Elizabeth Fuentes
An interesting interview with Henrique Capriles, by the team of Juan Carlos Zapata and Elizabeth Fuentes, from the new Internet site konzapata.com. In it, Capriles tones down his criticism of the #LaSalida gang, and offers a more nuanced explanation of his views.
Several money quotes:
- What I proposed was giving the economic and social crisis time to do its work, because we knew it was coming, so then I proposed that we tactically allow the economic and social crisis time to become a political one. But they put in place a political crisis when the economic and social crisis had not had time to do their thing. And so, both things clashed, and look at where we are…
- I don’t see any point in continuing to discuss the Constitutional Assembly or the Recall Referendum out in the street. This should be an internal debate within the opposition, and once that debate has taken place and a conclusion has been reached, we should take it out into the streets.
- No, Ramírez’s proposed measures are not necessary. Before taking up any of these measures, we have to stop giving away oil to Cuba and to Petrocaribe. Why must we keep sending $4 billion to the government of Cuba? Because it goes to the government, not to the people of Cuba. What is the situation inside PetroCaribe? What are these heavily discounted sales that PDVSA is doing? What is the situation with our reserves in gold? First we have to open up the books, get honest with the Venezuelan people, and only then can you ask for an adjustment. It’s not demagoguery, it’s not populism, you simply cannot ask the people to pay more for has when you are giving it away to Cuba for free. I can’t agree to that.
It’s worth a read, as is our friend the Bipolar Rodent’s latest take on Capriles.
Caracas Chronicles 
well the guy has a point. You need to “sincerate” the books before the “sacudon”, however it’s impossible to ask corrupt people to just stop stealing or that they get themselves on jail.
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So he got better advisors, huh?
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“No, Ramírez’s proposed measures are not necessary. Before taking up any of these measures, we have to stop giving away oil to Cuba and to Petrocaribe”.
Ugh. Always the guabineo.
It’s true that we should stop funding the Castros. It’s true that we should stop selling oil 50% upfront and 50% credit at 1% interest, payable in beans, rice, etc.
But neither of those things means that a devaluation isn’t neccessary; or that it’s ok to import gasoline from the U.S. and subsidize 99,99% of the price so the bachaqueros and the military can make a killing re-exporting it to Colombia; or that it is healthy for power fees to cover merely 30% of the wages of the workers at the power company.
Capriles can always campaing for both things, since one thing doesn’t preclude the other, and the measures Ramirez has been hinting ARE neccessary.
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Well, he has a point.
Start with the obvious and easy to explain (and grievous for the PSUV). Then move on to the more complicated and non-intuitive.
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Issuing recommendations with a poison pill is small p politics. Issuing sincere recommendations is capital P Politics.
Proposing that cleaning the economy requires losing diplomatic cover and reneging on allies, really is calling for no reforms to pass.
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Point 1: So, he had a different vision from what the public wanted, and so he torpedoed the momentum instead of adjusting his plan to the situation. Lack of flexibility.
Point 2: If he were actually capable of leading the Opposition, that debate would have been held already and the issue decided.
Point 3: So, does he really think that he can continue the failed economic policies simply by eliminating the foreign give-a ways? Does he not see that the insane subsidies, economic distortions, and the petro-nanny-state is what has created the corruption and lack of domestic production?
Sorry, folks. Capriles is not the right guy. What he is talking about is just a Chavez-Lite administration.
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Agree.
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Adjusting his plan, easier said than done. In politics like in war a lost battle means losing ground and having to start over with less resources and in a worse situation. That is what he is doing now. He didn’t torpedo anything, he criticized #LaSalida but let it run its course. The loss affected everyone, it was a lost battle and a lost opportunity. It has happened many times in history when overconfidence and miscalculation induces early charges that turn a strong a possible victory into a defeat.
Point 2. Capriles is not a backroom politician, that is just not his strength. In that sense he suffers a bit of a Cassandra Sindrome. He can plan a strategy but not convince other politicians to follow him. He fares much better with the common people.
To your point, so maybe he is not capable of leading the opposition. We are all the worse for that. Aveledo was filling that role.
Point 3. His point is a little more nuanced than that. What he is saying is that is unthinkable that the government is forcing tightening of the belt for the people without first stopping the hemorrhage of free oil to Cuba. It is a political declaration not an economic analysis. It says nothing about what his economic measures would be. Yes, he is skirting the question because, no viene al caso, he is not in power nor is he a candidate, he is a political opponent. It is not the time for cold economic analysis.
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It seems to me pretty smart not to make politically unpopular economic policies a central part of your platform when you are up against a dictatorship that will inevitably be forced to take these measures, to its political detriment.
