Yesterday, Maria Corina Machado offered a press conference to react to the Comptroller-General’s decision to bar her from holding public office for 12 months, which would leave her out of December 6th’s legislative election.
Machado said that the formal reason given for her punishment is that she failed to declare her CestaTickets (a kind of private food-stamp often included as part of a pay package). That’s quite something, given that she didn’t receive any CestaTickets during her time as a member of the National Assembly.
Then, she openly challenged Nicolas Maduro, saying, “I’m enabled (to run) by the country and its citizens”. So MCM says she’ll go forward with her candidacy for Miranda State’s 2nd electoral district (El Hatillo, Chacao, Baruta and part of Sucre Municipality). BTW, the CNE reduced the number of deputies in this district – one of the most populous in the country – from two to one.
Machado received the support of MUD’s Secretary-General Jesus “Chuo” Torrealba and her fellow MP Eduardo Gomez Sigala during her press conference. OAS Secretary-General Luis Almagro’s reaction was forceful: “Any barrings are made by voters. Disqualifications are the people’s matter alone.” Henrique Capriles’ reaction?… not so much.
In follow-up interviews with CNN en Español and Spanish newspaper ABC, Maria Corina called the ruling as “void and illegitimate” and vowed to appeal it. Comptroller-General Manuel Galindo denied that the “administrative” sanction against her is politically motivated. Right, that’s that cleared up then.
Later in the day, Diosdado Cabello didn’t just talk back during his weekly TV show but actually explained the whole case in more detail than the Comptroller-General has done so far. Talk about Diosdasplaining…
…(Cabello) refuted Maria Corina’s statement indicating that her bank accounts only showed her payments from Assembly’s payments, and the inquiry revealed that those payments “are about a fiftieth of what she spends. Where does she get the money? Because she doesn’t tell us in her sworn declaration.”
According to the information given by “cooperating patriot” Chequeador (term used for the State’s anonymous informants), the Comptroller’s office requested in the AN’s Human Resources Office all receipts of the citizen’s payments where evidence was found of transportation and additional food expenditures.”
Meanwhile, the hegemony isn’t pleased with her defiant response. Good. You can see Maria Corina’s full statement in the video up top.
UPDATE: Enzo Scarano, former mayor of San Diego Municipality (Carabobo State) just got his own 12-month ban as well. Apparently, sacking him of his post and putting him in prison after a quick trial wasn’t enough. He was supposed to be the opposition’s candidate for Carabobo’s 3rd Electoral District (San Diego, Naguanagua and North Valencia) after winning the MUD primary last May by a landslide. So… Who’ll be next?
Caracas Chronicles 
Why can’t the opposition all get on the same page? The only way they’ll win is through teamwork. I foresee yet another disaster coming in December. Given the state of the country all the opposition has to do win is not screw up. Is that too much to ask?
LikeLike
María Corina can say all she wants, but if the government says she can’t run, her tough talk isn’t enough. I wonder who’s going to be the MUD candidate for the district, which is the most pro-opposition in the entire country.
LikeLike
The link posted clearly shows that Capriles condemned the decision.
I don’t understand why Capriles bashing is a favorite hobby of CC, even though he is the only opposition leader that has some level of broad appeal among Venezuelans. The criticism seems gratuitous on more than one occasion.
LikeLike
“..that Capriles condemned the decision.”
Agree.
“Capriles bashing .. favorite hobby of CC..”
Agree, and I hope I’m selective in my criticisms, which btw extend to the bloggers who play coy with audio presentations, still waiting for the audio link to the Capriles speech that prompted such venom among the economists on this blog.
Speaking of audio, I only came across the Periscopio interview of Capriles well after the speech. It’s not bad, Capriles defending himself against the attacking economists.
LikeLike
That’s true, Capriles normally does come down on the right side of things. But on a grander scale, the opposition as a whole falls short of having a single message and a single position. I realize you’re going to have differences within a party but as you get close to an election you need to try to have one message especially if you’re going to be running with the single ticket thing that they seem to want to do.
LikeLike
Hear hear!
LikeLike
Ay pobresita la sifrinita Maria Conchita! Gueno todabia noj quedan bajtantes mujeres capases en nuejtro gran Parlamento Bolibariano. Y tambien nuestras 7 bellas ministras, y Luisita Ortega, Iris Varela, y Tibi Tibi, tan linda, y mi amiga la lisenziada Desiree Cabrera, vosera del Comité de Víctimas de la Guarimba!
LikeLike
Mil vecej mejol una siflinita que siete minijtraj y una fijcal que dejan que loj choroj vayan a matal a tuj hijoj y amigoj, máj una loca tarifada que vendió al marío muelto que se lo queblaron en un ajujte e’ cuenta.
