And the year starts with a bang

Today the National Assembly sessions for 2017 started, without the regime dissolving it. Actually chavismo representatives attended though they denounced that the Assembly was illegal, and that they would not even bother naming their whip. The chair for this year sessions is Julio Borges, replacing Ramos Allup. In his inaugural speech he took no gloves. He said that the objective of the Assembly was to find a way to get rid of the terrible government of Nicolas Maduro. And he demanded that the army faced up to its responsibilities: either support Maduro and its narco state, going down with him in infamy, or force him to accept elections and restore constitutional rule. Borges could have not been any clearer, and challenged the regime just as this one named the most leftist, castroite, communist narko cabinet since 1998.

So let's see what this all means.

But first, a little summary of what is the legal role of the Assembly now, and what the vice president of Venezuela is good for. (1)

The TSJ high court of Venezuela has ruled that the National Assembly is working outside the law because it has recognized the election of three representatives of Amazonas state whose election has been challenged. I am not going into the legalese here. Suffice to say that the election has been held thirteen months ago and the TSJ has yet to rule about the validity of the election. In no democracy such a delay in deciding an election is acceptable. Most democracies can hold by-elections in a matter of weeks, and correcting the electoral problem, like reviewing voter registry, does not take more than an extra month or so. There is absolutely no excuse for these by elections not to have been held by June 2016. The trick here is that as long as the validity of that election is not decided then the National Assembly does not have the 2/3 majority needed for some laws since the TSJ does not recognize the Amazonas representatives EVEN THOUGH they refuse to rule on their election. But the TSJ goes further than the 2/3 requirement: it is an excuse to throw out any legislation passed by the Assembly.

In short, the regime has no interest in settling the electoral issue since it is a perfect excuse to overthrow any action the Assembly may vote. It has nothing to do with democracy, it is all about retaining power even though the people has decided other wise on December 6.

As such the challenge speech of Borges is very simple to explain: since the regime will not recognize the Assembly under any circumstance, since the regime will not accept an electoral solution, then the only thing left is to challenge and force the regime to go to the logical conclusion of its totalitarian nature and dissolve the Assembly once and for all. Or quit. There is no dialogue, no nothing. The regime made it an either or situation.

In case you do not get it yet, it means that the Assembly is getting ready to organize protest all time, everywhere until it finally calls for the application of article 350 of the constitution which gives people the right not to recognize branches of government that do not follow the constitution. Yes, that crazy provision exists and will surely lead us to civil war.

The other thing in this game of thrones is the vice presidency. As of January 11, who ever has been APPOINTED without an election to the office of the vice president will become the automatic successor of Maduro if something were to happen to him. Otherwise the office of vice president of Venezuela is not even comparable to the one of prime minster in a parliamentary system. The Venezuelan Vice President is merely a super minister that takes care of the shop when the president is busy with something, like a trip overseas. The vice can be named and removed at will. The vice is, well, a bureaucrat who just becomes important after the president passes the 4 year mark of the 6 year term. Hence the importance this time around of Tareck El Aissami appointment yesterday. (2)

Putting Tareck at that positon has several political meanings. One is that the radical wing seems to have won the game inside chavismo and there is is only the military to stop them. Or so we are asked to believe. Another is that Tareck is second only to Diosdado Cabello in the repulsiveness factor. That is, Maduro tells us that we should let him serve his last two years otherwise Tareck will be the president. A sick game of wolf blackmail. Yet a third reading is that the regime is so exhausted, so discredited that those left willing to serve are basically the psychopaths. As such this reading is that the regime has decided to kill to stay in office. As much as necessary.

In all of these readings Tareck is merely the representative of a faction and we do not know for sure how much power he actually has inside chavismo. One thing we do not need to fool ourselves with: as a governor of Aragua he has demonstrated that he does not know how to manage a state. Managing a country he cannot. Tareck has only being good at creating militas, paramilitary organization and, well, organized crime. There is a reason for him to be on the DEA lists. He leaves his Aragua state as the most dangerous state in the country, the one where colectivos and pranes rule more than he does, And he probably is their ally since he cannot control them at this point, even if he wanted to.

Think a second about the problems the regime faces now. Financially its budget is illegal and whomever lends money to Maduro risks not to be payed back once chavismo is booted out. But even if you were to consider lending money because the regime makes you an offer you got to consider, who is going to sit down with a vice president like Tareck? Do you really want to be pictured shaking hand with somebody who someday may be wearing an orange uniform?

The regime knows that, but it also has realized that it is too deep in shit and that might as well learn to live in autarky like the Castros do in Cuba. All there eat shit or nothing, but all are under control. That is the advice that Cuba has been giving the regime for years, we are just reaching the final implementation stage when people like me will have to cave in for food or leave the country.

In other words it does not matter who the vice president is for international purposes: only what this one will do at home matters. Hence the reckless nomination of Tareck (and some of those along).

You thus need to understand this to appreciate fully the gamble that Borges put in front today. These actions of the regime are more signs of desperate weakness. But it is when a rabid dog is cornered that it is the most dangerous. Yet, you do need to corner that dog before people are hurt.

If the year starts with such drama I do not want to think about what awaits us for the next 51 weeks.

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1) constitutionally the session period for the National Assembly is January to December, In January a chair and its assistants are named for the year. this is supposed to take place on January 5, Then about a week or two later the president needs to go and give the state of the union speech. The rest of the year has recesses, etc, with a delegation of the Assembly to seat during recess in case of.

2) the first 4 years of the presidential term the vice president replaces the president if this one ceases his functions. But it is as a caretaker, for little bit more than a month. Thus him being appointed is not a major issue, But after the 4th year, it is.

