Politics

The Requisite Dialogue Aftermath Post

After trawling the interwebs for MUD's reaction to dialogue, one thing remains clear: everyone's just looking out for number one.

Anabella Abadi M.

On November 30th, Carlos Ocariz issued a statement that ended in: “to the mediators and the Vatican: if the government does not comply, there will be no meeting on 6D.”

On December 6th, just as was expected, the government hadn’t complied and Ocariz declared: “as the Government has not complied, it makes no sense to meet”.

Meanwhile, Henry Ramos Allup took a break from campaigning for a second term as President of the National Assembly to tweet: “We said it in Bolivar and the Guayanese people did not hesitate to support us, if the narcocorrupt government breaches the agreements today 6D, AD will leave the [dialogue] table”.

If after this, you thought the opposition is thinking of going to the mat, Chuo Torrealba already burst that bubble. In a series of 5 tweets, he claims:


I’m not sure what “successful” means, but the real question is: how much longer are we supposed to wait for some actual results? Monsignor Claudio Maria Celli, the Vatican envoy to accompany the so-called dialogue, said the process will be “reactivated” on January 13th.

Maria Corina Machado took to twitter to openly reject the proposed date, saying: “January 13. Really? Conveniently, after January 10th. And the deaths until then? And those who emigrate? And those who go bankrupt? They [those who dialogue] don’t get it at all”.

Though Chúo Torrealba claimed that the 13th of January is too far in the future, we are not sure what MUD’s next move will be.

Voluntad Popular, after publicly bowing out of negotiations, is conveniently outside the line of fire. They’ve remained mum about all things dialogue-related, choosing to promote a #YesThereIsAWayOut hashtag instead.

Monsignor Celli also said that, and they have asked the public authorities (that is, the Supreme Tribunal and the National Assembly) to refrain from decisions that would hinder the relationship until then. We think this means the National Assembly shouldn’t debate a political trial against Maduro’s or mingle with Tibisay and her combo; and the Supreme Court shouldn’t issue further sentences blocking the National Assembly. The National Assembly will most likely comply, but the Supreme Court will probably keep on doing whatever they —or the Executive Branch— may want.

If I’m not mistaken, the recall referendum —the one that started this whole debacle— seems to be off the table for good; and, truth be told, with both regional and municipal elections a pata’e’mingo, most opposition leaders are probably more concerned with their local proverbial corotos. Others might even be already preparing themselves for the presidential election of 2018, including a much needed fundraising drive.

Which is probably why Henrique Capriles, the referendum’s ostensible daddy, took to Periscope last night to rant about traitors and hypocrites within the MUD, but at the same time kind of defended the dialogue: “There are people who ask about the dialogue, I tell them that it has been badly handled, but it is not because of the dialogue that we do not have a recall referendum, it is the government’s fault.”

You’ll probably hate me for saying this, but: did anyone really expect a different result from the so-called dialogue? To ask the question is to answer it.

 

Related