war in all of its uncertainties is still fought on, but who knows for how long.
When I came back from my September trip I got into a rather somber mood. Not only visiting the US on a strict holiday plan allowed me to see better how the gap is deepening between Occidental civilization and chavista regression, but I came back with a respiratory illness that made me visit doctors a few times. Nothing life threatening, no swine whatever, be assured, but very annoying and debilitating nevertheless. The hours of wait to see doctors gave me a chance to think about what I had seen in the West Coast and what I found back in Caracas and San Felipe.
Venezuela indeed has entered a profound decline. The casual observer arriving at Maiquetia airport will be confronted first to a giant poster of Chavez at the immigration line, foretelling the banana republic awaiting him across the line. The second confrontation will be with the “buhoneros”, street vendors, now at the very gate of the airport exit, where the Nazional Guard has stopped any pretense at establishing a fake order, including on the chaotic traffic. Going up to Caracas on the highway you are shocked at how many holes dot such a major highway, an impression made only worse when driving through Caracas, which makes you wonder if the city has been bombed recently.
There are many things that you can observe for yourself. For example it is now obvious how Venezuela has become a fortified ghetto society. The home with an open front backyard has long ceased to exist. What is new now is the increased height of security walls, more and more topped with electric wiring. Gated streets with a guard station at the entrance are now routine, even in lower middle class neighborhoods. Less obvious but quite clear when you travel outside of Caracas is how normal it is becoming to prepare for power outages and how people have learned to live with buckets of water stored around the home since the faucets are more often dry than wet. Caracas newspapers now carry on their front page the daily shortage schedule for water. But for the rest you need to live on a day to day basis to really understand how our quality of life has degraded, at all levels, for all of us.
I had to wait until a Monday to see a doctor because now there are very few of them that receive on Friday. Any suffering you have must be treated through emergency services from Thursday to Monday. Without health insurance, or a platinum credit card to pay in advance, you will not be helped unless you arrive with your hand holding your other severed hand.
I went to fancy Clinica Metropolitana which is the closest from where I live. By 9 AM the huge parking lot is full so if you arrive later you better take a cab to go. By 10 AM the clinic is a circus, overcrowded with people at an almost unsafe level (though miraculously a semblant of hygiene is maintained!). The crowds are not anymore the “white bourgeois” of yore, now you will see even public workers sporting their red shirt themed uniforms. Most have now health insurance paid by the state, a very clear admission that Barrio Adentro 1, and 2 and 3 and whatever, have failed, are not good enough for the government to send there its very own workers! The reason why the clinic is so full is because not a single major clinic has been built in Caracas in ten years, no new major hospital has been built (except for a cardiopathy hospital for children supposedly open to all children in South America) and the existing hospitals are simply collapsing. Whoever can come up with some money goes to a private clinic; hospitals are now left for the poor, having become in practical terms poor houses. I suppose in a way it promoted racial and social integration through sickness...
Do not think that this scene is only for Caracas. I did not improve much and as such had to go see another doctor in San Felipe since I was not in any state to go back to Caracas see my first one. The diagnostic was the same, different medications were tried and finally two weeks ago I started experiencing some improvement, able to tolerate A.C. enough to go back to work a very few hours a day. But waiting for hours in the Policlinica San Felipe was equally a sobering experience: a good third of the people hanging around were local public employees, more red shirts even than in Caracas!
The Policlinica is a rather small affair compared to what you have in Caracas, but it was designed to be the top San Felipe could afford 20 years ago. At least San Felipe has been able to afford two newer private clinics, one even with a scanner, the first one. And all are equally crowded as the San Felipe hospital became under the last chavista governor one of the Venezuelan hospitals in worse shape.
A consequence is the callousness of service people now becoming the norm in Venezuela, too few services, too many people requesting it. Maybe it is more obvious in health care but go and try to get any legal papers, from an ID card to a notary legal deed: it is always a Calvary that is only too often made briefer through bribing. For example, personally, I have yet to receive my new driving license. I applied for it early this year and I am now up to my second extension of my “provisional” certificate. Paradoxically amused by the whole thing as I remember that whenever I moved within the US I got my driver license on the same day I applied for it, driving code test included.
Everything in Venezuela is now a trial, from getting health care to finding the right medicine since you need to go often to more than one pharmacy if your prescription holds three items or more. Let’s not even talk costs, as only from my Caracas visit and treatment I spent in one day the equivalent of the national monthly minimum wage.
Living is difficult in so many ways. You have always to watch for water, electricity, security. Food is not too bad lately. There is still a scarcity of many things but for some reason they seem to rotate better among stores so it is less obvious. And we all learned to purchase enough to have some stock at home of what can be stocked. We just have been adding more candles to our shopping list and bought large extra plastic cans for water storage.
