Venezuelan “democracy” reached a new level tonight. While the Venezuelan Constitution says that candidates should be elected, neither Chavez’ PSUV nor the opposition completely follow the law. Both of them reserve some candidacies to buddies, hand out favor, respect regional caudillos and the like.
In Chavez case, he reserves some candidacies to pay back loyalty, as well as having the final say if you don’t get 50% of the primary vote.
Until tonight. Tonight Chavez announced that Isamel Burgos who had won the primary was removed by him personally, because he thinks Burgos is corrupt and immoral and he can not be :blackmailed”, whatever that means. Burgos won District 3 of Barquisimieto with over 4,000 votes and more than 50% of the vote, so there was no reasonable rule that could have replaced him.
Burgos’ crime? That he may not be 100% loyal and trusted. After all, he has been with Chavez “only” 11 years. That appears not to be sufficient.
The Devil's Excrement 
May 30, 2010 at 7:11 pm
Gringo,
It was available Friday (data on the 27th). If memory serves, they were claiming heavy inflows, nearly 10 thousand and outflows a little over 4 thousand and a health rise in reservoir levels.
May 30, 2010 at 6:17 pm
Good news !!!, the food damage in Puerto Cabello 39.000 tons, will be recycled by the Regime to be consumed by Venezuelan people.
With this, begins the education of Venezuelans to the quality food that Cubans are used to eat.
Cubans, for example, eat a mix of something call it “carnica”, the objective is to eat and play a game at the same time, trying to figurate out what is this food and where do it came from.
May 30, 2010 at 6:09 pm
The opsis site is down. Anyone have any idea how long this has been? (Guri data)
http://opsis.org.ve/
May 29, 2010 at 5:45 pm
The forces of goodness, morality and Hollywood (all the same thing of course you cretins) are on the march.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i01kwRMeMjF3BBfsv1lSiLoWNXMgD9G08FL02
May 29, 2010 at 1:23 pm
That is really a “guiso podrido”… 1300 containers with decaying food. Each with 20 to 30 tons… and why? Plain stupidity or simple way to get CADIVI dollars?
http://www.acn.com.ve/index.php/entretenimiento/artes-y-espectaculos/11527-alimentos-descompuestos-pdval
A-Antonio, this must be the CIA, only the Imperio damages the environment!
May 29, 2010 at 11:47 am
Just the first two news of El Nacional newspaper today shows the new PDVSA expertise.
“20.000 tons of food damage in its warehouse in Puerto Cabello”.
“12 km of Coast spilled with oil in Falcon”.
Way to go !!!
May 29, 2010 at 12:25 am
That cartoon of Chavez pumping oil in his ass and burning it to fuel his tongue is just tooooo good!!
I couldnt care less if Ismael Burgos won cleanly or not, he is an moron as all other Chavistas, and if you are Chavista you know that you are going to get your ass kicked by Chavez sooner rather than later.
I encourage Chavez for picking fights everywhere, hopefully someday he will piss off the wrong guy.
May 28, 2010 at 4:00 pm
Chavista to Ni-Ni-ville transition…
Por el real baila el perro!!! , ninguns chavista “racional” va ha soltar el cambur por cuenta propia.
Salen a llorar cuando por circunstancias pierden la teta, y en prevision a el volteaso (yo no sabia nada…EtC)
After all, thy too have eyes and know how los Diego Arria y demas politicos de la 4 limpiaron su fortuna y ahora son todos unos DONES.
They expect the same. Golden bridges drawn in the best interests of the country, to facilitate transition post chavismo, no harm done, no Justice SSDD
May 28, 2010 at 3:10 pm
Fascinating stuff. I was just reminded of a book about the late times of the Roman Republic: “and he managed to avoid beheading because he was married to one of the consul’s sisters”
But Rome even then had a more of a democracy than Venezuela with the rojo-rojito CNE and judiciary and all the rest.
May 28, 2010 at 2:45 pm
It is amazing how some political parties are acting very much the same way as cults do; what worries is, its similarities to “destructive and dangerous cults” Check this out:
1. The cult is authoritarian in its power structure.
2. The cult’s leaders tend to be charismatic, determined, and domineering.
3. The cult’s leaders are self-appointed, messianic persons who claim to have a special mission in life.
4. The cult’s leaders centre the veneration of members upon themselves.
5. The cult tends to be totalitarian in its control of the behaviour of its members.
6. The cult tends to have a double set of ethics.
7. The cult has basically only two purposes, recruiting new members and fund-raising.
8. The cult appears to be innovative and exclusive.
Any similarity to PSUV is mere coincidence…
http://www.factnet.org/rancho5.htm
May 28, 2010 at 12:00 pm
“serán seleccionados o seleccionadas en elecciones internas con la participación de sus integrantes”
Seems like the processes are in line with this. It doesn’t say ALL of its integrantes, so the fact that some oppo candidates were selected by a committee, essentially, doesn’t seem to violate this precept – though perhaps only because it was poorly written.
And on the PSUV side, the candidates were selected by every single “integrante” who actually has any say in how the party works. Emphasis on “single.”
May 28, 2010 at 11:56 am
Guillermo,
“dysfunctional society like ours”
You’ve got the point there.…
So, we better start to acknowledge who we are in the first place…… if we want to change the current situation.
Chavistas didn’t arrive in a space craft, chavistas are former adecos and copeyanos that as many Venezuelans don’t give a S**T about the country, but themselves… and not only chavistas, opposition has great deal of responsibility on this BUT to me, the worst are the apathetic individuals, with an absence of interest or concerns to emotional, social, or even physical life… they just don’t care about anything .. and as latest statistics, they are sadly the geatest in number… so, that explains how a country on the verge of destruction counts only with half of its 15 millions registered voters…………. that’s our very best dysfunctional society..
