Caracas Chronicles

Juan Cristobal says: – They say politics makes strange bedfellows. But in the history of bedfellows, has there ever been an odder couple than the two in the picture?

I’m talking, of course, of Maria Corina Machado and Ismael García.

She is the dashing leader of electoral NGO Súmate. He is an Assembly member for Podemos, a center-left party formerly allied with Chávez whose acronym literally means “Yes we can.”

She stood accused of having signed Carmona’s decree before being granted amnesty earlier this year. He is a former Chávez ally who once tried to put her in jail but is now labeled as a traitor to Chávez.

She worked tirelessly to collect the necessary signatures to revoke Chávez’s mandate. He worked tirelessly to show these signatures were fraudulent.

She comes from one of Venezuela’s most traditional families, a graduate of Caracas’ poshest school. He is a former handyman for pharmaceutical company Farvenca, a Falcón boy who made it up the ranks of his union, went into politics under the wing of the socialist MAS party and was elected mayor of La Victoria and, later, Assembly member.

And here they are, both opposing Chávez. Yesterday she helped organize the primary in which his candidate won the right to run as sole opposition candidate for governor of Aragua, one of Venezuela’s most populous states.

I guess they had something in common all along. After all, neither of them has a problem hanging out with psychos.

So if these two can learn to put aside their differences and work together, can the rest of us ever learn to do the same?