Caracas Chronicles

So here we are.

After everything we’ve been through, we are faced with yet another campaign weekend. This Sunday, everything is on the line … again.

This campaign has been like no other – quite the cliché, I know, but it’s actually true. No other campaign has been held in the shadow of a dead President. No other campaign has been so short. No other campaign has been so … surreal.

In between talking birds, the Papal election, los Juanes, reusable sanitary napkins, Norkys and her “play,” and showbiz people trying to out-endorse one another, there was Chávez. Only Chávez. His presence (some call it an absence) loomed over this election … like always. It’s as if he’d never left.

But he’s gone, gone for good. The future is one where he will not be heard from again. And if one thing has been lacking in this election, it’s talk of the future.

We haven’t talked seriously about the grave problems in our economy. We don’t really know how we are going to solve the crime problem. We haven’t discussed the militia, education, or our crumbling infrastructure.

More importantly, the dizzying pace of events hasn’t left us any space to envision a country where we can finally meet, as brothers and sisters, and rebuild it together. We still eat polarization for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, as usual. As we have for the last fourteen years.

That’s a real shame. Venezuelan voters are going into a crucial presidential election … blindfolded. We’re being asked to waver our future on two choices, none of which have been fleshed out thoroughly (although one candidate is clearly less of an unknown quantity than the other).

Is it any wonder that polls are volatile?

This does not bode well for the next few months. When a country makes a choice under such circumstances, you will find a lot of people regretting their choice pretty quickly. With all the unpopular measures the new President will have to implement, it’s a slam-dunk to conclude we have some rocky times ahead.

Sorry I can’t be more optimistic, but that’s how I see it. Gird your loins, folks. Things are going to get worse before they get better, no matter what happens on Sunday.

Regardless, please vote Capriles on Sunday.

PS.- We’ll have our usual coverage this weekend. We will try to have results out to you on Sunday as soon as we are certain of them.