And then chavismo collapsed into a scary collective insanity

/ May 9, 2013

Man, they don’t make ’em like Alma Guillermoprieto anymore…

While his political base crumbles, Maduro inaugurates theaters, attends circus performances, wears olive-green military-style shirts with ever-broader epaulets even though he never served in the army, and denounces coup and assassination plots against him. […]

But perhaps the plots and coups Maduro seems obsessed with are coming not from outside his party but from within. The growing tumult and disorder is so extreme, so clearly provoked, and so destructive that one must at least consider the possibility that it is being encouraged by defeated chavista rivals now smelling wounded prey, or from those sectors of the military who have never welcomed the Cuban presence in Venezuela, or both.

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19 thoughts on “And then chavismo collapsed into a scary collective insanity”

  1. Yes, excellent piece on Venezuela from Alma Guillermoprieto in the New York Review of Books, it’s the second, recently. It seems chavismo does not have too many friends in center – left publications.

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  2. Great reading. I often wonder why they keep the cancer of Chavez secret. Was it because it was anal? Anybody knows? Nothing wrong with it of course but when you give that news to the Chavistas imagine all kinds of conclusions they would had concocted… would it be God’s ultimate humiliating touch to the life of Chavez. God is great my friends. Like my mom would say, Dios castiga sin piedra ni palo.

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  3. Just wondering what would have happened if Chavez knowing he was soon to die had disclosed his real state of health and allowed the elections to be held in december with Maduro as his candidate . If in april Maduro ‘won’ the elections by a mere 1.5% of the vote , despite all the unlawful tricks and manouvers , how much would he have gotten in December ?? Its obvious now that Chavez deceived his followers and the whole country in order to remain the candidate in an election which was brought forward to October to permit him to participate in it , clearly knowing full well that Maduro was not going to win the election by himself. This is dishonesty of the highest calibre !! This is political corruption any way you see it !!

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    • The alternative is that they, the Castros and Maduro deceived Chavez about his health. Which is highly doubtful. Some people would say also Treason, given the involvement of the foreign tyrants, and their overtly colonial interest in Venezuela. I would say that, with more than a bit of narcissism and masochism involved.

      Hugo Chavez lent his own person and health to the Castristas racket. He paid for the Cuban medical hackistry and for his (doomed) candidacy both with hellish suffering. Fair enough.

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  4. … the possibility that it is being encouraged by defeated chavista rivals now smelling wounded prey, or from those sectors of the military who have never welcomed the Cuban presence in Venezuela, or both.

    Or more simply, it may be the effect of a free-for-all within Chavismo, everybody knowing that the end is nigh and trying to grab whatever has not been stolen yet while they still can.

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    • That free-for-all, roba-que-algo-queda had a name in Nicaragua when Ortega lost to Violeta Chamorro: La Piñata.
      Thus, some of Nicaragua’s modern fortunes were born. I am hoping you are right and these are nothing but pataditas de ahogado.

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  5. What does Caracas Chronicles think about Guillermoprieto’s speculation that Maduro may be the intended ultimate victim of the “insanity?”?

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