The campaign that reached new lows (YV-9)

The electoral campaign of 2015 in Venezuela will make it to the text books of electoral infamy. To find worst campaigning conditions you need to look into outright dictatorships of the communist type. These try to pretend that everybody gets along while folks are forced to vote for the one party state. In fascism they do not even bother with appearances which, in a way, is a tad more honest.

This silly banner says "either you agree or
I will not vote". With all colors from alleged
opposition parties. That are not, only fake
vote robbers. It started appearing 2 days
ago, a timing for distress.

But the bolivarian farce came to power through honest elections and it must retain power through elections, no matter how rigged those are. There must be an appearance that there is an electoral contest. That is why opposition public meetings are still authorized, even though shot down as necessary least they become too large.

Recapping all the electoral treachery is too long for this blog. Besides, the OAS General Secretary has done a magnificent job out of it, through an 18 pages letter to the Venezuelan Electoral board, CNE. Let's just say that you can find it all, from gerrymandering, to funding abuse and even false electoral propaganda of political parties using opposition candidates to promote their own ones, going as far as finding perfectly unknown assholes that happen to have the same name as the opposition candidate. In other places the amount of political posters of unknown parties dwarfs the posters of the PSUV or opposition candidates in numbers and size (see below). We all know of course that the regime itself is financing these efforts trying to pry away vote by vote from the opposition electorate. They have no sense of ridicule.


But when all is said and done, that excess of cheating is nothing new, it has been tried everywhere else although not to that extent in Venezuela, and in the end may turn out to be counterproductive. The strongest electoral campaign will always flounder when the voter has no food nor medicine for its kids. Polls in a rare unanimity give the opposition at the very least 15 points ahead of the regime.

Yet, what will make this electoral campaign truly memorable is that it illustrated in the most cruel fashion the vileness that chavismo has descended into. I, for one, am completely bemused that there are people with some democratic inkling that could support a regime campaigning in such extreme ways. There is a simple explanation, chavismo has stopped long ago being a democratic movement, If it ever was one. From political prisoners, to the insults uttered against opposition respectability, reaching actually shootings of opposition rallies, for that you need to go to Myanmar or the like for comparison. With the provision that Myanmar is actually improving while we may still become a gulag civil war country.

The international outrage has been such that you can only find minimum lip service support for the regime in a scarce number of countries. The democratic countries? None supports the regime anymore. In fact, for the first time, there is actually a country ready not to recognize the Venezuelan election if on Sunday it sees worse than what it has been so far. And that country, Argentina, may be what many other countries are waiting for as the excuse to agree that Venezuela's regime is beyond the pale.

So there you have, a campaign for the history books.
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I have not seen such a concentration of posters for any candidate, PSUV or MUD like the ones you see below for the disgraceful William Ojeda. He claims to be a moderate thinking opposition but he is also the PSUV candidate. Yet, you would be hard pressed to find a single PSUV poster anywhere with Ojeda...

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Note to Obama and Santos: appeasing thugs NEVER works

The Venezuela-Colombian border crisis should have been a fantastic opportunity to put the Venezuelan narco-regime on notice. Instead it serves as show case on how the appeasement policies of Obama and Santos are sinking fast.

The crisis was an absolutely artificial creation of the Venezuelan regime, increasingly taxed by its faults. As polls plummet for the regime when crucial elections are scheduled for December 6, this one has done all what it can to sabotage them. One offensive was to go straight ahead and jail major opposition figures, bar from running other, gerrymander further the districts, increase censorship and try to bankrupt the scant remaining free press. Elections? Sure! Just try to campaign! However it was an uphill battle to regain the favor of its electors, the only real way to win elections. Since the economy has tanked there is only one option left to rekindle the love of the chavista voter: chauvinistic nationalism, redundancy intended.

First there was a renewed anti US anti Obama drive. This one floundered when Havana and Washington started real talks and petered out at the recent OAS general assembly when Maduro got to see Obama without cameras for a brief moment, long enough for Obama to talk him down.

It seems thus that the "millions" of anti Obama signatures "freely collected" and validated without scruples by the "electoral authorities" were not enough to raise polls for a durable hold. So Maduro sought a conflict with Guyana over maritime and territorial claims. The only result of that came with a further loss of the Venezuelan case; and that the supposedly meek supporters of Venezuela in CARICOM went Guyana way without batting an eyelash. Isolation is thy name, Maduro.

Having been defeated in the imaginary northern border with the US of A and the Eastern border of Guyana there were only two borders left. The one in the South with Brazil is far and dicey although it seems the regime will try something. But the Western border with Colombia was ripe with existing excuses, or fertile grounds to plant new ones.