There are more prayers you need to make. For example you do not want you car to break down as spare parts are increasingly hard to find. People stories of weeks with their car stopped are now a routine tale. On spare parts is where you feel the most inflation: any minor car service is now equivalent to a monthly minimum wage, even if your insurance covers part of it. Yet, it does not matter how hard you try to preserve your car, it is in danger as soon as you drive. Besides the hole poked roads there is a new increasing danger, jalopies all around you that do not even bother to make sure that their brake lights function. Nobody follows anymore the elemental norms of secure driving, and it is a rare event when you see actually a traffic cop to put some order in the chaos. Driving security is now limited, at least outside of Caracas, to police barrages set only to check out for what cars carry, and to try to extort the innocent driver stopped there for minor faults. Needless to say that day time robbery of cars, in particular during traffic congestion are climbing fast. You are stopped in a traffic jam, someone knocks at you window with a gun. What do you do?
I can keep going with this litany of all what is wrong with Venezuela today, but I am sure that the patient reader that accompanied me so far gets the point. What might not be obvious, unless you have time to meditate on it as you wait for hours in line to be served at some facility, is that this mess cannot be fixed easily. People have gotten used to it, choices have dramatically diminished, and we are now more than ever in the realm of “take it or leave it”. Just to solve any of these problems that I reported above would require a massive governmental action, well managed, focused. Take for example fixing the potholes that scar all of Venezuela roads. It would take years not only to fix them, but to build the new necessary roads now that all those inherited by Chavez have collapsed under traffic. That is true, except for one highway in Barinas, a bridge over the Orinoco, in ten years Chavez has not built a mile of the crucial roads that are required for a country which has seen its car numbers more than double. Along, none of the freight trains promised is working, nor are we expecting them to work for a few more years.
In soon ten years, Chavez not only has not built what would have been necessary for the population increase of Venezuela, but he has not maintained what was already built, letting it rot. Look for example at the deterioration of so many public buildings that reflect dramatically the deterioration of so many private buildings short of funds to do their own upkeep. The impression of general decay now floats everywhere, exacerbated often by the increasing neglect of the people who more and more throw their garbage in the street, just like that. In fact, the very few bright spots may make the decay even more obvious!
These end of year crisis are confronting us to the harsh reality that not only we might have wasted fully a decade, and the largest oil income of our history, but that we might have gotten to be worse off than what we were in 1998.
But perhaps the very worst part is the deliberate degradation of the people’s mentality, the forcing of us to live under these new circumstances while we are told that they are normal. Just last Saturday I had in San Felipe a prime example on how far people are now accepting their dependence from the regime (and yet another opportunity missed for great pictures as I was not carrying anything with me). The local governor is promoting himself ahead of the PSUV internal “elections”. Thus he organized a large subsidized food distribution show in downtown San Felipe, taking 4 blocks of 2da Avenida. On one side there were 4 large tents in red and white (logos do not show well on a red background, you know, so some white is needed). In the first tent people stood up in line until they could reach a set of chairs (plastic red, of course). There, every so often, as the line advanced, they were asked to move up to closer chairs. Then they would reach the end of the chair line and get a shopping cart and push it in front of a series of tables where duly uniformed governmental officers would allocate them goods. At the end they would still stand in line for a while until they could pay their purchases. All that time the noise of slogans of a Cuban nature even if with Venezuelan themes made sure people knew who to thank for, with the occasional interjection of a “ Patria, Socialismo o Muerte”.
Nobody seemed to mind, nor for sure would have they dared to express anything until their loot was secured.
On the other side there were hundreds of large blue plastic containers (when will they be red?). Each must contain around 200 gallons of water. And each with a white sticker, red letters, letting people know that the revolution does advance under our new chavista governor, Julio Leon Heredia. Nobody of course wondered how come the government has decided to sell blue plastic tanks instead of doing its work of building dams, digging wells and maintaining water distribution through pipes…. Forget about sanitation: I moved a year ago and already I have had to have my water reservoir cleaned twice for all the mud that comes along, in spite of all the filtering system I installed.
This is what we are at now, too many people expecting for the government to pay for their insurance, to offer them discounted food and to provide them with plastic water storage, and finding all of that perfectly normal, perhaps even desirable for some. Not realizing of course that each day the regime controls more and more their lives, their needs, their “shopping” schedule and even their bathing.
We have a whole country to rebuild, materially and morally. And to destroy it we did not need a war against another country, the war of the government against the people who voted it in was enough.
