Caracas Chronicles

Anabella already gave us a look at how important players at home and abroad current events are being monitored, but what about are the papers saying?

Colombia

El Tiempo in its editorial, condemns the TSJ ruling and shows its solidarity with Venezuelans.

Against this background, it’s impossible to take a position as to what will happen next in Venezuela, whose people could be sitting in a powder keg. And it’s hard to know what the regime is hoping to achieve. Will Caracas withdraw from the OAS? Will the Bolivarian Revolution radicalize even further? Will the opposition deputies be imprisoned for treason? It’s not clear. What we can say is that the brave people does not deserve this fate, so sad, so unworthy.

El Espectador tries to explain the long and winding road to these events and describes the entire situation as a “dead-end”: “It’s a fabulous paradox: the Chavez government and its continuity (and almost exacerbation) in Nicolas Maduro’s presidency, even when it has the appearance of a dictatorship, has embraced legality to survive.”

Ecuador

Making a subtle reference to Sunday’s presidential runoff between Lenin Moreno and Guillermo Lasso, El Universo considers Venezuela’s crisis as a huge warning: “The Venezuelan case is an example of what could happen in countries where law is disrespected and one party assumes all powers… The lesson is that when democracy isn’t opportunely defended, it could be too late.”

Peru

As the 25th anniversary of the Fujimorazo happens to fall next week, the Madurazo is getting special attention in Peru, specially with the quite vocal stance of its President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski.

La Republica’s editorial openly compares Maduro’s actions to Fujimori’s and asks the international community to “…establish a collective action mechanism in favor of Venezuelan democracy.”

In the case of El Comercio, they consider this action as the final blow to Maduro’s democratic mask:

If, forcefully, we have to find any positive aspect to the dramatic upsurge of authoritarianism in Venezuela, it’s the fall of the last democratic mask left to Mr. Maduro’s regime. If up to last week it sounded questionable and capricious to defend assumed democratic values in the Venezuelan government, today sounds absurd. Without Parliament nor elections on sight, the existing de facto dictatorship has taken the obvious and necessary road to the de jure dictatorship.

Chile

La Tercera covers the reaction of the Chilean President Michelle Bachelet (now in Portugal), her  government and all across the country’s political spectrum.

Fellow paper El Mercurio gets the view from former President Sebastian Piñera (now running again) and leftist MP Camila Vallejo, who’s one of the most outspoken supporters of Chavismo in Santiago.

Argentina

La Nacion has a special with coverage of the Venezuelan crisis and its impact on both local and regional politics.

Clarin does a similar approach, including the key points to understand it all.

Uruguay

El Pais calls it loud and clear in its editorial: What happened in Venezuela is a Coup d’etat.

This desperate act is the unavoidable consequence of an anachronic and unnatural socialist system, in which all countries where it has tried to impose has lead to the same inexorable result: shortage, misery, violence, authoritarianism and dictatorship. Always justified with the same hollow arguments: the alleged foreign complot, being from either the “the yankee imperialism”, “the right”, an “economic war” launched for mysterious and relentless forces.

And saves its biggest complain of all to the silence of the Uruguayan President, Tabare Vasquez, his administration and the ruling political party, Frente Amplio:

That’s why we found the cautious reaction of the Uruguayan government as doubly embarrassing. A government that has already shown signs of shyness and lack of equanimity in their relations with Venezuela that are outrageous as they’re suspicious.

El Observador also has the Venezuelan crisis front and center: From the way our newspapers are (not) covering the events to the strong reaction of the Uruguayan opposition to the Madurazo.

Paraguay

As La Asuncion wades through its own constitutional crisis (regarding the possible reelection of incumbent President Horacio Cartes), the Paraguayan press is looking what’s going in Caracas very closely. Foreign Minister Eladio Loizaga denies any comparison between the cases, but some members of the National Congress said that the government could follow Maduro’s playbook to push their constitutional amendment that could allow Cartes to run for a second consecutive term next year.