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So? Can we all agree on the D word?

This is kind of a melancholy post. For years now I have been calling this a dictatorship. It took sometime to start seeing it expressed in the foreign press. And even as I type there are some in Venezuela or overseas (I am looking at you, Zapatero just for today's denialist) that still refuse to use the D word, expecting who knows what leniency from who knows where.


For me the D word applies since Chavez closed Radio Caracas in 2007. Or if you want a more material date you can use early 2013 when the constitutional coup of the moment allowed Maduro to become Chavez successor. And many other moments you may prefer. It really does not matter much, the dictatorial nature of the regime has been obvious from the start, from the very first social program of Chavez "Plan Bolivar 2000" that established the Venezuelan army as a discretionary manager of public money, and thus corruption.

I remember it all. Try me.

This year the dictatorship has been forced to become more frontal, more classical. Until this year the excuse that Venezuela was an autocratic regime and not a dictatorship was that the opposition did manage some electoral victories, that there were still an opposition paper here and there, albeit on trial. Etc. But all those were mere excuses. For the left there was no way that the beloved populist could have generated such a monstrously corrupt and inefficient system.  For the right it was that declaring Venezuela to be a dictatorship would mean taking action for which democrats seem to have lost the taste for, and for quite a while now. The last outrage and successful international take, if I remember well, was against Fujimori who in my book is not any worse than Chavez, and certainly less calamitous for the general welfare of the people. Honduras and Paraguay were mere side shows where the changes eventually prevailed because, well, these changes had a true legal foundation.

But never was Chavez to be sternly criticized until Argentina's Macri made it to office. And yet, with more bark than bite so far.

But now things have become unacceptable and Venezuela is preparing to be suspended from Mercosur in a little bit more than a month while the OAS may suddenly decided to make a concrete Democratic Chart application. Only Erdogan receives Maduro.

Since last December the regime has proceded to the following:
*Using the judicial power to block almost all actions from the National Assembly
*Rule through a state of emergency system bypassing any legal control
*Go through a wave of arrestations and creation of political prisoners without any legal supervision, with "evidence" planted directly by the people performing the arrest
*Sue the last two remaining national daily papers
*Block any control activity that the National Assembly has in the constitution
*Suspend any election, going as far as saying that elections were not an important right
*Dispose of national assets to find fresh cash
*Decree that all remaining private companies must sell 50% of their production to the government
*Etc...... including heavy intelligence insulting propaganda to pretend that all is fine and dandy in Venezuela

But the latest was in my opinion a fatal mistake for the regime. Maduro decided that the National Budget would be approved by decree law, with the support of course of the Judicial Constitutional Court. Now, I am not going to go into the unconstitutional and illegal ways in which the regime decides taxation and how it disposes of the funds through appointed folks.Trust me, the case is clear against the regime.

Since "No taxation without representation", and we know how that ended, it has been the rule in any and every democracy that the budget must be validated by a parliament. Even if that parliament is elected under fraud, but there must be a Parliament Act. Why is such a parliamentary act a requirement? Because it is the contract symbol that the state is the guarantor of the money lent or borrowed. Failure to do such an act means simply that the only responsible party is the guy in charge and that his mere death slipping at night in the bathtub is enough to question whether his successor has any obligation in fulfilling previous commitments.

In short, if you lend money to the Venezuelan government as of today, you have zero guarantee, LEGAL guarantee, that you will ever be paid back (that we are broke and unable to pay our debt is another story, but I digress). And considering that the guy in charge, Maduro, is an ass, with a shaky hold at best, I wonder who will bail the country out...

There are two implications here.

First, obviously, that taking over discretionary disposition of all the nation's income is the most naked act of dictatorship a regime can do. Never mind that in the same ceremony where the "budget" was signed Maduro already decided that he would not give money to any opposition district which by law he is forced to do, even if he has way to deliver less than the survival requirements of such districts. Thus now we are free from having to discuss over and over the dictatorial nature of the regime. All understand money, all understand that Maduro has officially privatized the budget. Even commies understand that.

The second consideration is that we are in big trouble. If the regime has resorted to such an extreme move it is because it feels that its end is near, that too many inside the regime are about to meet their legal destiny in some court. Since it has been proven amply that the regime could not care less about the welfare of the people (starvation cases, distressing lack of heath care for which I can personally vouch for as my SO has been left without chemotherapeutic without the possibility of legally buy it overseas) then it has been easy for them to take the final decision.

By privatizing the national budget the regime grabs directly whatever is left of the country resources to use them to support Cuba and the repression machinery needed to remain in office. That is right, there is not enough money for the rest, it will all be used to sustain the repression and ensuring a minimum of popular support to be able to recruit enough of those that will do that repression. I will note that the forced sale of 50% of production (that will probably not be paid on time, if at all, and after having lost all relevant value due to inflation) represents about what the regime can physically manage in that legal robbery handling, and what it needs roughly for its CLAP distribution system (who not surprisingly in the beggarly nature of chavismo support has allowed Maduro to get back to 30% in polls). Never mind that by forcing such sale the regime acknowledges that all the expropriations made under Chavez have only yielded a cemetery of once food producing businesses.

So there it is, the regime has played its last card.

The regime could not possibly care less about what the fate of the country and its people may be. There is no other card to be played, there is no expropriation that can be done which can satisfy the needs of the people, unless looting of homes is next. Expropriation of banks is useless when inflation is scheduled to be 4 digits next year. Nothing left for populism, not even borrowing as no one will be foolish enough to lend a penny to the the regime now. All has been wasted. There is only the little bit of food produced by the private sector and a worthless budget which can at least pay for the criminals that are needed for public order.

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