Caracas Chronicles

Taking advantage of the long weekend, I was going to sit down and write one of several posts lurking in my head. There is one on education, another one on political parties, and yet another one on Venezuela’s fiscal situation.

But it all seems pointless.

Today, we spent yet another day drowning in a swirl of rumours about Hugo Chávez’s health. (If you must know, he possibly had a pulmonary embolism, or he didn’t. He is at death’s door, or he is alert and giving orders. Who knows.)

Of course, no official word came on the real status of the President’s health. The day was topped off when Vice-President Nicolás Maduro, in a bizarre cadena from Havana, basically left all questions unanswered. The President’s condition, he said, “is complicated.”

No shit.

Here is a partial list of the known unknowns, in spite of chavista tools trying to convince us of how entirely forthcoming they have all been:

a) we don’t know what type of cancer he has, nor what stage, nor his prognosis.

b) we don’t know what he was operated on.

c) we don’t know the exact nature of his “complications.”

d) we don’t know if/when he will be able to take the Oath of Office, and we don’t know what will happen if he doesn’t.

e) we don’t know who will be selected head of the National Assembly, in theory, the person in charge of the country if the President cannot take the oath.

f) we don’t know who is in charge of the President’s health, whether it is a Cuban doctor, a Spaniard, a Russian, or what.

I guess now would be a primo time for Guyana to invade us. After all, there is really no one at the helm. The people in charge while micomandantepresidente “gets better” have no clue what they are doing. Witness how Maduro, while in Cuba, left the country in charge of the guy who is presiding over the worst wave of blackouts our country has seen since the invention of electricity.

I mean, really Nicolás? Hector Navarro? It’s like the Peter Principle … on steroids.

En fin, life goes on (for some). Tomorrow we will welcome the new year, oil will keep flowing, and there won’t be any space for us to discuss other issues.

We sit, we tweet, and we wait.