And now what?

I have been avoiding it, but it is time to think about what these last weeks mean for Venezuela. Whether we like it, political tectonics are at work and January announces itself as a very difficult month, though January may start before December 31. To try to simplify this a little bit let's start with what apparently not even tectonic forces can change.


The premise of the political crisis is that a group of gangsters have taken over the country and there is no way they are going to forgo control because they know that any improvement in governance means that they will end up in jail. It is that simple, it explains it all. It even explains why the outside world is not doing much because they know that gangsters can only be disposed off through violence. After all, the democratic West did nothing for Aleppo, why should we assume they would do something for Caracas? I am looking at you Obama, by the way.

The other factor that is not changing and makes the above one the worse is the economic crisis. The nature of this one at this point is such that only a change of personnel at Miraflores Palace can offer a faint hope of improvement. What happened in December with state sponsored confiscations, reaction looting and currency debacle should carve that in.

Thus we can discuss the options for each side.

Chavismo has a Maduro problem. His erratic behavior and his absolute incompetence keeps making the crisis worse by the day. Until now he had the legitimacy that Chavez gave him which was replaced fast by the need for a figure head to preside over the country while corrupts, gangs, Cubans and the like fought it out over controlling Venezuela. This will not do anymore.

Maduro (or the people he spoke for) have made two grievous mistakes. The first one was to pass a budget without it being voted as a law by the National Assembly. That unconstitutional fiat was bad enough, as no one would lend money without a legal process of state guarantee.  But it got worse for would be lenders, if any. The stupendous crass management of the banknote change early this month has killed any credit or authority he may have had inside chavismo. That is, deciding that the 100 banknote was illegal, then shortening the time for exchange and deposit the notes, and THEN offer a spectacular neck breaking U-turn once rioting started is the kind of political mistake that will kill the love of your most ardent supporters. While making sure that no one will lend you a penny. Not a slight petty problem for a bankrupt country.

Maduro is done, he cannot rule anymore. In any country with a semblant of normal he would have resigned by now, or asked to do so by his own party. Nobody will willingly obey him anymore. For Maduro and chavismo there are only two paths ahead, either go the massive repression way as of right now, or resign mid January to let a newly named vice president, likely a general, to deal with the last two years of the presidential term. I am going on record that by March first 2017 we will either have a new president or hundreds of new political prisoners with possibly hundreds of killed folks. Though the two are not exclusive, unfortunately....

On the opposition side the ability to resit and offer solutions seems gone to naught. The dialogue forced upon it by Obama though Thomas Shannon has proven its undoing. It should not have been so but it has. We have reached the point were the leadership of the opposition is admitting that they underestimated the resolve of the regime. Clearly, they would have benefited from reading this blog.

The reason for such paralysis is that some inside the opposition alliance will not agree on any hard measure of active resistance unless the result ensures them to be on top. If that is not possible then these people have no major problem in helping the regime survive until the time comes for them to be on top. How extensive is this inside the opposition leadership I do not know. But it is clear now that the local political Zulia group, UNT, whose national hopes have failed, will satisfy itself with its leader, Rosales, back in the streets and the new governor of Zulia from its ranks. UNT is the first clear suspect but I am afraid it is not the lone one.

The debacle of the new Electoral Board election was the main evidence for that more than duplicitous role of UNT. In the end it does not matter who is directing the Electoral Board CNE since there is no election in sight. But the point of UNT dealing behind the opposition back was painfully put forward. That was way worse than who ever is sitting at the CNE.

How can the opposition alliance MUD recover from these recent setbacks escapes me. They had a 2/3 majority seats and, well, they could do nothing about it. But that I can still understand, considering that they are dealing with gangsters. In fact I even made excuses for them through the year. What I cannot understand is that a year passed and there has been no red line left uncrossed, no Little Big Horn moment, nothing to show. And I suspect that even the little bit of international good will harvested in the first 6 months of 2016 has been wasted. With Trump election and a shifting of foreign paradigms I wonder if anyone will care much about Venezuela's fate anymore. As far as I can see it, Trump administration is not only willing to revive the Cuban embargo but will have no qualms including in it Venezuela letting Colombia and Brazil deal with the millions of refugees. Venezuela, the next refugee crisis? See if Trump cares a shit. A country full of Machados.....

So now what?

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Obama's debacle

I used to be upset when people in the US were surprised that I did not like spicy food. For them, we in Lat Am ate all Mexican spicy hot. Venezuela has actually a rather bland cooking, and hot is preferred by few for a few only.