LikeLike
If ya can’t beat ’em, ban ’em
LikeLike
Jajaja buena esta
LikeLike
MCM is totally justified.
The practice of disqualification of candidates was adopted from the legal procedures of Iran, which allow a committee of mullahs to declare any candidate ineligible for public office due to heresy in religious belief. In Venezuela, the allegation of corruption serves the same purpose, since it never has to be proven, and there are no avenues to disprove it either.
When they did this to Leopoldo Lopez, he took it to the InterAmerican Court of Human Rights, which ruled that the practice is illegal and undemocratic:
THE COURT DECLARES: Unanimously, that:
“1. The State is responsible for the violation of the right to be elected, established in Articles 23(1)(b) and 23(2), in relation to the obligation to respect and guarantee rights set forth in Article 1(1) of the American Convention on Human Rights, to the detriment of Mr. López Mendoza, in terms of paragraph 109 of this Judgment.
2. The State is responsible for the violation of obligation to establish cause and the right to defense in the administrative proceedings that resulted in the imposition of sanctions of disqualification, established in Article 8(1), in relation to the obligation to respect and guarantee rights, established in Article 1(1) of the American Convention on Human Rights, to the detriment of Mr. López Mendoza, in terms of paragraph 149 of this Judgment.
3. The State is responsible for the violation of the right to judicial protection established in Article 25(1), in relation to the obligation to respect and guarantee rights, the right to a fair trial [judicial guarantees], and the right to be elected as set out in Articles 1(1) , 8(1), 23(1)(b), and 23(2) of the American Convention on Human Rights, to the detriment of Mr. López Mendoza, in terms of paragraph 185 of this Judgment.”
While couched in terms of that court’s jurisdiction over the InterAmerican system, parallel rights in the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights would mandate the same result.
Click to access seriec_233_ing.pdf
LikeLike
Whatever. Leopoldo Lopez started all that but everyone knows how the story ended: a very expensive publicity stunt and him dropping out the 2012 MUD primary race for scoring poorly in polls. MCM is bound to follow similar steps, so don’t expect she’ll be able to tear the wall down.
LikeLike
“…scoring poorly in polls.”
Proof or it didn’t happen, he actually dropped because he understood he wasn’t going to be allowed to become candidate nor take possession if he won the elections.
LikeLike
All opposition parties agreed on keeping those records off public sight, so proof of it didn’t happen but “it” did happen. Capriles himself confirmed the fact last year.
LikeLike
Capriles used the “I got more votes” wildcard to try to dismiss some argument he had with Diego Arria (Typical chaburro excuse, by the way), so the “fact” that he confirmed LL was after the ambulance isn’t much credible anyway, if it depended on sleeve-pulled polls (which are like 90% of all the so-called polls in this country), there wouldn’t have been prime elections nor any elections against chaburrismo.
LikeLike
She should fight this with everything she has.
LikeLike
Yes, because much better than taking part in any smartmatic’s tampered “elections” is to make headlines all over the world as a female being persecuted by Chavismo’s oppression, destroying what’s left of these animal’s reputation. MCM’s goal can be anything other than to stir commotion in Venezuela and overseas.
LikeLike
*can’t
LikeLiked by 1 person
OAS Secretary-General Luis Almagro’s reaction was forceful: “Any barrings are made by voters. Disqualifications are the people’s matter alone.”
Sorry, but that is simply not true. Suppose the constitution of a country bans re-election, as Mexico does for its presidency, or limits tenure to two terms, as the U.S. does for its presidency, or bars active-duty military officers from political office, or has minimum age requirements. Should these rules be ignored and the voters have absolute discretion?
In many places, a candidate must qualify for the ballot by presenting nomination petitions with sufficient valid signatures. Is this rule to be ignored? (Obama won his first office – Illinois state senator – by successfully challenging the nominating petitions of the other two candidates. Both were found to have forged most of their signatures.)
Obviously, a partisan electoral agency can abuse its authority, as CNE is doing here. But does that mean the electoral agency should have no authority?
LikeLike
Election overseers can insure that constitutional provisions are respected; I.e. No re-election for President, and it can require that candidates have a minimum level of support, if that is required by its enabling legislation. I am pretty sure MCM can collect the required signatures, and that doing so is consistent with her articulated principle: the people will decide if I am to be a candidate.
But having government officials with broad discretion to decide who may run for office? That’s Iran’s “guided” democracy, inconsistent with the idea that the people chose the people who govern the country. The present government doesn’t.
LikeLike
Maria Corina Machado and Leopoldo Lopez are like crabs. Ditto anybody involved with the guarimbas (btw, people living abroad don’t quite get the level they got to. It was a wild west shoot out, with firepower from both sides). They should have been smart, but they got carried away with the fleetiing sensation of righteous anger.