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I’d love to see the numbers from the advisor of his that has him insisting that there’s no need to either raise gas prices or ration gas, that there’s no need to increase power fees, that there’s no need to devalue, that there’s no need to scrap foreign exchange controls, that we have enough money to increase the number of misiones, that no mision should be discarded, that there’s no need to downsize/privatize/close public companies, etc.
Running on a platform of “Let’s go back to 2006-2008” seems way worse to me. Everytime he claims the system doesn’t have to change to solve this mess, some peple see through that as demagoguery. You can’t fix our economy without tackling those issues, so if his platform is his policy he won’t be able to solve the problems, and if chavista sympathyzers keep suspecting his platform isn’t really his policy he’s going to have a hard time gaining their trust.
I’m not saying he should campaignon every unpopular subject. But he should at least pick some important reforms and talk about that, so people know what he’s going to do.
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my gut feeling on this is that the priority right now for the opposition political strategists is not for an actual platform to campaign on, but to be absolutely on record as being 100% against any policy that smacks of what chavistas perceive as neo-liberal so as to make sure that chavismo has to pay the full political cost of the coming reforms…and so far, i hate to admit, chavismo has done a pretty good job in laying the blame elsewhere.
whether capriles’s strategy of positioning himself as kinda chavismo light can succeed–it’s very uphill. All the research i’ve seen says that he’s not been able to significant trust among chavistas, and he’s lost a ton of credibility among the opposition (i still would vote for him, what choice do i have?)
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“the priority right now for the opposition political strategists is not for an actual platform to campaign on”
I’m no political strategist, but it seems to me, that a guy who ran for president twice should have had his own platform, to serve as his message instead of focusing on tip toing around chavismo’s image of him.
“i still would vote for him, what choice do i have?”
I haven’t reached the point where I wouldn’t vote for him even if ran as unitary candidate against chavismo. So I partially agree with you.
But there’s no way I would vote for him in a primary.
In fact, if there were no unitary candidate, I would only pick him over ad-copei dinosaurs, but there’s plenty of other young-ish politicians I would pick over him.
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Juan,
Do you have some sort of man-crush for Capriles?
I’m sorry but many people still see him as not only weak, but a collaborator.
Whatever “sense” he makes in this interview, i don’t think it’s the real Capriles.
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I’ve been blasting Capriles for a few months now, in case you missed it. I thought the interview was an improvement to the PR disaster that the last month has been for him. So no, no man crush for me. I wouldn’t vote for the guy if primaries were held today.
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Good to know, and he still has a lot of PR to do, if he cares about that sort of thing.
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You have to admit he is right in saying that certain parts of the opposition put the cart before the horse in terms of the protests.
Had the timing of the protests come after the economic not-so-slow motion train wreck we see now perhaps the results would be different today.
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I think a few people – me included – said the same thing. Unlike most of those who said that (including me),
Capriles is known by absolutely everyone in Venezuela and if he ever wants to open his mouth and say anything, there are lots of people willing to listen to him and spread his opinion, even within the restrictions of media in Venezuela today.
He didn’t say so. It is absolutely stupid he would say now such a strategy has to be discussed behind closed doors. You can discuss the minutia but it is absolutely counter productive to hide some simple facts we know about how things will evolve.
Instead he said we had to wait until 2019 and that the time of God is perfect.
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Had he said anything like this after the arrest of the students from Tachira post 4F, and clamed things before 12F, he could have had an impact in defusing the inminent crisis.
Instead he decided to go passive agressive on LL, MCM, Ledezma and LaSalida. Without adressing the discontent that had been growing in our ranks (the students protests had begun piecemeal in January). Ni lavaba ni prestaba la batea.
Had he decided to calm people down right after 12F, before guarimbas took off, he could have prevented a lot of the atrittion, but he waited until 22F.
His post 8-D plan is only being revealed like shitty prophecies: after the fact. I’d love to see a quote from him pre 12F, where he says that we should focus on the economic and social crisis, and that the political crisis should follow these two once they have developed.
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I do not think that it makes sense to expect him to discuss publicly the reasoning behind political strategy. That would be like playing a chess match while voicing the moves you plan to make in each scenario. I’m pretty sure he discussed it in private with LL and MCM and couldn’t convince them. They just went their way and that was that.
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Convincing MCM, LL and AL could have worked. Once that failed, Capriles should have tried to convince the base, and I don’t think he was very effective at that, nor that he tried very hard. Instead of selling his vision he attacked LL and MCM as irresponsible, and even took #LaSalida as some sort of personal affront.