There are all sorts of theories on how the pretext came about. Some say that it all started from a rivalry between two narco-gangs in Venezuela, the one of the "Soles" and the one of "Guajira", both pointed out as being at least partially controlled by different wings of the army. Others say that it was a mere rivalry between gangs controlling the heavy contraband system towards Colombia, courtesy of the artificially deflated prices of Venezuelan goods. Others advance that it was a way to get rid of Tachira governor rumored to be in talks with "transition" proposals. Some even go as far as saying the whole show is just to put pressure on Santos who may extradite to the US compromising witnesses of the narco-regime in Caracas. None of these pretexts exclude the others, by the way.

Clearly, something as crazed as that, with damning images of human rights abuses as Colombians in Venezuela are rudely expelled when not leaving in a hurry motu proprio, should have been a bonus, a golden opportunity for Colombian and US diplomacy to read a writ to Venezuela. Unfortunately the errors of Santos and Obama policies toward Venezuela's regime are now paid, most likely under Cuban direction. Which have been these mistakes?

Obama's mistakes come from opening to Cuba without proper reciprocity.  Thinking that making the first step toward a totalitarian regime will bring concessions is a mistake that the West should have learned once and for all in 1938 while drinking beer in Munich. Certainly I approved of Obama's initiatives since everything else tried before by the US has failed; more by lack of will than actual vices or virtues of any legislation. But one thing is to approve the initial gesture, another thing is to approve the mechanism chosen. The result is that as soon as Cuba realized that the big bucks were not coming fast the Castro's regime started increasing repression and moving its pieces elsewhere. Extortion is the natural state for these people and that Obama and Kerry thought it would be different this time around is simply bedeviling.

The second mistake was sending Shannon to discuss with Maduro and Cabello without anything in exchange. Or so it seems so far. True, it is supposed that the release of half a dozen of political prisoners would be a result of that, along the call for elections which was suspiciously delayed. But the released prisoners are under house arrest and suffer all sorts of impediments while elections can be cancelled even on election day. The real result of these "negotiations" is that thug in chief, Diosdado Cabello, pointed out by many as a drug capo, feels vindicated and now indispensable. So as any good thug would do he has increased his attacks on people who dare criticize him, has decided to bankrupt once and for all the remaining free newspapers, and more. So much for Shannon effectiveness.

Colombia's president, Santos, mistakes started 5 years ago when he "befriended Chavez".  It has been downhill since. Chavez under a reprieve as Uribe's parting shot was exposing all FARC training camp inside Venezuela, played nice and stroked Santos ego in that he could indeed bring the FARC to serious negotiations after having been the Uribe's defense minister in charge of blowing them out. Which he nearly did, by the way and may have been able to complete had he wanted to. Under the excuse that Venezuela's role was crucial to the eventual success of Havana's Santos-FARC talks, the Santos administration made all sorts of concessions to the Venezuelan regime, most despicably by handing over to Caracas drug kingpins and political exiles.

Sure enough the FARC is playing Santos through and though. Its first success was to force Santos into a difficult reelection. This conservative, liberal right president has had to ally himself to the fading left of Colombia to get reelected and thus he has unnecessarily promoted its recovery. After reelection the FARC has become even more belligerent, and now it is trying to use the border crisis offering itself as the best guarantor against contraband and the alleged paramilitary infiltration inside Venezuela, as if Venezuela was not the main promoter of paramilitary groups like the colectivos, pranes .....

How can Santos and his ever more idiotic looking foreign minister Holguin whose appeasing smiles and seduction to Maduro are now blowing up to her face have lost the political coup offered to them on a silver tray?

First, the delayed response. Uribe was promptly at the border with Venezuela while Holguin sought a "meeting" with the Venezuelan foreign minister, the insufferable hack sister of Caracas mayor and inventor of all electoral frauds. While Holguin was giving Rodriguez a propaganda platform to accuse Colombia in its own country, the images of Colombians wading the river Tachira with their scarce belongings made front pages.

Santos waited for a week to go to the border and this late in the game he had to go populist and offer all sorts of goodies to calm down the natives. But it was too late, Colombian public opinion was united, and not around Santos. Even ex president Gaviria questioned the participation of Colombia to fakes like UNASUR who clearly do not wish to offend whatsoever the susceptibility of Maduro and co.  To add insult to injury Maduro kept giving fake handouts in Venezuela, declared falsely that scarcity was over thanks to his policies in Tachira, threatened to push the border blockade all along the Venezuelan border and flew to Vietnam. Cabello on his own decided to stir a little bit of trouble with the Brazil border attacking garimpeiros as if did not know they  had been creating ecological devastation since Chavez came to office!