I am reminded of that because as I am watching the Trump transition I am starting to get cold shivers. I am afraid that those Trump will put at National Security and State are going to see everything South of the Rio Grande as, well, the same thing. Just make a big wall and the US will be juuuust fine.


But this weekend I have been getting truly cold sweats as I am listening to Obama's farewell tour and his unseemly plaintive speeches as to the values of the West, as to wait and see on Trump even if Obama's eyes and tone say something else totally. Trying to pass the baton to Merkel was a sad moment. What we are witnessing is a man that realizes that not only his 8 years have been lost but his complacency may have greater consequences.

He has only himself to blame for that. I am not going to go into how he was slapped for the economy when he should have been thanked. Nor am I going to speak about his turning US foreign policy towards Asia so that in the end China may benefit more than the US. This one, after all, may have been unavoidable and the only thing any US president could do is to work out the time timetables and the distribution of bitter pills.  But I am going to speak with property on the mess that Obama is leaving Venezuela in.

The grand scheme of Obama was the opening to Cuba that he would start and Hillary would complete. One of the condition for the success of that policy was for Venezuela not to blow up. One reason was that Venezuelan money was needed to pay for Cuba transition. Another one was to allow Santos in Colombia to do whatever wicked game he had in mind. Yet another one was that the US did not care much about a country that would so willingly inflict so much damage on itself (can't blame the US for that!).

Unfortunately for Obama the old guard reared its ugly head in Cuba and decided that as long as the Fidel colleagues were alive no change would come. Maybe when enough of them were dead or gaga then, and only then, the dictatorship could start to evolve. Sometime in the next decade. And then oil prices bottomed out for the long run and Venezuela went broke, dragging Cuba down but repression up.

Thus Obama decided to wait and see, to let Hillary get elected and let her finish his legacy. Now he is not only getting neither, but his delays are going to make everything worse for the whole subcontinent.

In Venezuela Obama's last act was to defuse a break down just before election day. When tensions were rising he dispatched Shannon to browbeat everyone in the opposition. As it has always been the case, whenever Shannon intervenes, the democratic opposition of Venezuela suffers a set back. This time was not going to be different.  Within days Trump was elected president and instantly Obama lost any capacity of pressure against the Venezuelan regime. This one slowly but surely has started to rise again as the opposition concession of a truce at the bequest of Obama and the Pope has caused a rift inside. This rift threatens the dissolution of the front, with catastrophic consequences for the country.

In short, if Obama and the Pope wanted to avoid civil war in Venezuela they may have actually increased the chances of this happening. May? Actually I am almost certain. I am actually surprised at some of the bold recent moves that show that the regime is not even concerned by the OAS. Our fate is strictly with MERCOSUR and whatever the Pope may decide to wriggle through its mediation efforts (though for all appearances one even wonders about the Pope listening to the Venezuelan church). Peanuts, in the end.

In short for Venezuela there will be no recall election, there will be no liberalization of the electoral system, there may no be any type of election for at least a year, there will be more repression even though a handful of political prisoners have been released, etc. You see the picture. Only the deepening fo the economic crisis can force the regime to negotiate in fear of an outright hunger revolt of the chavista masses themselves.  I am not saying that Obama could have solved any of that, but now I can say that he made it all worse. In the end, with Hillary out, what good did the Kelly-Maduro short meeting do a few weeks ago?  Does it matter that Maduro's nephews are now in jail?  They were dumb and got caught. Tough shit!

What is left to do?  Well, for the good news. The odds that we will never see Shannon involved in Venezuela matters rise by the day.  The bad news indicate that Trump will be no improvement. Of all the candidates for State, none so far seems to have any interest for LatAm that I know of. At least we shall be grateful is the new Secretary is not openly pro Russian.

Our best hope? Since Rubio and Ros-Lehtinen have been reelected let's hope that Trump will farm out to them the matters on Cuba and Venezuela. At least they can place the countries on the map and know that in Cuba they do not eat spicy hot. If the regime stays in office Marco an Ileana would make sure they they cannot step out of the country least they get caught by Interpol.

Or something.

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Obama wrecks Venezuelan dialogue, Trump will not revive it

{UPDATED}
So here we are, at the famous November 11 deadline where supposedly we should evaluate the advances made by the "dialogue" started on October 30th. Listen carefully for the results, you may hear the crickets.

