Politics

Some reactions to the death of the RR

Anabella looks for answers in the timeline of opposition leaders. Spoiler: Nothing much there.

Anabella Abadi M.

Just after we celebrated Pancho’s release, and learned that Manuel Rosales was allowed to complete his sentence under home arrest, and less than a week before the recollection of the 20% signatures to activate the Presidential recall, we noticed something rotten was coming out of Psuv’s filthy kitchen.

One by one, the governors of Aragua (Tareck El Aissami), Carabobo (Francisco Ameliach), Bolívar (Francisco Rangel Gómez), and Apure (Ramón Carrizales), as well as the infamous Deputy for Monagas and host of El Mazo Dando (Diosdado Cabello), announced that criminal courts from their respective states had annulled the 1% signatures collected by MUD to activate the 20%. Hence, the CNE “postponed” the 20% recollection until further notice.

And to make matters worse: one of the courts also decided that 8 MUD representatives (Henrique Capriles, Jesús “Chúo” Torrealba, Ramón Medina, José Cartaya, Oscar Barreto, Ricardo Sucre, Luis Aparicio y Arnoldo Gabardón) can’t leave the country under any circumstances.

What’s going to happen now? Not only did Maduro decide to take a trip to OPEC and non-OPEC countries –just like in January 2015-, but the opposition seemed like a deer frozen in headlights. Which is… well, worrying.

So I took to Twitter to look for some answers from the oppo leadership.

Henry Ramos Allup, following his traditional short but lethal rants, tweeted: “There is simply no rule of law. It’s a dictatorship product of a continued coup d’ etat” and “A democratic government consults the people. A dictatorship flees electoral consultation. They killed the recall because the ‘narcorrupto’ government is a dictatorship”. Yet, he says nothing about what’s to come.

 

Voluntad Popular shared a press release claiming: “the change must be conquered in peace and democracy and, most of all, in THE STREETS”. It’s pretty telling that the party says -in three separate occasions- that any actions to come will not be individual, but from the “Unidad”.

Maria Corina took on her Twitter to, intelligently, channel the anger of opositores towards her #22PaLaAutopista initiative of “resteadas pa’la autopista” . I don’t particularly like that what should be a  pro-democracy demonstration is been sold as a women’s power demonstration. She probably figured it out, because three hours later she tweeted: “It is the time of the Great National Unity. All are necessary to, with strength and without fear, in the streets, make the transition a reality.”

Then I checked on PJ and noticed Henrique Capriles is pretty pissed about it all. He tweeted that Maduro will “abandon” (probably meant “loose”) everything soon and attempted to drop-the-mic with a “¡Que después no chille!” Capriles also let Maduro and his combo (not my words) know that “esta es otra Venezuela” because 80% of the country wants a change.

Julio Borges also took on Twitter to profess his discontent: “Venezuela doesn’t surrender or won’t be negotiated. In National Unity we draw the way forward to enforce our Constitution. Todos Atentos.” This ‘wait for Unidad to talk’ seems to be the go-to answer for everything, so I though maybe another PJ member might have something else to add.

Looking at Tomás Guanipa’s TL, something caught my eye: “The government turned dictatorship, is terrified of the vote and the people. Our duty to the country is to achieve the change through vote”. Can’t help but wonder: is he talking about the recall vote or the regional elections vote, because both are a vote nonetheless. Right?

When It came to UNT, I found almost nothing. As one could expect, Delsa Solórzano, Timoteo Zambrano, and Eveling Trejo said nothing. But Omar Barboza tweeted: “The regime has given a zarpazo to the rights of the people”.

With many unanswered questions, I checked on Chuo Torrealba who took to Periscope for close to an hour to say “Neither violence nor submission… peaceful resistance until the Constitution is restored”. The opposition is in constant peaceful resistance, so -honestly- I’m not sure what the new strategy might actually be.

While I was finishing this post, the MUD tweeted this:

Hopefully, we will get some answers.

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