Young people had been dissaffected with mainstream MUD leadership (Aveledo, Capriles, Ramos Allup, Roberto Henriquez) at least since November 2013. Remember the autoconvocados?
As I’ve said before: “Starting in January, there had been several student protests in Táchira, UAH, USM, ISUM, UNIMET, UCAB, UC, UCV, LUZ, etc. Those mostly revolved around crime on college campus and crime in general. It wasn’t until the government decided to make an example out of the students from Tachira, transporting them to the prison in Coro that the protests began to grow, in the lead up to 12F, the date set by LL, MCM and AL.”
On January 27, Ledezma explained his vision (which I suppose is shared by other #LaSalida proponents) to deal with this unrest: get on top of it and lead it, because that’s the responsability of the leadership, providing guidance.
My view is that #LaSalida didn’t create the discontent, it was already there, they sniffed it and decided to ride on top of it.
What was Capriles strategey to deal with this discontent? How did he try to calm down this crowd? To appease the autoconvocados? To defuse the crisis after the students from Tachira were transfered to the Coro prison? I get the impression that he chose to ignore a discontent in the base, that some argue began to grow precisely because MUD’s stance regarding the result of the April elections was unclear.
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Well it is much easier to ride a wave than to stop it. Riding a wave like LL and MCM is not good leadership if done at the wrong moment. There was always going to be discontent all over the place. How could it not? The idea was to let it cook slowly in time but without letting it boil over before the time was right. In that sense letting them protest on their own was the right thing to do. The error was egging them into a final all or nothing conflagration that was destined to lose. He didn’t do that but once LL and MCM hinted at it and the students jumped into it, it was out of his hands.
Regarding April 2013, he basically assessed the situation as a lost cause for the time being. Having tied the regime in political strength he was at a disadvantage in every other sense. For him, and I agree there, was no other option but to continue the long term strategy of building political support.
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You can disagree with Ledezma’s position. But he laid it out explicitly and without attacking any fellow oppo politician.
Most of the “attempts” by Capriles, I remember, to convince people away from #LaSalida consisted in little more than ad hominen attacks on its organizers, calling them irresponsibles, and hinting that the real motive was gaining the spotlight.
Can you point me to Capriles laying out the plan for the base anytime before 12F? Can you point me to any attempt by Capriles to address the autoconvocados discontent? Can you point me to any attempt by Capriles to calm the self organized student protests that began to erupt in January? Can you point me to any attempt by Capriles to change the direction things were taking after the 4F students from Tachira were arrested and then sent to Coro?
Things were out of his hands, because he didn’t engage the base before things blew up. What happened in the April elections? What’s the plan? Are going to wait until 2015? Are we going to wait until 2019?
While the discontent was simmering, and #LaSalida was being launched, Capriles didn’t lead, nor Follow nor got out of the Way, an attitude he is still sporting.
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Like I said letting people protest was the right thing to do. People have a right to do it and they cannot be stopped. A climate of discontent is a natural thing to have when there are so many things going wrong. That is to be expected and something the opposition could exploit. There was no reason to calm people down about their logical grievances. The wrong step was to hint at a possible #WayOut, a possible #Solution, a #el-que-se-cansa-pierde, a #we-are-going-to-stay-in-the-streets-until-Maduro-leaves short cut. When that came up he opposed it, but others egged it on. The people went with it, he basically stood out of the way. Nothing he could do about it.
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He could not lead or follow something he didn’t believe in. Yes he criticized it at the beginning trying to prevent it from taking form, then he stood to the side, so he did get out of the way.
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Yes, people have a right to protest, but leaders are supposed to provide guidance as to when is it strategically sound to engage in agitation and propaganda (borrowing soviet terms), or hold a demonstration, or a strike, for how long, what to demand, what the message should be, etc.
Of course he couldn’t lead #LaSalida, since he didn’t believe in it. But he could have explained his vision an gained adepts, that is he could have lead a different effort, instead of leaving the base orphaned after 8D. The reason he lost autoritas with protesters is that while the folks from #LaSalida had a credible tactic to deal with the imprisonment of the students from Tachira in Coro, Capriles did not, and chose to attack the people from #LaSalida. I got to the point that the students had to go to Capriles for him to stop bashing the 12F demonstration they aimed at protesting for the release of the imprisoned students, an increase in campus security and opportunities for young people, which he did on 11F, after hinting it on 10F.
The people who believed, before 12F, that a political crisis would bring about change organized themselves, laid out their arguments, reached out to the base and called for a demonstration on 12F, and I’ll admit they framed 12F in a different way than the students. And later on, their all or nothing apporach was unwise.
