Caracas Chronicles

Yesterday, our resident tyrant Executive Editor Francisco Toro was named contributing columnist for the Washington Post’s Global Opinions website. That means Quico will be trying to explain the insanities of the Venezuelan crisis to a worldwide audience on a regular basis over there. Nice!

And his maiden column wasn’t half bad, either:

The problem is Venezuelans just can’t wait another two years with Chavismo in power. The economy has simply stopped working, leaving even many middle-class professionals hungry — literally unable to find enough food to eat. Everyone in Venezuela knows that if a recall vote is put off beyond Jan. 10, there will be major trouble on the street.

And that’s why that video hit such a nerve. Regime officials are keenly aware that its basic message — that soldiers’ families don’t have enough to eat, and their allegiance is therefore up for grabs — is not mere rhetoric. More and more, it becomes the key strategic consideration as the country moves toward a looming confrontation.

Hunger is now the most potent political force in Venezuela. Out of ideas, out of support, and out of legitimacy, the regime has chosen to use raw power to try to hang on for at least for another two years.

In effect, a tiny elite of privileged socialist ideologues who have no notion of what it means to stand in line for hours for meager grocery rations is asking desperate people to wait another two years to eat. And it’s asking soldiers whose own families face empty pantries to administer the violence it needs to hang onto its privileges.

A few hours after Quico’s column hit, the mmgs who run CNE announced a decision virtually ending any hope of a recall, this year, or ever.