Back from vacation in time to read the transcript of the purported conversation between Mario Silva and the Cuban intelligence General, in which Silva spews out a dense amount of gossip about a wide variety of Chavista/Madurista figures.

The first question one needs to ask is whether the tape is true or not. My impression is that it is a bit long and complex to be made up and the fact that Silva is the only one to deny its authenticity suggests it is real. In fact, Diosdado Cabello called it just gossip, which it is, but seems to be saying it is very realistic gossip coming from Silva’s mouth. The fact that Silva all of a sudden plans to leave his program “La Hojilla” also makes me suspect the tape is very real.

It is obvious that someone leaked the tape to damage someone’s credibility, what is not clear is who was the main target. While many think that it was Cabello, as he is blasted repeatedly, most of what Silva says about Cabello comes as no surprise to anyone that has been following this somewhat sinister figure of the revolution. Suffice to say that since Chávez left for Cuba in December, all of Cabello’s buddies that had been jailed by the former President have now been freed.

In fact, the most novel aspect of Silva’s gossip to me was the part about Maduro being looney and thinking that he had seen Chávez (again) in the military museum and claiming he even had a tape. I guess Maduro’s spiritual experience with Sai Baba has made him quite sensitive to having weird supernatural experiences.

Beyond that, the most significant thing about Silva’s tape is simply the fact that he is talking to the top Cuban General on intelligence matters. This alone should induce an investigation by the General Prosecutor and the National Assembly. While the opposition despises Silva, he is a mayor figure of Chavismo, whether Chavista/Maduristas like it or not. Silva rose from relative obscurity from aporrea and Chávez catapulted him to stardom by calling in to his daily program where Silva trashed just about anyone in the opposition, the same way he trashed Chavismo/Madurismo in this tape. Chávez would not only call in late at night to make announcements via La Hojilla, but Silva was the PSUV’s-Chávez backed-candidate for Governor of Carabobo, a race that fortunately he lost.

Beyond that, the main effect of the tape will be on Chavismo itself. Those that supported Chávez or his anointed heir have heard most of these accusations before, but always believed that they were opposition fabrications, now they will think twice about many of them. And that is the most important point of leaking the tape, it is not aimed at the opposition but at Chavismo/Madurismo. Its goal is to discredit the leaders of the Government, without it being clear who it was mainly aimed at. Cabello seems to be the main target, but there are very few stones left unturned.

In fact, Silva seems to defend only two people in the tape: Jorge Giordani and Admiral Molero. That’s it. He blasts the Vice President harshly, even suggesting that he may be the source of Bocaranda’s leaks about Chávez. He blasts Nicolas Maduro, Jose Vicente Rangel, Diosdado Cabello, Rafael Ramirez, Cabello’s brother, the former head of Cadivi Barroso, the Alcala Cordones brothers, Maduro’s wife Cilia Flores, Maduro’s confidant Temir Porras and the CNE ladies. So, its unclear what the objective of being divisive is, but the tape is very divisive for Chavismo.

For the opposition, nothing new in the tape. Maybe some juicy and explicit details of what we all know and knew has been happening in Chavismo. But nothing that surprises anyone reading this blog for the last few years. Just a very explicit confirmation from a very Chavista source.

Very divisive for Chavismo and another contribution to the erosion of the credibility of the Maduro Government and those near him.

Nothing less and nothing more.

Some of the transactions were somewhat comical, as the broker had to ask the BANDES official to return to him the money he paid in taxes, as he reported the gains as income. Showing there is little honor among thieves, he actually under reported his gains to his BANDES crony in order to pay her less in kickbacks.

But like so many other corruption cases in the last fourteen years, the Government’ policy is to ignore the case. The Prosecutor has been silent on the case, so has the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Planning who oversaw BANDES at the time and least of all the President. Maduro has said nothing of the money stolen from the people by these so called revolutionaries.

But the Prosecutor is the worst one as she is so quick to prosecute opposition figures for small amounts spent by them arguing obscure irregularities under budgetary laws.

The amazing thing is that these are minor officials who managed to do this scam, but they made off with US$ 66 million just like that. Recall that BANDES is the bank that gets the loans from the Chinese, money that is spent with no transparency or accountability. I dont even want to think what goes on in there!