Après guerre, indeed…
-The end-
Certainly my parents do not deserve what is going on in Venezuela today. After all they did live through Nazi occupied France, my father as a precocious teenager understanding very well what was going on. If the realities cannot be compared at all, the mood and the consequences of Chavez war on its people can well sustain the comparison with the ones that France woke up to in 1945. That is what my father clearly alludes to when he speaks of an “après guerre” coming to Venezuela. The war in all of its uncertainties is still fought on, but who knows for how long.
When I came back from my September trip I got into a rather somber mood. Not only visiting the US on a strict holiday plan allowed me to see better how the gap is deepening between Occidental civilization and chavista regression, but I came back with a respiratory illness that made me visit doctors a few times. Nothing life threatening, no swine whatever, be assured, but very annoying and debilitating nevertheless. The hours of wait to see doctors gave me a chance to think about what I had seen in the West Coast and what I found back in Caracas and San Felipe.
Venezuela indeed has entered a profound decline. The casual observer arriving at Maiquetia airport will be confronted first to a giant poster of Chavez at the immigration line, foretelling the banana republic awaiting him across the line. The second confrontation will be with the “buhoneros”, street vendors, now at the very gate of the airport exit, where the Nazional Guard has stopped any pretense at establishing a fake order, including on the chaotic traffic. Going up to Caracas on the highway you are shocked at how many holes dot such a major highway, an impression made only worse when driving through Caracas, which makes you wonder if the city has been bombed recently.
There are many things that you can observe for yourself. For example it is now obvious how Venezuela has become a fortified ghetto society. The home with an open front backyard has long ceased to exist. What is new now is the increased height of security walls, more and more topped with electric wiring. Gated streets with a guard station at the entrance are now routine, even in lower middle class neighborhoods. Less obvious but quite clear when you travel outside of Caracas is how normal it is becoming to prepare for power outages and how people have learned to live with buckets of water stored around the home since the faucets are more often dry than wet. Caracas newspapers now carry on their front page the daily shortage schedule for water. But for the rest you need to live on a day to day basis to really understand how our quality of life has degraded, at all levels, for all of us.
I had to wait until a Monday to see a doctor because now there are very few of them that receive on Friday. Any suffering you have must be treated through emergency services from Thursday to Monday. Without health insurance, or a platinum credit card to pay in advance, you will not be helped unless you arrive with your hand holding your other severed hand.
I went to fancy Clinica Metropolitana which is the closest from where I live. By 9 AM the huge parking lot is full so if you arrive later you better take a cab to go. By 10 AM the clinic is a circus, overcrowded with people at an almost unsafe level (though miraculously a semblant of hygiene is maintained!). The crowds are not anymore the “white bourgeois” of yore, now you will see even public workers sporting their red shirt themed uniforms. Most have now health insurance paid by the state, a very clear admission that Barrio Adentro 1, and 2 and 3 and whatever, have failed, are not good enough for the government to send there its very own workers! The reason why the clinic is so full is because not a single major clinic has been built in Caracas in ten years, no new major hospital has been built (except for a cardiopathy hospital for children supposedly open to all children in South America) and the existing hospitals are simply collapsing. Whoever can come up with some money goes to a private clinic; hospitals are now left for the poor, having become in practical terms poor houses. I suppose in a way it promoted racial and social integration through sickness...
Do not think that this scene is only for Caracas. I did not improve much and as such had to go see another doctor in San Felipe since I was not in any state to go back to Caracas see my first one. The diagnostic was the same, different medications were tried and finally two weeks ago I started experiencing some improvement, able to tolerate A.C. enough to go back to work a very few hours a day. But waiting for hours in the Policlinica San Felipe was equally a sobering experience: a good third of the people hanging around were local public employees, more red shirts even than in Caracas!
The Policlinica is a rather small affair compared to what you have in Caracas, but it was designed to be the top San Felipe could afford 20 years ago. At least San Felipe has been able to afford two newer private clinics, one even with a scanner, the first one. And all are equally crowded as the San Felipe hospital became under the last chavista governor one of the Venezuelan hospitals in worse shape.
A consequence is the callousness of service people now becoming the norm in Venezuela, too few services, too many people requesting it. Maybe it is more obvious in health care but go and try to get any legal papers, from an ID card to a notary legal deed: it is always a Calvary that is only too often made briefer through bribing. For example, personally, I have yet to receive my new driving license. I applied for it early this year and I am now up to my second extension of my “provisional” certificate. Paradoxically amused by the whole thing as I remember that whenever I moved within the US I got my driver license on the same day I applied for it, driving code test included.
Everything in Venezuela is now a trial, from getting health care to finding the right medicine since you need to go often to more than one pharmacy if your prescription holds three items or more. Let’s not even talk costs, as only from my Caracas visit and treatment I spent in one day the equivalent of the national monthly minimum wage.
