Is it possible to forecast how many seats the government and the opposition will get in the National Assembly on the basis of National-level polls? It’s a tough problem, but ahead of the 2010 National Assembly election, we showed it can be done. And this year, with a little help from our friends over at Distortioland,…
It wouldn’t be an ordinary week in today’s Venezuela without the highest court in the land taking over a political party to appoint a pro-government clique to lead it. This week saw the turn of the National Integrity Movement, better known as MIN-UNIDAD. The Constitutional Chamber admitted a motion by Alix Ramon Medina, head of the MIN’s Barinas State branch, who…
Discontent inside Chavismo has been brewing in recent times. but as each day passes, more and more factions are openly challenging the PSUV. El Nacional’s Hernan Lugo-Galicia had the details a couple of days ago on four Chavista groups that have decided to forsake the Grand Patriotic Pole coalition and run alone for the upcoming legislative…
It’s become commonplace: our highest court gets involved in the internal affairs of political parties. This week the gauntlet fell on two more: Bandera Roja (Red Flag), a once guerrilla group that decided eventually to replace the armed struggle for the electoral one, and Christian Democratic party COPEI, one of the main Venezuelan political parties of the pre-Chavez era. On…
We are three weeks into the race for the parliamentary elections (scheduled for December 6th) and the Venezuelan government has already imposed three over-the-top hurdles for the opposition. First, the Elections Council (CNE) issued a set of rules establishing a gender quota which they knew the opposition didn’t have. This was a genius move, because…
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…
The race for the National Assembly is up and running with the recently held MUD primary. The PSUV will have its own internal process on June 28th, and the CNE is already working for the general election, even if they insist in keeping the official date under wraps. But in the last few days, the electoral…
Maduro received the power today to rule by decree. It is the second time he has had these. Hugo Chávez had a ton of these during his tenure. You know what? It does not matter. Maduro could do whatever he wanted yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Does he have any constraints on governance? Perhaps, but if he does,…
Venezuela is supposed to hold legislative elections this year … emphasis on the word “supposed.” As Quico explained, the government has all the incentives not to hold the elections. The government is deeply unpopular, and no amount of tinkering with the results could hide the shellacking they’re looking to receive. There is another reason why large scale fraud…
Caracas Chronicles 