If he truly believed before 12F, that we should let the social and economic crisis unravel before pushing a political crisis, then he SHOULD have calmed down the base, to prevent the political crisis from bursting. He should have influenced students to take a different path. Did he expect everyone to interpret God’s timing without help? For instance, I loved his message against guarimbas, it was the perfect message “What do you expect to accomplish by locking yourselves in your own neighborhoods? That’s not going to convince anyone”. Unfortunately his message came out on 22F, for reference, by 19F guarimbas had already a life of their own.
Instead, Capriles bashed #LaSalida organizers calling them irresponsibles and attention seekers, remained away from public sight most of the time during #LaSalida, except to come out and make sure to emphasize that MCM and LL didn’t enjoy his support, thus undermining their effort, without providing an alternative. In contrast, after Ramon Jose Medina’s “joke”, Capriles distanced himself from RJM, without bashing him.
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“leaders are supposed to provide guidance”
That is right and some leaders said: now is the time lets take the streets! and people went for it. The other leader said those leaders are wrong but most didn’t listen. Me? I blame the leaders that chose the wrong strategy at the wrong time, not the one that couldn’t convince people that patience was better. People always go for the one that promises the easier solutions. And Capriles is not a great communicator but at least he understand better about strategies. Maybe we will have to wait for a leader that has it all: its a great communicator and a great strategist. But for now Capriles is what we have.
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Capriles is not THE leader. He’s A leader.
A what we have is a “muy calvo o con dos pelucas” polarized scenario.
On one side, lie Capriles, and mainstream MUD parties, who are bidding their time, but aren’t listening to the base, aren’t talking to the base, and take the base for granted.
On the other side, lie the people from #LaSalida, whose impatient plan didn’t work as they thought, but are listening the base, are talking to the base, and are keeping the base mobilized.
A great strategist that doesn’t relay the strategy so others can asses it, be convinced and follow it isn’t very useful. A great strategy in Capriles head, that will only become known after his assumptions (the socio economic crisis would unfold first) no longer hold, isn’t useful to the opposition.
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I also find good reasons to bash LL, MCM and AL for breaking the unity of the MUD and running away with their own personal strategy. THAT is the cardinal sin. Everyone attacks Capriles for not supporting #LaSalida and LL wholeheartedly but that strategy was not agreed in the opposition, it represented a rupture in the cohesiveness of the opposition, an individual initiative. That seems to be the trademark of LL. All of those questions that you have should have been addressed within the MUD. “La encerrona” de Antonio Ledezma should have been done before they unilaterally decided to go with their personal adventures that derailed not only the long term plan but also the greatest asset of the opposition: unity. What you see as Capriles being passive aggressive I see as totally justified. The unity of the MUD was one of the greatest achievements of the opposition and they threw it away in pursuit of their personal dreams.
The students can’t be blamed so much since they were not part of the MUD, unfortunately. Los autoconvocados by their own definition were also independent, they wanted to appear to be leaderless so they followed no one. The students were very young in 2002-2003 the last time when the opposition said we-are-going-to-take-the-streets-until-they-leave. But LL, MCM and AL should have known better than to go for that failed strategy again putting all eggs in one basket and risking it all in one dramatic, yet ineffective maneuver.
In this story many here blame Capriles and make him to be the bad guy. I blame LL, MCM and AL.
“In Unity there is strength”. How many times do we need to repeat it?
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“for breaking the unity of the MUD and running away with their own personal strategy”
Wow, wow, wait. There’s a difference between acting outside MUD and acting against unity (or MUD). Let’s remember MUD isn’t a Monolithic organization, it is an umbrella organization whose members have a common electoral goal. MUD doesn’t have veto power over over the activities of oppo parties, au contraire, oppo parties have veto power over MUD activities.
#LaSalida was outside MUD, but it wasn’t against unity. Can you find quotes where LL, MCM or AL disparage a fellow oppo politician? On the other hand there’s plenty of public statements by Capriles, PJ politicians, Ramos Allup, etc. disparaging the proponents of #LaSalida, calling them irresponsible, attention seekers, etc. Ramos Allup even went as far as blaming #LaSalida for the people killed, instead of blaming the repression apparatus. Ramon Jose Medina (2nd in command at MUD, member of PJ) “joked” that they had no intention to get LL out of prison. In my eyes, mainstream MUD politicians are the ones straining unity, not LL, MCM or AL.
I’d just like to point out, once again, that #LaSalida improved our electoral results in San Diego and San Cristobal, before any claim is made of it affecting our appeal.
