Caracas Chronicles

Last night, OAS’ Secretary General, Luis Almagro, went public with a video (transcribed here) in which he:

1. Acknowledges the electoral malpractice of last Sunday’s elections;
2. Rejects “all illegitimate acts carried out by illegitimate governments” and;
3. Rebukes the political shitshow the chavista government is putting on in Venezuela.

“The results of an election in a country with no guarantees for the effective exercise of democracy cannot be recognized” he says.

Meaning that he is, of course, aware of how PSUV uses its power to blackmail its voters and abuse voting where there are no opposition electoral witnesses. He knows the relocation scheme played its role (201 centers with 620,000 voters affected) and the abstention was fed through the disqualification of candidates (Capriles and D’Elia in Miranda, Azuaje in Barinas, Guarulla in Amazonas, Giménez in Monagas, Scarano in Carabobo, and many others). Almagro’s words replicate those of the U.S. government, Spain, France, Canada, the European Union as a whole and the Lima Group.

Interestingly enough, bullets were shot at the MUD, too. “It is clear that any political force that agrees to participate in an election without guarantees becomes an essential tool of the eventual fraud, and shows that it has no democratic reflexes to protect the rights of the people, in this case, the right to the vote.”

The elected governors from AD and (Primero Justicia) are analyzing whether to be sworn in front of the ANC or not.

This is not the first time Almagro takes a jab at our dear oppo leadership. Earlier this month, he said that sanctions against chavista figures should be harsher and that the opposition should get on board. I’ll rephrase: Almagro scolded and reprimanded Venezuela’s opposition for not being ballsy strict enough.

This all makes sense to anyone who demands and expects coherence from political leaders against a dictatorship, so what’s the problem?

Well, Antonio Ecarri Bolívar, Vice President of Acción Democrática, declared on a radio interview this morning that “the elected governors from AD and (Primero Justicia) are analyzing whether to be sworn in front of the ANC or not.”

Voters, he says, want their elected governors to actually take charge of their new duties, “but we really gotta think this through, because that’s an illegal and illegitimate Constituent Assembly.”

I don’t get it.

Just four days ago, Gerardo Blyde, national coordinator for the Unidad’s campaign, went on the record stating that elected governors from the opposition would not stand before the Constituent Assembly to be sworn in.

Cynics would say that AD is testing the waters to see how we swallow that pill and, if the uproar is tame, take charge of governorships – that are still vulnerable to the dictatorship’s whims.

When asked about Almagro’s statement, Ecarri replied…wait for it…“we cannot do everything he says… hay que conservar los espacios.”

¡LOS ESPACIOS! DRIIIIIIINK + BONGHIT!