Caracas Chronicles

So the opposition has announced the 22 legislative circuits where they will select 30 candidates for September’s National Assembly election via primaries. Good for them! It’s a notable step forward that the Mesa de la Unidad has managed to work out its differences in a timely and orderly way, and that the opposition has set out an open and transparent process for selecting unity candidates where no consensus was possible. These are accomplishment not to be diminished.

On the other hand, the places they chose for the primaries are, um…a little mystifying: 

  I can well see why they’d want primaries in some safe opposition districts, where the primary will be the one chance people will really get to decide who represents them. And I can also see why they’d want to hold primaries in Toss Up circuits, where getting various people out campaigning early is arguably good for our chances in September.

But…a primary in Portuguesa State?!!? Only a political kamikaze would want an oppo nomination in Turén…where the government beat us by 37 points in 2007!

Color me baffled…

Overall, this is good news. But I would’ve liked to see more primaries in bluer districts and fewer in Lostcausistan. Still, it’ll be interesting to crunch the numbers in September to see if the guys who had to compete for a spot on the ticket did relatively better than those who didn’t…