As a reference, to MUD’s non monolithic nature there are these cases:
For instance, in the 2012 presidential elections traditional parties (AD, Copei, ProVe, MAS, etc) gave up their brand (tarjeta electoral) to support a unitary “Unidad” brand. In contrast, newer parties (UNT, PJ, VP, etc) and smallish parties decided to keep their brands, which caused a controversy as there was a favorable climate for going with a unique brand. The newer parties wanted to go their own way, but their action was never consider as intentionally against MUD, even though it cost us like 1% of the votes because small parties changed alliegences away from Capriles.
On the 8D 2013 election, according to Ramos Allup, the majority on Valencia city council was lost because Scarano and Cocchiola launched parallel candidacies for it, thus costing the opposition three council members. That was considered a minor act against unity at the time, and also hurt the oppostion.
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Of course #LaSalida was a break against the unity, and not only of the MUD but of the opposition in general. They launched their own unsanctioned strategy and the results to my mind are definitely negative not positive. Not much was gained by winning electorally two municipalities that were already in the opposition side and could hardly be lost. The slide in Madurismo’s popularity cannot be attributed to #LaSalida but to Maduro and his bad government and his repressive campaign. It is entirely a self inflicted wound of Madurismo. By now nothing else has been obtained from #LaSallida, certainly no solution in view and the energies and moral to protest are down, polarization is up which are pluses for the government. As things settle down the opposition has to restart a long term campaign to improve their image with the people which did not improve with #LaSalida.
Lets be clear, the MUD objectives go further than just an electoral coalition. The final objective is a return to a constitutional democracy. But the MUD has no real power, to veto or anything else, that can prevent anyone from doing what they want to do. It is a gentlemen’s pact, Those that break it do not appreciate the great importance of having a unified strategy against the regime. They are either selfish or blind to the damage they cause or maybe they lack humility because they believe they know better than the rest. Unity in electoral times is important and you mentioned several cases of people breaking it. But unity is paramount when determining strategy and executing it. If everyone goes trying different plans they will all fail, as what someone does interferes with the other actions and there is no coordination, no clear message, no strength. When you criticize Capriles and others for disparaging LL, MCM to me that is the logical result of them going with their own plan and damaging the unified plan, leaving the rest and their plan hanging, having to wait and see what happens, with no coordinated message or plan of action. To me LL, MCM & AL going on their adventure against the consensus of the unity caused a bigger damage than a municipality lost here or there on an election. Losing a municipality is bad, but losing the strategy because of a derailment in the ranks is much worse, especially when a unique opportunity was approaching.
What was that opportunity? A grave economic crisis looming large in the horizon that was going to hit everyone badly and consequently undermine Maduro’s popularity and raise general discontent. By blowing up a political crisis merely two months after Maduro’s electoral victory and barely a month after the year end festivities, the opportunity was lost of amalgamating the discontent of the old opposition with the new discontented from the economic crisis into a truly national, and not political or classist, movement. The rioting and political crispation only helped polarize and distract the general population from the real problems caused by the government. At the same time those protesting (#ElQueSeCansaPierde) were necessarily going to be fatigated, demoralized and demobilized by the time the rest of the people started feeling the effect of the crisis and be ready to start protesting.
By launching too early #LaSalida prevented the swelling of a unified mass of discontent.
By politicizing the crisis it allowed a repolarization of the solidarities.
By creating a big circus it distracted from the real problems and deficiencies of the government,.
By insisting in an attrition campaign it depleted the energies and moral of the opposition..
By fracturing the opposition unity it discredited and reduced the political strength of the opposition as a whole, Especially the MUD, Capriles & Aveledo thus reducing their capacities to coordinate, summon and lead.
I think it caused a lot of damage. The lesson to be learned should be that unity is the most important asset the opposition can have.
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– “Of course #LaSalida was a break against the unity, and not only of the MUD but of the opposition in general.”
#LaSalida didn’t go against MUD, as MUD didn’t decide what to do either way. There wasn’t consensus on going with it, and there wasn’t consensus on not going with it. Opinions were divided, and the people from #LaSalida did what they thought was right, without attacking any fellow oppo politician. The other faction, which I’m going to call “the talkies”, attacked LL and MCM.
On contrast, in the absence of consensus on whether to reach a negotiated end to the crisis, the talkies went ahead anyway and even claimed to be going as MUD (as opposed to the member parties who agreed to sit down), because they thought it was the right thing to do. #LaSalida didn’t attack them at this point either. Would you claim that the negotiations “went against he unity, and not only of the MUD but of the opposition in general”?