LikeLike
of course
and jet fuel cant melt steel beams
LikeLike
“…with firepower from both sides”
Pura paja loca, no hay ni una prueba de que un sólo tiro haya sido disparado por alguien que no fueran los aberrados de los colectivos y de los cuerpos represivos chavistas.
Pero bueno, allá tú que te sigues considerando poceta…
LikeLike
I will bet money you were abroad at the time.
Forget that I know people who would store guns in their house and liked the guarimbas simply becuase they were wild; I can’t really present evidence of it. Let’s use logic here: tell a bunch of angry kids that they can topple a government with small scale outbursts, in a country where buying guns is only slightly harder and more expensive than buying crack, in a scenario where the only other similar undertaking (2002) had ended in a fire fight. They are blocking roads, motorizados have died, the GN is being mobilized. “Don’t stop, we have them by the curlies now!” yells a good looking politician. The city is yours now, you have a claim to stake, and the ones hardcore enough to keep at it are more likely than not to take ego enhancing drugs.
Now… Throw flowers at them!
These politicians were irresponsible, and denying you have crabs doesn’t stop the itching.
LikeLike
Pura paja loca, no tienes una prueba de nada porque no existe ni por mucho que se la mamen van a poder fabricarlas, sólo saben repetir gafedades por la tapa de la barriga sin saber un cebillo.
Todas las armas están en control exclusivo de los aberrados rojos, ¿Quién mandó a los colectivos a andar jodiendo a la gente? El pueblo tiene derecho a defenderse, y mucho más cuando les echan las hordas de asesinos armados con pistolas, granadas, escopetas, fusiles y subametralladoras.
Las pruebas están por millones, basta con googlear “chavistas asesinos” y absolutamente todo lo que se existe es evidencia abrumadora e irrefutable de que el régimen chavista es el único que tiene armas y que las usa para masacrar al pueblo.
LikeLike
” 2002 a firefight”, great revisionist history for what was a Chavista massacre of a mammoth march to Miraflores, with much greater bloodshed avoided only by such real humanitarian patriots as Simonovis, et. al., and the stil then-patriotic Military brass that demanded Chavez’s resignation, rather than excute his ordered murderous Plan Avila. “Angry (Oppo) kids shooting during the guarimbas”–didn’t happen, but many were certainly shot at/hit/injured/killed and inhaled huge amounts of teargas, and were jailed and some even tortured, all without due process.
LikeLike
Firefight: someone shooting back. Someone shot back. I am quite clear what happened, I had family there.
In fact, I was at one of the marches of the time, and a funny repeat of history is happening here. I was wearing a military style cap and some dumb old white guy started yelling at me, blaming me for chavismo.
Alieanate enough people who are actually on the streets when these things happen and know the truth, and the result is nobody trusts you enough to believe you are an alternative. Maybe I’m slightly less scared of a blind whacky scoundrel than a blind catankerous moralist.
LikeLike
Net: Poor chumps like the chaburro here can’t accept reality, that’s why they insist on lying their asses off even when faced with irrefutable evidence.
This all reflects the artificial, irrational hatred their heads have been filled with, first by castrista infiltrators during and after the armed invasion against Venezuela from cuba during and after the 60s, then the repeated brainwashing based on hatred in the 80s and 90s, added to the conspitators and traitors against Venezuela who helped pave the way for the fiambre to seize power (When he should have remained locked in a cell until 2022.
That dissociation is what causes poor beings like this chaburro to make from thin air all sorts of excuses to defend his narrow, artificial and fake perspective; there isn’t even a monetary reward like the enchufados, who are there just because they are a bunch of lambucios muertos de hambre, people like this poor chaburro are there for some stupid and useless rub to their overinflated egos, because all what they want to say is “THEY DESERVED IT BECAUSE I HATE THEM, EVEN WHEN I DON’T KNOW WHY I HATE THEM.”
Poor beings, definitely, I could pity them if this regime wouldn’t have destroyed Venezuela so badly.
LikeLike
Recently Diosdado said that the MUD did not deserve to when a single seat in the AN. I suspect that they will disqualify ALL of the Opposition candidates eventually. There will not be a single Opposition candidate on the ballot. They know that this is the only way they can win. They figure they can weather the international criticism and still claim some some semblance of democracy. Cuba has elections too, even though only the Communist Party is allowed to run. Raul convinced them that if it is good enough for Cuba, it is good enough for Venezuela.
What can we do about it? Not a lot.