May 28, 2010 at 11:13 am
Guillermo,
Fascinating. Although I challenge the notion that he is not brain-dead – my theory is that there is nobody normal left in chavismo who hasn’t had the chance to skip over to Ni-ni-ville, and I’m standing by it.
May 28, 2010 at 10:49 am
Andres: I apologize for my mistake. All TVs since March 2007 have a built-in HD tuner to decode HD digital airborne signals, and true enough, since february 17, 2009, all TV signals from broadcasters should be digital, which is BTW, the only way to transmit HD (although it can also serve as medium for SD). Anyway, it was my error to phrase my expression there and then, because the fact is that DirecTV is making riches on US latin americans, while playing nice in the US. No surprise there. We have to pay almost 400Bs. for 12 channels, while in the US, they charge just US$10.00 for 200+ channels in HD. No screwing there, right?
In the end, you are right. HD is not yet mandatory, just the digital nature of the signal that carries all TV broadcasting (SD and HD) in the US. But the abuse if Directv is just too obvious. Thanks for the correction. 🙂
Juan: Yes. I know Burgos since pre-Chavez era, and we had the chance to work together in one issue regarding the congressional report on the case of the Peaje Caracas-La Guaira. Back then, we alerted (… and I mean: me by writing the report, and him by delivering it), the President (Chavez had been recently appointed), that if no action was to be taken, the Republic could face an opposing court ruling (it was an arbitration), regarding the conflict with statutory and liability damages that could go over 40 million US$. Nobody said anything. And that was what happened some 6 months afterwords.
I recall that the lawyers hired by the Procuradora General (Marisol Plaza?… can’t recall), were paid something in the ballpark of 7 million US$ (and one of them was a 23 year old girl from the UCAB in Caracas who happened to be the cousin or the sister of a minister back then. The defense they made was so dumb that it was easy to figure out that they have made a nice business behind the curtains.
The guy is nice enough to talk with. He’s not a red-dressed-brain-dead as many others in the country, but neither is a genius. Anyhow, Chavez has had some arguments with him in the past 2 years and the only thread of salvation he still has might be that he’s married to the only sister of Cmdte. Reyes Reyes (now minister of Health) who is the “compadre” of the President. That may explain why he is not dead yet.
May 28, 2010 at 9:55 am
Guillermo, so you know Burgos personally? What’s the story, why did Chavez bump him? There are news stories out there saying he supported the opposition in 2002, is that true?
May 28, 2010 at 9:04 am
Gullermo, Sorry about what happened to you, but HD is not mandatory in the States. You might be talking about digital, which is not the same thing.
May 28, 2010 at 8:15 am
Well, the post is right about Chavez control over who gets the slots for the elections. I know Ismael Burgos personally and was present before, during and after the primaries in Barquisimeto, Macuto and El Manzano, the three places where most votes were taken. He did win cleanly and openly, to the dismay of Lugo, one of the “contenders” from PSUV, who was instrumental in the process (of steps, not of logic or of law), that led to the “removal” of Burgos from candidacy.
Yes. Democracy has reached a new level of poignancy and falseness that makes everything worse for most of us, and better to the rest.
I went to a Movilnet representative office yesterday (to rescind a contract I had for their Internet mobile service, which BTW…. SUCKS), when I bumped into an acquaintance of mine who said
-Hey Howdy G.!
-I’m all right, you know… same thing, working hard as hell and letting go if a line…
-Really? I’m doing just swell man. The Government still buys a lot of “pego” and “cement” from me… and I just have to keep both ends of the operation “happy”. It’s been a great year.
-Really? Well… good!…Ehemmm! Really I hope everything keeps ok for ya man. CU.
And that was it… save of a ranting of him about how good was DirectTV HD services (no matter how expensive and abusive is to the latin american customers to charge us for a DEFAULT service when HD is MANDATORY in the States… or the fact that they DOWNSIZE the original HD digital signal coming from the sats, so they can keep squeezing latin americans), to which I simply stared and kept quiet, thinking about how many people like this stupid bastard has this country, and how fitting is Chavez ( like Louis XV ), to a broken, dysfunctional society like ours.
I just wish I can leave here with my whole family and enough money. Otherwise I’m stuck until the shit hits the fan… which probably will happen in about 20 years.
May 28, 2010 at 6:59 am
This is the article in the Constitution:
Artículo 67. Todos los ciudadanos y ciudadanas tienen el derecho de asociarse con fines políticos, mediante métodos democráticos de organización, funcionamiento y dirección. Sus organismos de dirección y sus candidatos o candidatas a cargos de elección popular serán seleccionados o seleccionadas en elecciones internas con la participación de sus integrantes. No se permitirá el financiamiento de las asociaciones con fines políticos con fondos provenientes del Estado.
It is very clear “Its candidates will be selected in internal elections….”
May 28, 2010 at 12:28 am
“Constitution says that candidates should be elected, neither Chavez’ PSUV nor the opposition completely follow the law”
Did the opposition really not follow the law? I seriously doubt there’s a single oppo party capable of producing more than one potential candidate for every electable spot in the AN, and I doubt even “La Bicha” would require elections where there’s only one choice available. And don’t forget that just because we use the term “THE” opposition (in singular), it doesn’t means it’s a single entity in regards to the law. The notion that several different political parties should get together to hold elections to select the candidates amongst them has nothing to do with the constitution. Doing it is a matter of convenience (or survival, really), not a requirement of the law.
On the other side, though, you’re right about PSUV and Chavez’s “screw the people, jefe es jefe y aquí el jefe soy yo” attitude.