– “the results [of #LaSalida] to my mind are definitely negative not positive”
We’ve already discussed this. You perceive it as such, but I fail to see any evidence of defeatism, as our electoral results improved.
– “Unity in electoral times is important and you mentioned several cases of people breaking it”
Yes, unity can bring strength in difficult times, provided it doesn’t cause inaction, as happened after the Dakazo, an event that MUD failed to tackle in any way.
I don’t deny there was a nice policy strategy, laid out for mayors. But a political strategy to deal with the national government further deteriorating the economy? Maybe in their heads, as Capriles didn’t lay out any strategy, even as #LaSalida was being conceived.
– “When you criticize Capriles and others for disparaging LL, MCM to me that is the logical result of them going with their own plan and damaging the unified plan”
Not true. LL, MCM and Ledezma didn’t need to disparage fellow oppo politicians to advance their plan. Capriles didn’t need to disparage Ramon Jose Medina, after his “joke”, to distance himself from him.
– “By fracturing the opposition unity it discredited and reduced the political strength of the opposition as a whole, Especially the MUD, Capriles & Aveledo thus reducing their capacities to coordinate, summon and lead.”
They discredited themselves:
+ The salserolazo was, in my opinion, the worst political blunder the opposition has made after Chavez died. A civil resistance movement at that point, #LaSalida style, backed by a MUD consensus would have been epic, judging by the mobilization #LaSalida got with a divided opposition and less clear goals.
+ Roberta-gate was a disgrace. The base was disheartened to learn that MUD had been lobbying in favor of government officials, to discourage targeted U.S sanctions against human rights abusers.
+ The failure of Aveledo, and several other high ranking politicians and political parties, to distance themselves from Ramon Jose Medina’s “joke” is a slap in the face to the oppo minded people who backed #LaSalida.
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I’m not privy to the details of the private conversations within the MUD but it is my impression that when #LaSalida was being conceived, everyone else but LL & MCM was opposed to it, because it was extemporaneous and it had the wrong focus (an attrition war until Maduro resigns). This things were discussed privately not publicly and LL and MCM went with it anyway against the better judgment of the rest of the opposition in the MUD and outside. AL joined them later. That is why there is such animadversion within the MUD against LL and MCM and that is why they have been disparaged as you say.
Up until then there was a clear strategy by the MUD and Capriles to direct their efforts to growing the political support especially from the common people, those who were not politicized. #LaSalida was a rupture of that strategy. The strategy had been in place since Capriles was elected in the primaries and it had been very successful, the most successful to date. (#LaSalida had been tried before unsuccessfully)
Notice you call them factions the Talkies and the “Actives”? or the “Epics”? But that is not correct. LL & MCM represented a secession from the unity of the opposition, not two factions of equivalent weight or authority within the MUD. I’m sure everyone in the opposition has their own opinion about what the best strategy is, and they criticize and disagree with Capriles vision, but most of them know that for the sake of unity they must support a unified strategy and defer to the current leadership. They know that breaking away from the agreed strategy and going on their own benefits no one.
Since my arguments do not convince you of the negative aspects of #LaSalida maybe other voices and other styles can do better. This article was written on Feb 14th: http://www.infociudadano.com/2014/02/14/lasalida-es-otro-espejismo/
This other one was written on Feb 10th: http://prodavinci.com/2014/02/10/actualidad/venezuela-los-dilemas-de-la-oposicion-por-fernando-mires/
And this one: http://www.eluniversal.com/opinion/140213/los-barrios-ante-la-salida
Another one from Feb 21th: http://www.lapatilla.com/site/2014/02/21/miguel-sogbi-lasalida-no-es-la-salida/
Sorry for linking so many articles. Read only as many as you like or just gloss over them. Similar ideas are exposed in them.
“A civil resistance movement at that point, #LaSalida style, backed by a MUD consensus would have been epic”
It probably would have been epic (in every sense of the word)… and it would have failed horribly (in an epic way too). With a 50-50 correlation of initial public support but with the rest of the power factors on the side of the government, with all the resources and the repression apparatus the movement would have suffered the same fate of #LaSalida except probably with more deaths and more people jailed. Besides the opposition had no concrete proofs or certainty that a recount would have favored them, that is why they didn’t even consider it.
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“everyone else but LL & MCM was opposed to it[…]AL joined them later”
I don’t think is a black and white scenario. There’s people who supported #LaSalida, people who were kind of close, people who were kind of critical, people who opposed #LaSalida, etc. For instance, Proyecto Venezuela and Cuentas Claras, the main opposition parties in Carabobo, didn’t commit to #LaSalida, but refrained from outright condemnation like Cocchiola did. Those parties have been more closely to LL in this affair than to HCR. On the other hand, COPEI’s Roberto Henriquez issued statements before 12F criticizing both LL and HCR for engaging in cock fight.