You have to add this BANDES case to Maletagate, Illaramendi, the check in the hands of an Iranian for 40 million euros, all cases discovered abroad but never investigated or even discussed in Venezuela. But the largest of these cases, all discovered abroad, is “only” half a billion dollars, small scale in revolutionary terms. Nobody knows how much money was made selling the seven billion dollars in Argentinean bonds, or who received over thirty billion dollars in Pdvsa bonds or about twenty more billion in sovereign ones, all of them assigned using ever changing rules and with zero transparency or accountability. To say nothing of the billions fed to the swap market by the Government while it allowed it to exist until 2010.

. Or try to imagine the US$ 100 billion spent by Fonden under the same careless watch of Jorge Giordani! Or the billions stolen in the 2009 banking crisis, whose main Bolivarian actors, including Jesse Chacon’s brother, have now been quietly freed.

But the corruption beat goes unabated under revolutionary watch. While the opposition is blasted for its capitalism, capitalist greed and corruption is alive and doing extremely well under Maduro and inside his Government, slightly better than under Hugo Chavez. And allowing it to go on unpunished simply promotes the audacity of those involved. Billions of dollars have been robbed in the name of the revolution and there is nothing there to stop them.

Poor Venezuela!

As you may have noticed, I have been traveling the last few days. But my friends keep me informed by sending all sorts of information which I read and file, but was not thinking of posting. Then yesterday I got the note on the second challenge to the April 14th. vote and thought I would mention it.

The opposition is challenging the results in 5,720 tables or boxes, which comprise 21,562 tallies. Each table challenged includes some form of irregularity which is documented in the challenge. The opposition is requesting that the vote be redone in all these, which comprises of 2.3 million votes.
Separately, the fingerprint analysis shows a large number of inconsistencies. But the most significant one is that 20% of he voters had no fingerprint on file, including over four hundred thousand new voters, all of which were supposed to have their prints on file.

This challenge to the election votes is separate from the first one, which was based on irregularities associated with violations of the electoral laws,such as assisted voting, propaganda and abuses, not with the details of the voting process and the results. Both include recusing those magistrates that have expressed an opinion on the case or are related to Government officials.

Above, a picture of where I am today.

Ever since the CNE said that Nicolás had won the election, things have not been going very well for him. From widespread pot banging the first four days, to bickering within Chavismo, to Diosdado undermining him and his own party members criticizing him, it is tough to be Nicolás Maduro these days. But if one thought there was one area where Nicolás could handle things well, it was on the diplomatic front. After all, he was Chavez’ Foreign Minister for almost seven years, where following Hugo’s orders alone was probably a difficult thing to do. And except for trying to stage coups in Paraguay and Guatemala, Nicolás was mostly discreet, like a diplomat should be.

But his bad streak is prompting him to losing his cool and making outrageous statements. The first one was to accuse former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe of trying to assassinate him, throwing in Roger Noriega and Otto Reich into the pot. A laughable charge and a dangerous one, as Uribe is still respected in Colombia and Santos may get impatient with his new counterpart in Venezuela. But Nicolas likes to imitate Chávez, except that it doesn’t work very well with Nicolas.

But where Maduro really lost his cool was in his response to Peru’s Foreign Minister Rafael Roncagliolo statements. Maduro called back Venezuela’s Ambassador to Peru and said: “You may be Peru’s Foreign Minister, but you can not give opinions about Venezuela. I do not accept that lack of respect towards the political process that Venezuela is living. I don’t accept it…But to involve yourself with Venezuela’s problems to give us advice, please, don’t. You made a mistake Peruvian Foreign Minister, you have made the mistake of your life”

By now you may be wondering what it is that Rocagliolo said that caused such outrage. Well that is the amazing part, not much. What he said was:

“Peru is promoting that Unasur pronounce itself in asking for dialogue and tolerance in Venezuela…the second element of the Unasur declaration consists in asking that there be in Venezuela a climate of dialogue and tolerance, request that we maintain, request that I reiterate. It seems fundamental to us for both Venezuelans and the region that such a climate of dialogue, tolerance and mutual respect can be established.”.