As a matter of fact, the half a dozen released political prisoners concession from the regime have been amply compensated through new arrests and further limitations to the National Assembly role. And as I said, the mere acceptance of a two weeks "truce" was enough to kill any hope for a recall election before January 10 and the High Court TSJ made sure of that today.

In short, the initial results of the truce seem to indicate that a disappointed opposition following is becoming indifferent as their need to deal with Christmas scarcities start to become more crucial, exactly what the regime wanted. Never mind that the appearance of some obvious divisions have not helped.

This is not to say that the regime benefited greatly. Its own internal divisions have also become more apparent, and the relentless crisis awaits for a mere incident to revive massive protests. Let's just say that the regime got some time for some propaganda that allowed a provisional stop to its own follower hemorrhage, multiplied by a minimum wage inducing inflation and the promise of some cheap toys in a CLAP food distribution subsidized bag.

The regime did get a hand from the US by the way- As soon as the dialogue was open Thomas Shannon from state flew in to Caracas. He met quickly with Maduro and then with the opposition, and left fast. For the life of me I cannot recall an involvement of Shannon with Venezuela that benefited the Venezuelan opposition, or at the very least that benefited it more, slightly more than the regime. Please, correct me if I am wrong. Whatever his reasons to come were, he got at least one thing, no Venezuela blow up until election day. Not that it helped much Hillary but that is another story. At least this Liberal can take small comfort in the loss of Hillary that Shannon will be out of office soon.

The fact of the matter is that this latest Shannon outing is in perfect following of 8 years of Obama basic do nothing on Venezuela, in the grand tradition of George Bush, already hinted at by Bill Clinton. And, I am willing to bet on it, a proud tradition that will be followed by Trump. As soon as he is sworn in he will realize that the US has more serious problems to deal with than the consequences of an idiotic electorate that voted back their country into Banana Republicorama. In addition, Trump enterprises will quickly look at possible hotel development in Venezuela and will realize that the beaches are contaminated, are not private enough, that there is no water nor food nor electricity, and that the personnel has been hopelessly damaged by 17 years of chavismo beggarization. Not even sending now available sheriff Arpaio to solve insecurity could motivate the Trump organization.

George Bush did not touch Chavez because he needed Venezuela oil for his Iraq adventure. That was that- Condi could be deeply insulted by Chavez and barely an eye would bat. Obama did not need oil that much anymore and, well, his interests were in Asia more than anywhere else. Venezuela only came into play when he got into the hubris that he would solve the transition away from the Castro and that he needed Venezuela to pay for it. What he thought to be his crowning legacy not only did not help him to have Hillary elected but will probably come back to haunt him in the ridicule field of fortune. The more so if Venezuela ends in a tragedy.

As for Trump, he did the true and tested Republican Cuban move in Florida. Late in the campaign he went to promise a stern hand against the Castro/Maduro regimes and voila, he got Florida. Probably this time around there were enough Venezuelans that could vote and did it so for him, falling for the GOP cause like Cubans have basically done since the 60ies, for nothing. What does Trump know about Venezuela besides it being a source for competitive ass when he was involved in beauty pageants? Still, it would not be hard for him to do better than Bush or Obama. Hillary on the other hand would have done better because she knew more about Venezuela. She tried to bring Obama around in his first term. And she expressed her opinion during the primaries using against the Bern his inability to condemn authoritarian leftist regimes. Am I the only one to remember that she gave an interview to Globovision when this one was under fire?  Siiiiggghhhhh.......

So there we go, the dialogue as expected will fail because you cannot dialogue with the people that hold you in jail, the more so if they are themselves the felons. And nobody around cares much. From the Vatican to Argentina, they are kind of OK if you beat your wife as long as you do not make much noise.

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Update: as if this were to restore confidence. UNASUR head, totally discredited, untrustworthy, regime supporter Ernesto Samper was the one in charge to announce that they are all fine and dandy but that the results will be announced tomorrow morning.  What is wrong with that?

First, new people joined in tonight. Tonight?
Second, the delays can only mean that they are not in agreement AND that each side itself is not in agreement. Consultations need to be held. We all know that these consultations mean that acceptance is far from certain.
Third, Samper was the spokes person?  Nobody else could risk his good/bad name in front of a mic?

Forgive me if I go to bed without holding my breath. But then again, I could be proven wrong. Hopefully dead wrong.

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