“Up until then there was a clear strategy by the MUD and Capriles to direct their efforts to growing the political support especially from the common people, those who were not politicized”
Awesome, that they had a strategy to reach out. One problem is that the forgot about the base. 8D was a fiasco, partly because the base wasn’t motivated enough, because the aftermath of April hasn’t been settled, because MUD dropped the ball on Dakazo, etc. My evidence for this isn’t my opinion, nor is it some other people’s opinions, my evidence is the voter turnout increase we experienced after #LaSalida, and the voter turnout decrease the government experienced after #LaSalida.
I don’t think the strategy was clear, though. Maybe it was clear inside MUD meetings, but it wasn’t clear to the base. And whose fault is it the base didn’t know HCR had a plan?
“Notice you call them factions the Talkies and the “Actives”? or the “Epics”?”
I call them the talkies and #LaSalida proponents, or #LaSalida for short.
“LL & MCM represented a secession from the unity of the opposition, not two factions of equivalent weight or authority within the MUD.”
How can it be a secession if they still consider themselves a part of MUD and MUD still considers them members? You could make a case of it being a rebellion against the MUD establishment, and I would support you there, but a secession? No way.
If we use Consultores 21’s poll, as an IMPERFECT proxy to measure sympathies, you see HCR and HF (talkies) both with around 43% popularity, and LL and MCM (#LaSalida) with 49% and 44%, respectively, we can’t help but reach a conclusion that these opposition leaders are in the same league. Neither of those camps is “fringe” or unimportant.
“Since my arguments do not convince you of the negative aspects of #LaSalida maybe other voices and other styles can do better”
Two quotes I liked (that represent the same idea):
“Para decirlo de modo terminante: ni Capriles es un colaborador de Maduro ni López/Machado son golpistas. Mucho menos Ledezma. Si no aceptamos esas premisas, cualquiera discusión será imposible.” (Fernando Mires)
“Opositores, ¡la polémica es sana!, pero es tiempo de disciplinarnos a la causa de la lucha común, y a su máximo paladín: La Unidad… Fue divertido insultarnos, y decirnos barbaridades, pero ni Capriles es colaboracionista, ni López/Machado son golpistas… ¡Callémonos la boca ya un rato!… Tenemos que hacerle caso a Don Francisco de Miranda, dejar el bochinche y ponernos a trabajar.” (Saverio Vivas)
“It probably would have been epic (in every sense of the word)… and it would have failed horribly (in an epic way too)”
We strongly disagree there. Just remember that with all its imperfections, #LaSalida almost got Vielma Mora to defect.
Words fail to describe the climate after the CNE announced the results. Never in my life had I heard pots banging so hard, it was so loud, I couldn’t hear Maduro on TV whenever he launched a cadena broadcast. People were way more enticed than during #LaSalida, we had clear moral superiority. And Maduro had a more tenuous hold on power, and his legitimacy was in question. The voters were ready to defend their victory, unfortunately the leadership wasn’t. Had we gone with a civil resistance movement akin to #LaSalida instead of the salserolazo, I’m sure we would have gotten a proper audit.
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“Words fail to describe the climate after the CNE announced the results. Never in my life had I heard pots banging so hard, it was so loud, I couldn’t hear Maduro on TV whenever he launched a cadena broadcast. People were way more enticed than during #LaSalida”
Yes emotions on the oppo camp were high, why shouldn’t they be it was the best result in 15 years. Yet it is my impression the opposition couldn’t really tell if they had won or not. The government seemed prepared to go full scale with repression. The correlation of forces 50-50 and all the other factors for the government was negative for the opposition. Another #LaSalida effort would have yielded similar results and it could have indeed resulted in an audit but probably more of a pseudo-audit, Carter center style. In the end is not enough to have emotion and voluntarism on your side, the possibilities of success/failure need to be assessed with a cooler head.