Imagine, calling for tolerance and dialogue!

But Maduro losing his cool has backfired, as Peruvian politicians from all sectors have backed their Foreign Minister. Not only that, but it has given relevance to the trip by Leopoldo Lopez and Deputy Eduardo Gomez Cigalas around the region, explaining the treatment of opposition Deputies in the Assembly, as well as the refusal by the Venezuelan Electoral Board to do a complete audit as promised to Unasur countries so that they would accept Maduro’s victory in the April 14th. election.And now in Argentina, a Deputy is requesting that Venezuela be suspended from Mercosur for the non-democratic actions of the Maduro Government, while in Peru, the Vice-President of Foreign Affairs of Congress said that in Venezuela there is no President and what there is a an orangutan, a reference to the military gorillas that ruled that country, as well as seeing little birds and talking to Chávez:

The curious thing about this whole affair is that Peru’s Foreign Minister Roncagliolo is currently the spokesman for Unasur on these affairs and by losing his cool, Maduro may be helping the opposition in promoting that Unasur pressure the Venezuelan Government for a full audit and recount of the recent Presidential election.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD6-rWaem5I#!

Note the lady behind with the fake Maduro mustache. Maduro comes back and says he will not approve the project and asks how come the “right wing, bla, bla, bs, local Government” is not criticized but we are so autocritical of the revolution. The people present disagree with his decision and express it.Express it very clearly.

Not a good “mesa de trabajo” for Nicolas. Not a good day for the new President. A rough day for him in fact.

We have had “new” Ministers for ten days, but very few announcements of new programs and policies. This is due in part to the repetitiousness of names in the Cabinet, most of which have already been there and have no new ideas. Others are simply not very qualified, as their expertise, if they have any, is seldom in the Ministry they hold.

One of the lone exceptions is Minister for Electric Energy Jesse Chacon who has made daily announcements about plans, programs and ideas. Chacon is not that qualified for the position, his expertise is in telecom, but he has been around and held a half a dozen positions, most of them Ministries, where he has learned how slow things move in Government and how things only move from the top. He showed that when he was Minister of the Interior and Justice, where he tried to understand the security problem, brought advisers from abroad (Even from the US! Fin de Mundo!) and was removed by Chavez when he had begun to formulate plans and understand things.

In his new Ministry, Chacon has been candid at times. He does not blame the power problems on opposition sabotage, a laughable position when power plants have been militarized since 2006 and those not loyal to the revolution were fired (and are still being fired) in various purges from important positions.

He has told us that the main problem is how the twelve companies that were integrated into Corpoelec don’t work together (Some have been “integrated” for ten years!) Well, this is a blunt criticism of Chavez’ brother Argenis, who learned of the appointment of his new boss watching TV and resigned immediately. He has also said projects are delayed, consumption is high and rates are behind. (Behind? Last rate increase was in 2000, the CPI is up about 900% since then. So behind is a mild word)

But so far, he has said little about specific projects, other than increase rates and force people to buy energy saving lightbulbs (At 4 times the price) He also gave himself an ultimatum of 100 days. Good luck!

But Chacon has also been less than honest in what he has said. He said that Caracas’ power is unstable because when AES took over Electricidad de Caracas (EDC), it stopped investing. What he fails to say is that AES owned EDC for only seven years, the Government nationalized and ran it for almost that same amount of time. EDC was taken over by AES in July 2000, Chavez took it over in April 2007, so it has been six years, not much of a difference. What did the Chávez Government invest in six years? Zilch. And the company now loses money. Way to go!

He also fails to say that at a time that Venezuela has power problems, the IDB (Interamerican Development Bank) has yet to disburse the US$ 700 million approved in 2010 for Guri and other power plants. Why? Venezuela has not complied with the requirements yet. The money is there, earmarked, approved, ready to go, but…

Chavista management…the biggest oxymoronic concept in Venezuela.