I think that we are assisting to the undoing of Obama and Santos foreign schemes. I, for one, dearly hope that this is all part of a master plan to muzzle once and for all the rogue regimes of Havana and Caracas. But I am not holding my breath whatsoever.

Luckily for Santos and Obama, they do not have to worry about reelection anymore. Others will sort out the debris.

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Masochist Felipe Gonzalez goes to Venezuela (and he has followers)

And he certainly found all the sadist he can wish for inside chavismo. Since Gonzalez announced he will volunteer to be in the defense team of Leopoldo Lopez and Antonio Ledezma the improprieties thrown at him, live on television preferably, can only be matched by the constant character assassination on these two prisoners.

With Europe behind?

It is indeed rather horrendous to watch on Venezuelan state TV how these people are excoriated, without any right to reply, not even with the courtesy of having a journalist exposing distortedly their point of view. In fact it is going to the point that RT (Russia Today) and TeleSur make joint "documentaries" on the world aggression against Venezuela and Russia. Forget Glasnost, welcome back Der schwarze Kanal.

The source of all that anger is that ex premier Gonzalez of Spain, the one that did the most to bring Spain tot he XXI century standards has decided to join the defense team of Leopoldo Lopez and Antonio Ledezma (and by implication of all political prisoners). And he has been joined by other heavy weights already: former Brazil president Cardoso, former Peru president Garcia, former Mandela's lawyer and Canadian justice minister Colter. I suspect the list will grow.

What gives here? Clearly these people are in the retirement stage of their lives, have not exercised their bar skills in decades and do not have a Venezuelan law license. The answer is elsewhere though I doubt it has reached the dim brain of foreign minister Delcy Rodriguez who apparently takes seriously the idea of Felipe Gonzalez speaking in court. She even told him ot get another job.

What Maduro and our girl Delcy (probably the worst foreign minster of chavismo, and the competition is tough) fail to understand is that the thinking world is saying two things; 1) we are getting tired of this brutal bolivarian farce and 2) it is time that Latin America does something on this respect. After all, I can hardly imagine former heads of government Gonzalez, Cardoso, Piñera, Pastrana, Calderon, Garcia, Sanguinetti, Lagos acting without the knowledge of their government. Gonzalez has actually received the formal support of Spain's PP and PSOE. And Spain of all these countries is the one that has most to lose, investment wise, following explicit threats made to Spain business.

I personally think that Maduro should pay very close attention to these simple words from Gonzalez in an interview with a Colombian network:
"Sé los esfuerzos que se hacen desde la Unasur, ahora bien, son francamente insuficientes"
I know of the efforts made from UNASUR, however they are frankly insufficient.

Translation: Gonzalez is NOT telling the UNASUR to do more, he is telling Maduro that the UNASUR is going to do more. There are countries that can stomach only so much; Colombia, Peru, Chile, Paraguay and even the incoming Uruguay president. Brasil's Dilma has enough trouble on her own to defend Maduro and stop a planned visit by Cardoso and Brazilian Senators to Lopez's jail. Guyana, Ecuador and Bolivia are soon not going to be enough as Argentina support is probably doomed by the end of the year when Cristina does not want her heir to be burdened in the campaign defending Venezuela's excesses.

Now we just have to wait for the spectacle of the regime forcibly pushing back in the airplane Gonzalez or Cardoso. Will Maduro do what not even Pinochet dared to do?.... I am afraid that they are that crazy, which is good as it will speed up the end.

Por eso esperaba con la carita empapada
a que llegaras con rosas, con mil rosas para mí,
porque ya sabes que me encantan esas cosas
que no importa si es muy tonto, soy así.
y aún me parece mentira que se escape mi vida
imaginando que vuelves a pasarte por aquí,
donde los viernes cada tarde, como siempre,
la esperanza dice "quieta, hoy quizás sí..."

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A thank you note to President Barak Obama and Senator Marco Rubio

I suppose that it will seem weird to read that I am thanking at the same time both sides of US political divide. Or that, for that matter, I am picking Senator Rubio over, say, Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. But please, bear with me, those will be, at the end, mere details.

What you have achieved in Venezuela, the Senator and his allies by forcing passage of a sanction law against Human Rights violators in Venezuela, and the President by finally applying it to 7 serious cases (and more to come?), is quite remarkable even if right now the casual observer may think it to be a diplomatic disaster for the US. Like many an historical good and well intentioned initiative from the US this one came out in a rather clunky presentation and on the surface seems to have united Latin America around its atavic anti US posture. Some even say that Maduro is reinforced, that the opposition received a patriotic blow that could endanger the electoral results of this year. All this is irrelevant.