“If we use Consultores 21’s poll, as an IMPERFECT proxy to measure sympathies, you see HCR and HF (talkies) both with around 43% popularity, and LL and MCM (#LaSalida) with 49% and 44%, respectively, we can’t help but reach a conclusion that these opposition leaders are in the same league. Neither of those camps is “fringe” or unimportant”
LL and MCM are very good leaders, in some ways better than HCR, but their position in the MUD was not one that allowed them to create their own strategy and implement it unilaterally. In fact no one had that prerogative. Their duty was to stick with the agreed strategy. The poll data you show is for after #LaSalida was implemented. In that sense is worth quoting Urgelles point of view:
“Al parecer, el propósito más profundo de los promotores de #LaSalida no es reemplazar de inmediato al gobierno, sino a Henrique Capriles como líder del pueblo democrático y a Ramón Guillermo Aveledo como coordinador de la oposición organizada. En ese caso, el movimiento debería tener por Hashtag el más apropiado de #LaEntrada… de ellos a las posiciones dirigentes de la oposición. ”
“How can it be a secession if they still consider themselves a part of MUD and MUD still considers them members?”
The opposition as a whole is trying desperately to maintain the unity because it is the most important thing they can have, but there is a fracture there, caused by LL and MCM.
“Just remember that with all its imperfections, #LaSalida almost got Vielma Mora to defect.”
Lets not forget San Cristobal was the scenario of an even stronger protest campaign than anywhere else in Venezuela. Also any strategy has an outside chance of succeeding, history is full of details like these where one person’s decision or indecision can make the difference between failure or success. What better example than April 11th 2002, and then April 13th 2002. Any kind of revolt can have surprising consequences.
“And whose fault is it the base didn’t know HCR had a plan?”
The ones that needed to know were LL and MCM, not the base. The base followed them because they promised a shortcut, a quick solution to the problem. Even if the people thought that HCR had a very good plan, the masses would always follow the ones with the better promises. Take the eloquence of LL and MCM telling the oppo people exactly what they wanted to hear and the prestige and energy of the student movement and you have an unstoppable formula.
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“The ones that needed to know were LL and MCM, not the base”
Keep ignoring the base, are you’re bound to have more autoconvocados, more disorganized students protests, and less credibility with the base.
I know, some people like to pin the repression on #LaSalida (as opposed to the government), but they get their facts wrong.
The thugs were already beating people up at the time of the autoconvocados.
The government was already arresting students before 12F, that’s the main reason #LaSalida took off, the 4F students who were sent to prison in Coro after protesting after the attempted rape of a fellow student on campus in Tachira.
Ledezma clearly said that he felt that either the opposition got on top of this and lead, or someone else would come along and lead instead. How did Capriles feel about this? What was his plan to tacke this disorganized protest movement that was a result of a base that felt that noone was minding them? Do you have a link were he tried to tackle this discontent before 10F? Did he try anything besides bashing #LaSalida?
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“8D was a fiasco, partly because the base wasn’t motivated enough, because the aftermath of April hasn’t been settled, because MUD dropped the ball on Dakazo, etc.”
8D fiasco had happened twice before: once as recently as Dec 2012 with the gubernatorial elections where the opposition even lost Tachira. It also happened in 2004 on another gubernatorial election right after the RR. In all 3 cases the opposition came from a strong (but insufficient) showing in the presidential/referendum election to a weak showing in the regional election due to a demoralized/demotivated electorate. In both gubernatorial elections the opposition movement failed to even try to maintain the motivation of the people, difficult as that may be. In 2013 though HCR did try to motivate people by making it a plebiscite of sorts but it wasn’t enough. The opposition apparently is good at motivating the people when the prize is big but they cannot do it enough for smaller prices.
Regarding the Dakazo I do not know what they could have done about it.
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“Keep ignoring the base”
Keep ignoring the importance of unity and you are bound to have many leaders leading in different directions all failing in their efforts, stepping on each others toes. Of course the base should not be ignored but it also cannot be pulled in multiple directions by every leader that thinks they have #TheSolution.
All of those questions you raise should have been discussed in the MUD. They are no excuse to go solo and launch an initiative that breaks the unity of the opposition. The time to call for an Encerrona was before launching #LaSalida not after it failed.
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Regarding calming things down in 12F, how could he do it if wasn’t leading that iniciative? I do not think it was in his power, people were following a different option, a more appealing short cut. He tried with no effect at all as your link shows. Many of us reasoned with similar arguments during that time, but most people preferred swift and decisive action to a slower build up. Many still do, blaming it all on the indifference of the Venezuelans, thinking more guarimbas are necessary, but failing to see why that is not possible and not effective.
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To use another simile, LL, MCM and the students took the batton and the people followed them. He was left in the dust or in the MUD with the discredited politicians. People went for the rosier promises, as they always do. Isn’t that the curse of politics? People will always follow the one that promises the impossible, never the realistic ones. So you either get a dishonest scoundrel that knows he cannot deliver, like Chávez, a dishonest one that promises one thing and does another, like CAP II, or a naive idealistic that doesn’t know what is possible and what isn’t, like ….?
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