LikeLike
I don’t think Venezuela’s situation is very similar to that hermit dirty-poor isle called Cuba or North Korea, I see Venezuela as being more similar to South Africa during apartheid era. Venezuela’s regime, just like SA’s back then, is deeply ingrained in global markets, thus, NEEDS the international community to survive. If they lose political support, they will lose economic support, and the regime will just crumble, because they won’t have money to pay the enchufados that make all the gears from inside the monster work. It will be beautiful.
LikeLike
That is why it is all going to be over when the international reserves hit zero. The elections are actually irrelevant, and the regime may not even survive through to December.
LikeLike
But, they guys at the very top don’t know that. For Maduro and a few others, the collapse of the regime will be a complete surprise.
LikeLike
The elections can be used as a catalyst to motivate a mobilization from the people, the dictatorship will give the “last straw” reason to protest after they cheat and make another mega fraud, which will add to the existing shit ton of problems the country has already such as rampant crime warzone scale murder sprees, soaring hyperinflation, gonad-busting scarcity backed by the the chocking controls made by the regime itself (who also backs all the smuggling and currency leaks that led to this mess)
The milicos should add two plus two and have three working brain cells to realize chaburrismo is a dead end that’ll explode in their faces in a way uglier way if they pretend to stay as enforcers of that shit.
LikeLike
“The elections can be used as a catalyst to motivate a mobilization from the people…”
They know that too. That is why it is better for them to slowly disqualify the Oppos one by one. That way, when the Chavistas win, it will already be a foregone conclusion and will eliminate that event as a catalyst.
LikeLike
chaburrismo, in one image:
LikeLike
The ridiculous Parliamentary elections will be nothing but a fraudulent, putrid fiasco.
– Grotesque seat Gerrymandering: already in place.
– Sold CNE, with TibiBitch’s last minute tricks with gender quotas and many more to come.
– Chavez’s infernal Smartmatic Olivetti Fraud machines, envenenadas hasta la pepa.
– Incarcerated leaders like Leoploldo, forced into exile, or Banned key opposition leaders.
– Students and Universities shut down, silenced by the GNB and Sebin thugs.
– Massive repression in the streets, to silence peaceful protests, campaign meetings..
– Barbaric Media censorship, total Hegemony by the regime, Radio, TV, Papers, etc.
– Lack of access to Internet and Social Media for Key Target voters: poor Chavista-light pueblo.
– Hordes of Bribes, promises, gifts and cash prices offered by the Regime in exchange for votes.
– Direct Threats, intimidation, use of “Tasco lists”, “Obama list”, “sabemos quienes votaron”..
– 3 Million + government employees and leeches will be forced to vote at least Twice for PSUV.
– The Dead Chinese, Cuban and Colombia voters usually resuscitate for every “election” , with brand new cedulas rebolusionarias.
Finally, the usual late-evening CNE extension for a few final touches, couple re-adjustments of the Smartmatic corrupt data, a few laughs entre panas en la Carlota, Havana approves, y listo el pollo:
“Gana la oposicion con el 52.4% de los votos!!”
Cabello, Masburro and el Mago Smartmatic Rodriguez throw a Super Reggaeton Celebration Party en La Lagunita Country Club that lasts until 2016.
“Triunfa una vez mas la Democracia en Cubazuela!!”
And the Circus goes on.
LikeLike
No, No, gana el Gobierno con 51%/mas de los votos, pero 60% de los asientos. A recent Ultimas Noticias front-page headline says it all–“59% Of Voters Prefer Maduro’s Government To Solve The Country’s Problems”, rather than the Oppo to solve them (good old salta-talanquera Schemel of Hinterlaces). See, the stage is being set–Even though some of those “lying/mis-guided polls” show 20%/less approval for Maburro, el “Pueblo” still wants him to solve their problems, and, remember, “3.1mm voters +500m turned away” because of “long lines” in the PSUV Primaries, with only 20% Smartmatic machines used, numerically/proportionately translates into an easy win for the Regime. And, with media hegemony,and MUD spokeperson apathy, few publicly have challenged these absurd claims, meaning that noone should be surprised when the Oppo loses the fixed Parliamentary Elections….
LikeLike
I don’t think Cabello and Rodriguez are that stupid. Or Raul Castro. If they are not lobotomized-retarded, they will fix a meaningless “defeat” 54% for the MUD, which changes absolutely nothing in a dictatorship without separation of powers, and souls for sale.
Remember one of the main purposes of holding circus fake elections as the do in Cuba and Cubazuela is for “democratic” appearances: domestic and international. Internationally, the Fraud would be too obvious, now that everyone agrees that at least 75% is against Chavismo.
LikeLike
75% against Maduro, Chavez VIVE! You are underestimating the greed of those in power, plus the face-saving need to win elections, plus the ease of fixing them–the stage is set, and will continue to be better-set by election time….
LikeLike