First, no matter what the US did in recent weeks, its influence on Venezuelan elections is near nil. These will be rigged, if held at all. That the US may be offering an excuse to Maduro's regime to cancel the election is just that, an excuse for Maduro who probably had 10 other excuses in the waiting. One cannot bend to the foul winds of excuses.

Second, that this has united Latin America around Venezuela and against the US is a non sequitur. Just as in the US the far right used anti USSR rhetoric, and then anti gay rhetoric for fund raising, so keeps doing all of Latin America when convenient with anti US positions. Even your supposed ally, Colombia with president Santos, has certainly not rushed forward to offer himself as a mediator in your dispute with Venezuela. Resentment and envy will magnify for the foreseeable future any historical grievance, justified or not, against the US. It is a fact of life, no matter what the US does, it will be ALWAYS too much or too little, NEVER just right.

The fact of the matter here is that as long as Latin America does not decide to deal with the chavista monster inside that hey have been enabling there is nothing the US can do to help. And if right now they are jumping at you it is because they do not like to have their faces rubbed into their stinky mess. They all know that in the end the US will be proven right, and thus they do all what they can to push you aside. And they will continue and will do so until the whole thing explodes in their face. This week, for example, they elected Almagro for OAS secretary, who promises to work even harder than outgoing Insulza did at degrading the OAS to below nothingness. But trust me, the US will have the last laugh. Then again I am silly, you probably know that already.

But back to Venezuela and the successes that you have already achieved and that nobody seems to be noticing except a few trained Cassandras like me.

On the regime side you have exposed its crassness to levels that even myself find surprising. Forcing school students, even elementary school students, to sign a petition against President Obama executive order to remove US visas to a few crooks, abusers and narco traffickers, is a good candidate for the annals of "ridicule in fascism". Many of these kids belong to a hugely dysfunctional education system and thus may not know anything about the US but McDonald and TV cartoons.  A limited knowledge in the best of cases to take such a transcendental political stand. There have been more pressures from the regime to force people to support its cause, but after the one about school kids signing there is no point in discussing these other psychological crimes.

I, for one, suspect that many a parent that was sitting on the fence will secretly be upset at the manipulation of their kid and may now come down from that fence sooner than later.

But on the opposite side you scored big, really big. There has been a clear divide exposed inside the opposition reactions. On one side there has been a minority of principled leaders that have not been afraid to state that the US action is justified, that the 7 (and more to come?) that were banned from any type of intercourse with the US are indeed a danger. A danger because indeed they are human right violators (promoting immigration to the US?). A danger because their money laundering operations can only bring to the US Venezuelan corruption. A danger because Venezuela has become a narco traffic highway.

What is sad, really sad, is that a larger sector of the opposition has chosen to either remain silent or play the regime's game of pretending that this visa removal is actually a direct intervention into our internal affairs. I even heard the argument that if you do ban a criminal from going to the US then you can ban anyone that looks crossly at you. Not one of them, of course, demands investigations inside Venezuela of those 7 to prove the US decision wrong... they do not even question that one of them was immediately named interior minister! Cheap patriotism at its worst.

I think that exposing this divide is an excellent thing. If by any chance elections are indeed held; if by any chance, no matter how biased toward the regime the election is, the opposition were to win; even if by any chance UNASUR would find some guts to demand to Maduro that at least his electoral cheating is not that obvious, the winning side will implode fast. Nothing less than the secretary of a large opposition group has his relatives involved in all sorts of business deals with the regime. Nothing less than an opposition governor is positioning himself as the regime's choice to lead the opposition. For too many inside the opposition the goal is to seek an elected job so that they can share some of the loot with the regime. Making the necessary painful changes? No way, Jose!

In short what I am stating is that the Presidential order to ban 7 crooks from the US has revealed that the regime is in a move that may include methods that would make the Prince of Salina proud (Il Gattopardo). Change something, give the opposition some stuff, so that the core of power (and freedom from judicial prosecution) remains in the hands of the regime. Whether this move is real is irrelevant: we know now that there are enough inside the opposition willing to play a game that will prolong Venezuela's agony.

That is why I hope that you will keep a steady hand, that you will not cave into the ridiculous hand wringing of some morally corrupt leaders of the sub continent (a sub well deserved these days). After all you do hold the master card, the one that has the cash that Cuba needs to survive though a transition that has started, even if due to old age. Play that card well and without firing a shot, without decreeing the faintest embargo, the house of cards of chavismo (and its collaborationist opposition) will crumble faster than expected.

My deep appreciation to President Obama, Senator Rubio, Congresswoman Ros-Lethinen and others that have shown they know better (on Venezuela), even if they do not express it in unison. No matter what mistakes some say you are making, you are on the right track.

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