A couple of weeks ago, CC fellow blogger Audrey M. DaCosta wrote about Tamara Adrian, Venezuela’s fist-ever transgender candidate for public office. Her story made headlines and shone a much needed spotlight on the LGBT agenda in Venezuela. Now, thanks to Chavismo’s handling of their own gay and transgender candidacies, Adrian’s run for office has…
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…
La Villa del Cine is working on a movie about Hugo Chavéz’s brief deposing during April (11th, 12th, and 13th) 2002. This is a core moment in Chavista mythology, it revamped Hugo Chávez’s weakened popularity and defined a new pace for Venezuelan politics for the years to come. Así se rueda @abrillapelicula basada en el libro de @VillegasPoljakE…
The People’s Electoral Movement (MEP) – the largely empty carcass of AD’s left-wing faction that broke away from the party in the 60s – recently held its internal national assembly to elect its main authorities. In that context, Chairman Andrés Lusiano Lara and Secretary-General Wilmer Nolasco were ratified, along with the rest of its main board and other…
Last February 27th, local Chavista activist Alcedo Mora allegedly left his home in the city of Mérida. He went to his workplace at the Merida State Government and met with his boss, Luis Martínez Rico, who’s the state’s Lieutenant-Governor. Later that day, he texted a few friends, telling them that SEBIN intelligence agents were looking for him, and that…
The FIFA scandal continues to dominate headlines worldwide, particularly after Sepp Blatter announced on Tuesday he would step down after being reelected for a fifth term four days earlier. Venezuela is right at the center of the scandal, as Rafael Esquivel, the head of our football federation for the last 27 years, was one of the…
In early March, I wrote about Lumay Barreto, the opposition (VP) mayor of bordertown Guasdualito (Apure State) who was swiftly impeached by the PSUV-controlled municipal council for allegedly “abandoning her post”. As expected, the TSJ’s Constitutional Hall has validated the council’s decision, confirming its president Víctor Blanco (PSUV) as caretaker. Gladys Gutierrez (head of both…
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…
What is “eco-socialism”? It’s basically the central government’s term for both its environmental policy and for the ministry in charge of it (which just changed its denomination to Environment and Waters, as Audrey has pointed out). But what does “eco-socialism” really stand for? Mostly, it’s for using environmental issues as political taglines. For example, the government’s PR…
Last week, the municipal council of Guasdualito, deep down in Apure State held a special session to oust mayor Lumay Barreto. With the vote of five of its nine members, the PSUV majority declared that Barreto, a member of Leopoldo López’s “Popular Will” (VP) party, “abandoned her post,” and named one of their own as a temporary…
PanfletoNegro has always been one of those oddities of Venezuelan cyberspace: minimally managed, open for anyone to write in and “anarchic” in the etymological sense, the site ought to be awash in unreadable garbage. And yes, there’s some of that, but there’s also a surprising proportion of very readable garbage, as well as some stuff that…
George Packer has written a brilliant piece on the rise of Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel in the New Yorker. The article has many anecdotes and thought-provoking ideas, but one stuck with me. When talking about how Merkel decided to cut ties with the legendary Helmut Kohl, her mentor, Packer says: In November, 1999, the C.D.U. (Merkel’s and Kohl’s party) was engulfed…
We dangle the word “Facho” (slang for fascist) quite easily. It’s a quick way to refer to certain individuals in the government who act as – how to put it nicely? – psychotic bullies. Sometimes, the term just fits. From the top of my head, some examples of chavista facho moments: Chávez firing thousands of workers from PDVSA during his live TV…
Earlier this week, chavismo’s hippest Troll Princess posted four pictures on Instagram showing four sides of her family. There’s no doubt she was engineered just to patch up her dad’s public face and present him as an approachable fella’. In these pics, we can see the almighty President of the National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello, wearing an apron and just goofin’…
Back in 1978, Great Britain went through a horrendous period. Public employees went on strike, and public services were severely disrupted. The period, known as “the winter of discontent,” all but destroyed Labour’s reputation, and helped propel Margaret Thatcher to the Prime Minister’s office, a development that changed British history. One of the anecdotes about the…
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