Caracas Chronicles

For Saturday, April 9, 2016. Translated by Javier Liendo.

The head of the National Electoral Council, Tibisay Lucena, said that the requests made by the Democratic Unity Roundtable for the Recall Referendum were “weak and lacked the necessary requirements.”

Considering that each time there are more and more requirements, it’s irritating for Lucena to declare that the rules for these processes are “common knowledge,” that the CNE has no interest in “accelerating or delaying any procedures,” and that if they wanted a personal answer from her, they should’ve addressed the requests directly to her.

What must be done now, according to Tibisay? Collect signatures to request the form for collecting signatures that will allow us to sign for a Recall, 1% for the 1% for the 20%. It breaks down like this:

1. The signatures of 1% of MUD supporters to authorize the coallition’s leadership before the CNE.
2. With that first requirement, the MUD is authorized to collect the signatures of 1% of registered voters to create groups of citizens to promote the referendum.
3. When the CNE’s in the mood for accepting this 1%, then the third and last collection of signatures of 20% of registered voters can be requested.

Approving the Referendum Law would circumvent this tomfoolery, that’s why the sabotage has a specific price and, in the end, the problem will always be the criteria the CNE uses to validate the requirements they demand, from the forms to collect any of the aforementioned percentages of signatures, to referring to a voter as a MUD supporter.

Se arrechó el flaco

Henrique Capriles Radonski showed the documents delivered to the CNE in a press conference, requesting the form that will enable the collection of signatures to activate the recall referendum. He called Tibisay “a liar” because the requests have not been fulfilled: the form to collect 1% of the signatures! This action shows that Tibisay doesn’t want the procedure’s 228 days period to start.

He firmly told her that she’d be responsible for whatever happens in the country, for being an obstacle for solving the crisis, saying that they have the capacity to collect in an hour the 200,000 corresponding to the 1% for requesting the recall.

“We won’t negotiate our rights with anybody, the Constitution is not dead letter,” said the governor, adding that they wouldn’t desist, that they’ll exercise their rights, because the recall is the means to avoid a coup d’etat nobody wants, even though it’s obvious that the PSUV won’t dare call elections even for a condo board.

Fearlessly walking toward his destiny

Today National Assembly Speaker, Henry Ramos Allup, spoke in the Aula Magna of the Andrés Bello Catholic University. He spoke of the deputies’ performance in relation to campaign promises, starting with the recovery of the Legislative Branch’s autonomy, a task that Nicolás has too evidently attempted to block. The second promise was the Amnesty Law, which became a symbol for a pledge of insurrectional struggle if the opposition wins the Presidency of the Republic in democratic elections.

Ramos Allup told the gathered UCAB students that the Executive Branch uses the Supreme Tribunal as its private law firm: “We already know those thugs will say the law is unconstitutional.” A reaffirmation that the government is sustained solely by two elements, the military high command and the Supreme Tribunal. The third electoral promise is the democratic solution for regime change, considering that proposing three different routes is the smartest way, that all of them must be tried because the government will attempt to block them all.

He exhorted Nicolás to debate publicly, to say anything they want to say to each other “like gentlemen,” rejecting Hermann Escarrá’s offer, because he’d rather deal with the man who calls the shots, but he revealed that he proposed three amendments to the buffoon: to revoke Nicolás, the National Assembly and the Supreme Tribunal’s Constitutional Chamber. Escarrá didn’t reply. If Nicolás introduces an amendment, they will do the same: “We’ll introduce them all, you amend me and I amend you, we all show are hands and let the people decide, let’s go for it,” said the head of the Assembly.

Induced

Aristóbulo Istúriz claimed in the XII International Conference of Intellectuals that crime and scarcity in the country are induced by paramilitary groups and the oligarchy in control of supply networks. But he still mentioned the real variant, in other words, there’s induced and real crime; there’s real scarcity – due to lack of access to dollars – but there’s also induced scarcity because there’s no production. He had the nerve to say that if you control food, you control the people, exactly what the PSUV’s doing, but he wanted to use those words to highlight the “oligarchy’s” perversions, as if after 17 years of government, pillaging like savages, the word could have the same significance that el finado used so much. After 17 years of theft and power, of violations to rights and liberties, they’re a really perverse government system, with power in the hands of a few, all of them with excessive privileges.

Olé

The Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the Venezuelan ambassador for Spain, Mario Isea, to condemn Nicolás’s words against Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. Additionally, the Spanish government announced they would be consulting with their ambassador in Caracas, because they’re concerned about Venezuela’s situation: “The Spanish government absolutely repudiates the intolerable insults made yesterday by the president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela against the president of this government,” said Vice-president Soraya Saénz de Santamaría.

Nice things do happen, like the 86th birthday of Don Rafael Cadenas. Read one of the beautiful poems written by this noble man.