But Chacon is definitely better than Chave’z son in law Jorge Arreaza. He said the other day something like: ” We are trying to deal with the mess in the (State) productive sector. The State has yet to figure out (nail) how to leverage some industries”

Well Jorge, it’s very easy, you need people who know what they are doing, work hard and know what management is all about. Let me give you an example: Remember the satellite you purchased from the Chinese? The one bought to survey the country and called VRSS? When you made all the noise and it went into operation in Chinese hands, you yourself said that in three months it would no longer be in Chinese hands, but would be operated by Venezuela.

But shucks, you remembered to pay US$ 170 million for the satellite four years ago (easy money that could have been used in sooo many productive things!!!), but you forgot that to control the satellite from Venezuela, you had to install the antennas to control the satellite and to receive the images. The result is that the satellite “sees” Venezuela a few times a day, but its useless. Besides the pictures you asked the Chinese to take for show, the return has been exactly zero. (To say nothing of the fact that with US$ 170 million you can buy all of the images of Venezuela of France’s SPOT satellite since of all its satellites were launched and in all frequencies available, but that is another matter)

And you call this “technology”…I call it turnkey waste.

The problem is that to “figure out” or “nail” the productive sector, you need people that know the business, you need planners and you need managers. When the criteria for hiring people are political, nepotistic or cronyism, things can’t work.

You also have to care, understand what is wasting time or money, plan every day, have the know-how. All your Marxist ideas don’t work, because you are trying to adapt an ideology to the wrong type of people, led by the wrong leaders. Yes, you also need leadership. Like you screwed up in the satellite project, if you had not been your father in law’s son in law, you would have been fired.

But Maduro promoted you to Vice-President.

Think about it and you will figure it out Jorge, but you will not nail it!

Tonight seven Deputies, including a female, were injured in Venezuela’s National Assembly. One is hospitalized. While this happened, the President of the National Assembly Diosdado Cabello smiled. Funny thing is, only opposition Deputies were injured. They were not allowed to speak in the Assembly. They were told, they would not be allowed to speak in the Assembly where they are the legal and elected representatives of the “people”. Except for Chavismo, the “people” are only those aligned with them. Here is the video:

This is the outright fascism that Diosdado Cabello has been promoting in the National Assembly since Chavez died. Diosdado thinks Chavez should have named him. Instead he named whimpy Nicolas. Maduro may say what he wants, but it is his fascist hordes that are acting and he clearly can not control them. Diosdado is undermining Maduro by being very radical, while he just watches. Diosdado is claiming the ground of the radicals, because he knows Maduro is unsure of himself. Thus, Maduro may not want this to repeat, but he either stops it or he sinks under then wave of fascism of his buddies. Maduro’s peaceful overtures to Capriles of the day before, were erased by Diosdado in a few minutes today.

Facism is, Fascism does.

Funny that the notebooks are now discarded as evidence. The Venezuelan Supreme Court in this decision said clearly in 2012 that notebooks should not be destroyed because:

“cuadernos que representan la prueba fundamental de la legitimidad de los resultados obtenidos, además de ser el elemento más importante de cara a una revisión del proceso por parte de los candidatos”

“notebooks with represent the fundamental proof of the legitimacy of the results obtained, besides being the most important element in the face of a revision of the process on the part of the candidates”

which is precisely what Capriles’ Comando Simón Bolívar argued had to be compared and wanted to do.

In this video you can see the former Head of the CNE arguing the same line when the opposition candidates agreed to destroy the notebooks after the vote, in which Capriles almost doubled the next candidate:

Everything said by Lucena was manipulated. She said nothing about the duplicity of fingerprints test, for example. She said no proof of certain things happening, like witnesses being threatened, but videos were presented in which they are. She concentrated in the minor aspects of the request and not in the main argument of the request, the fingerprints and the notebooks. The main focus of the opposition in their request, double voting and usurping identities will not be able to be checked in this audit. She also lied saying this was contesting the election, this was not that, this was a legal request for an audit.

The duplicity of fingerprint file/test, was promised before the election, was requested after the election, was part of the audit request and Lucena said absolutely nothing about it tonight.

As I said the first day after the election, there will not be an audit/recount, because the fraud would be shown.

Who fears the truth?

Note: This is post 6,000, never thought this would take up so much of my life. Ironic what it is about.