Living is difficult in so many ways. You have always to watch for water, electricity, security. Food is not too bad lately. There is still a scarcity of many things but for some reason they seem to rotate better among stores so it is less obvious. And we all learned to purchase enough to have some stock at home of what can be stocked. We just have been adding more candles to our shopping list and bought large extra plastic cans for water storage.
There are more prayers you need to make. For example you do not want you car to break down as spare parts are increasingly hard to find. People stories of weeks with their car stopped are now a routine tale. On spare parts is where you feel the most inflation: any minor car service is now equivalent to a monthly minimum wage, even if your insurance covers part of it. Yet, it does not matter how hard you try to preserve your car, it is in danger as soon as you drive. Besides the hole poked roads there is a new increasing danger, jalopies all around you that do not even bother to make sure that their brake lights function. Nobody follows anymore the elemental norms of secure driving, and it is a rare event when you see actually a traffic cop to put some order in the chaos. Driving security is now limited, at least outside of Caracas, to police barrages set only to check out for what cars carry, and to try to extort the innocent driver stopped there for minor faults. Needless to say that day time robbery of cars, in particular during traffic congestion are climbing fast. You are stopped in a traffic jam, someone knocks at you window with a gun. What do you do?
I can keep going with this litany of all what is wrong with Venezuela today, but I am sure that the patient reader that accompanied me so far gets the point. What might not be obvious, unless you have time to meditate on it as you wait for hours in line to be served at some facility, is that this mess cannot be fixed easily. People have gotten used to it, choices have dramatically diminished, and we are now more than ever in the realm of “take it or leave it”. Just to solve any of these problems that I reported above would require a massive governmental action, well managed, focused. Take for example fixing the potholes that scar all of Venezuela roads. It would take years not only to fix them, but to build the new necessary roads now that all those inherited by Chavez have collapsed under traffic. That is true, except for one highway in Barinas, a bridge over the Orinoco, in ten years Chavez has not built a mile of the crucial roads that are required for a country which has seen its car numbers more than double. Along, none of the freight trains promised is working, nor are we expecting them to work for a few more years.
In soon ten years, Chavez not only has not built what would have been necessary for the population increase of Venezuela, but he has not maintained what was already built, letting it rot. Look for example at the deterioration of so many public buildings that reflect dramatically the deterioration of so many private buildings short of funds to do their own upkeep. The impression of general decay now floats everywhere, exacerbated often by the increasing neglect of the people who more and more throw their garbage in the street, just like that. In fact, the very few bright spots may make the decay even more obvious!
These end of year crisis are confronting us to the harsh reality that not only we might have wasted fully a decade, and the largest oil income of our history, but that we might have gotten to be worse off than what we were in 1998.
But perhaps the very worst part is the deliberate degradation of the people’s mentality, the forcing of us to live under these new circumstances while we are told that they are normal. Just last Saturday I had in San Felipe a prime example on how far people are now accepting their dependence from the regime (and yet another opportunity missed for great pictures as I was not carrying anything with me). The local governor is promoting himself ahead of the PSUV internal “elections”. Thus he organized a large subsidized food distribution show in downtown San Felipe, taking 4 blocks of 2da Avenida. On one side there were 4 large tents in red and white (logos do not show well on a red background, you know, so some white is needed). In the first tent people stood up in line until they could reach a set of chairs (plastic red, of course). There, every so often, as the line advanced, they were asked to move up to closer chairs. Then they would reach the end of the chair line and get a shopping cart and push it in front of a series of tables where duly uniformed governmental officers would allocate them goods. At the end they would still stand in line for a while until they could pay their purchases. All that time the noise of slogans of a Cuban nature even if with Venezuelan themes made sure people knew who to thank for, with the occasional interjection of a “ Patria, Socialismo o Muerte”.
Nobody seemed to mind, nor for sure would have they dared to express anything until their loot was secured.
On the other side there were hundreds of large blue plastic containers (when will they be red?). Each must contain around 200 gallons of water. And each with a white sticker, red letters, letting people know that the revolution does advance under our new chavista governor, Julio Leon Heredia. Nobody of course wondered how come the government has decided to sell blue plastic tanks instead of doing its work of building dams, digging wells and maintaining water distribution through pipes…. Forget about sanitation: I moved a year ago and already I have had to have my water reservoir cleaned twice for all the mud that comes along, in spite of all the filtering system I installed.
This is what we are at now, too many people expecting for the government to pay for their insurance, to offer them discounted food and to provide them with plastic water storage, and finding all of that perfectly normal, perhaps even desirable for some. Not realizing of course that each day the regime controls more and more their lives, their needs, their “shopping” schedule and even their bathing.
We have a whole country to rebuild, materially and morally. And to destroy it we did not need a war against another country, the war of the government against the people who voted it in was enough.
Après guerre, indeed…
-The end-
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)