Brief modern political history of Venezuela. Part One-B.
Continuation:
The year is 2013, March. Hugo Chavez has died. In October of 2012 he won the presidencial elections for the third or fourth time…i don´t remember. There have been about 20 elections since 1999, an argument that Chavez´s followers use to claim that there´s no greater democracy than Venezuela´s. There are elections regularly in some countries that are not exactly democratic…So, in conclusion, democracy is a lot more than elections but that is material for another article.
Chavez was clearly and evidently ill when he won in october of 2012. He looked like a balloon fish. No one knew what was wrong with him and he withdrew from the public eye for a long time, something very unusual in him. Rumours came and went; it is said that he died of some sort of cancer.
Our Constitution states that if a president dies in office, the president of the National Assembly inmediately takes over and, automatically, the National Electoral Council (CNE) calls for presidencial elections in 30 days at the most. Nicolas Maduro was vice-president at this time and Diosdado Cabello was the president of the assembly. The law was not strictly followed as Chavez had pushed hard for Maduro, a former bus driver and union leader, to replace him if anything happened. Cabello believed that he was to be the one to succeed Chavez as president; nevertheless, he obliged.
Predictaby, Maduro won against a washed up opposition candidate, Henrique Capriles Radonski, who also lost to Chavez in 2012. Claims of rigging never passed the “sore loser” stage and the problems that we are so well known for started to arise in an obvious way. I say in an obvious way because we always had these problems but the money from oil (at 100 dollars the barrel) somehow covered them up.
Maduro had been Venezuela´s foreign minister for quite some time before becoming vice-president but the only thing i knew about him was that he was a thrash food junkie and a keen salsa dancer. Desperately trying to be another Chavez, this attitude has made him a clown, worldwide. He´s married to Cilia Flores, who at some point was president of the National Assembly. She now refers to herself as the “first combatant”. Woman, please. She has two nephews that are in trial for cocaine smuggling in the U.S.
Diosdado Cabello once said, just when Chavez died, “Chavez protected the opposition and now he´s gone”. I can only understand that statement NOW (And i do not have any empathy for the stupid venezuelan opposition). We saw it coming but still did nothing. Maduro never had Chavez´s charisma, charm, wit or cleverness and it´s difficult to know in what position we would be if Chavez were still alive…But with the “force of the revolution” out of the picture, Maduro had to face some harsh realities:
-Money was scarce as the price of oil was crashing down. Every internal public policy would suffer because of it and here we are.
-Chavez´s party, PSUV (PARTIDO SOCIALISTA UNIDO DE VENEZUELA) had about four strong factions that only Chavez could keep at bay when he was alive.
-The pink movement was coming to an end. In South-America some journalists gave the name “pink movement” to the rising emergence of left-wing governments in the continent. At some point, every country in South-America minus Colombia was led by left-wing parties and leaders.
-The government could no longer hide behind Chavez´s large personality, both nationaly and internationaly.
In 2014 there were riots that lasted about 3 months, known in our country as “Guarimbas”. 43 people died and an opposition leader, Leopoldo Lopez, was jailed for inciting violence (14 years). There are about 75 political prisoners, most of them without a trial, and the number is rising. This is what Cabello meant.
The 2015 parliamentary elections, in december, was the first real setback politically for Maduro as the government supporters lost the National Assembly by a landslide. More than two thirds of the seats now belong to the opposition. Maduro blamed the loss on the famous “economic war waged by the opposition and the empire of the United States” that, he says, is responsible for every wrong that we face. He has used the military, the supreme court and decreeds to undermine the legislative branch and, again, the opposition made the mistake of thinking that the Asembly triumph would be enough. The political platform on which they won was “We´ll oust Maduro within six months”…here we are.
It´s a game from now on. We (I mean venezuelans) are getting to the point of no return and soon both sides will have to show their cards. Regional elections were supposed to be in december of 2016. A recall referendum (Guaranteed on our constitution on which some conditions apply and the opposition, i´m surprised, complied on all of them) has been dubiously called off. The National Electoral Council needs to renew its board (Their period has expired) through the National Assembly and, of course, that´s not going to happen. The government has always called for dialogue and for the opposition to stop the violence (It is my view that they are really afraid of any possible election). The opposition claims that they are well within their rights to protest peacefully and that the government is repressing them and that violence comes from them (I acknowledge that any election is for the opposition´s to lose but they are specialists in ruining any advantage) Fuck it, i hate the waiting game in this situations.
Wish us luck.