It is starting to get spooky listening to Government officials as to how problems will be solvedor how clever they are about knowing what Capriles is doing. The question is whether this is crass ignorance or naiveté. Do they really think people are that stupid? Maybe they are, but…

-Take President Maduro´s statement yesterday in Zulia:

“We will facilitate the requirements so that Venezuelans can bring their foreign currency from abroad and invest in a national savings fund in dollars. This fund will invest in the priorities established by the Government”

Wow! I really don’t even know how to begin to dissect this statement. Why would Venezuelans want to bring their foreign currency back? Who will manage the fund? What are those priorities? Will it be a socialist fund? Where will the custody be? What is the management fee? How many dollars do you think will come back to this fund Nicolas? How will you guarantee that these dollars are not converted to Bolívars?

But the real question is: Nicolás, do you think there is a single Venezuelan who will actually bring back one hundred bucks for this?

Really…

-Then, there is Jesse Chacón, the new Minister for Electric Energy who gave himself (?) an ultimatum:

“If in one hundred days I have not managed to stabilize the electric system, Iresign and give way to a Venezuelan that can do a better job”

Well Jesse, you should have given the address for people to apply to replace you by sending their CV.

Because Jesse, you were in the Cabinet in 2006, when the Government created “Mision Revolucion Energetica”. You were also in the Cabinet in 2007 when the Government issued the “Organic Bill for the reorganization of the Electric sector”. You were about to leave the Cabinet in 2009, when the Ministry of Electric Energy was created. I know, you were no longer part of the Cabinet in 2010 when Chávez decreed “National State of Emergency of  electric matters on and the creation of the Electricity Chiefs of Staff”. Sounds a lot like what you are saying today.

And now you want to do the same thing that was not done in seven years in 100 days? Let me give you a tip: In 2006-2007 there was money to invest and you are telling us Merentes is looking for money for you. Hope he finds it, hope he gives it to you too.

Dream on!

BTW Jesse, have you noticed the light bulbs you want to force people to to use cost ten times more than regular ones? Just a thought.

-And then there is the new Minister of the Interior and Justice, holding a press conference telling us that as Head of the intelligence police, he knew that Capriles was not going to recognize the election.

What is most remarkable about this, is that in his own words, the intelligence plan was called “Connection April”, like in April election,  which in October, November and December detected this outrageous plan by Capriles not to recognize the election.

Definitely very interesting. In particular, I would like to ask The former Head of Sebin: Exactly how did you know that Chávez would die in March, leading to elections in April?

Just a thought…

Why not May, or February, or July for that matter? I guess your SEBIN was both an intelligence and fortune telling unit.

BTW did you tell Maduro you knew all this? It could have helped him, you know?

Just wondering.

In this video, Roberto Picón, in charge of the technical challenge to the vote, explains what it is the Capriles command wants from the CNE to do the complete and real audit and cross correlation of all the information on April 14th. .

He says:

We don’t need the automated part, the ballots, the tallies, the tallies of the audit and the totals. Those are automatically produced. Thus, they will coincide with the CD, except for the variations in the tallies.

But we also need:

-Complete access to the voting notebooks.

Capriles wants to know who voted, if dead people voted, if people with the same name voted, we want to know if the same person signed that they voted or used the same fingerprint.

Capriles also wants to know the cases in which the fingerprint machine was activated by a fingerprint that did not match. Is this random or is this in particular poll stations?

Capriles wants to know what happens when the 1.5 million people who did not have fingerprints in the system voted. Was this randomly distributed or not? Did they go against Capriles?

Capriles wants to know if each fingerprint is compared to all the 15 million voters. Did people vote more than once? This comparison has to start now.

Capriles wants to know: When there is a match, what is the maximum tolerance of the system? If there is no match, the machine should shut down after 7 tries. When this happens, CNE has to liberate the machine. How many times did this happen? Was the password used systematically? Was this random, sequential?

Finally, Capriles wants it certified that this happened at the time of the vote and it was not altered afterwards. This can be done securely. There is a digital certificate for this.

We believe, said Picón, that people that should not have voted, voted and Capriles would have won without them. Thus, we are asking for all of this information.

That is what Caprilesis asking for in a “true” audit of April 14th. .