Capping off a horrifically depressing news day, Henrique Capriles gave a “major speech” on economic policy today that barely merited the name. Capriles portrayed himself as presenting a short-term package of emergency economic recommendations, but the speech itself was so disjointed and incoherent it was hard to make heads or tails of what he was proposing.…
(Apologies for the source of the above video, it was the only version available on YouTube) The bloggers of Caracas Chronicles held a cyber-conversation on today’s announcement by Henrique Capriles, where he abandoned infighting within the opposition and called for unity together with increased street pressure on the government. Juan C: So … main takeaways? To…
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…
Yesterday Henrique Capriles also shut the door on the idea of a Constitutional Assembly, or even the resignation of Nicolás Maduro, a man he used to claim “stole an election.” Basically, he said that without a new CNE, the Constituyente was a no-go, and that Maduro wasn’t going to resign anyway, so there was no point…
One year ago today, Nicolás Maduro was elected President of Venezuela. One year ago, Henrique Capriles was elected President of Venezuela, and Nicolás Maduro stole the election. It’s safe to say that each and every Venezuelan believes one of those two things. Venezuela’s drama is that each one of the camps of believers is extremely large. With…
Henrique Capriles’s speech at today’s march deserves to be listened to in full. The sheer relief of having somebody take charge and lead, damnit, was overwhelming for me. His message is crystal clear. Listen, in particular, at 10:50: I ask those who are protesting not to lock yourselves up with your own people. What good…
There is a fantastic moment at the end of Charlie Wilson’s War, where the late (and great) Philip Seymour Hoffman tells a story that nails the strategy of the Venezuelan opposition since 2002 spot on. There’s a little boy and on his 14th birthday he gets a horse… and everybody in the village says, “how…
I’m in Caracas, so sorry in advance for the light posting. This is just a short note to remind you to follow our 8D election coverage. We’ll try to have as much content as possible for you, as we always do. This election closes a cycle that began some four years ago. The MUD experiment…
There’s a lot to like in this op-ed on oil policy by Leopoldo López, published in El Nacional. The money quote: “Los proyectos requieren inversión tanto nacional como foránea. Incluso si no pudiésemos participar en las inversiones de estos proyectos, a los venezolanos las leyes nos deberían garantizar la oportunidad de invertir en fondos de…
We’ve all heard it: we need to go out and vote on December 8th. But why? What difference will it make if your mayor is red or blue? The answer is: it won’t. With all due respect to the hard-working folks at several of our most important municipalities, the era of innovative public policies at…
Re. the opposition’s strategy to get out the vote, Quico said: “The reason people were able to vote with cédulas chimbas, or to do coercive votos asistidos, is that opposition witnesses were forcibly barred from doing their jobs. By guys with guns. Backed by guys in uniforms. That basic power imbalance is still there. There’s…
There’s a lot to like in this expertly-made video. The message has been trimmed of all its fat. It gets to the point quickly, concretely. Capriles makes a strong case as to what happened last Arpil, and what is at stake this December 8th. It’s simple, direct, covincing. It baffles me, though, why they couldn’t…
I’ve been mulling Quico’s unusual screed from the other day, in which he harshly criticized Henrique Capriles and wondered out loud how long he was going to last as leader of the opposition. The reason it seemed so unusual for me is that Quico is someone well versed in the art of parliamentary politics. I…
As some of you know, Henrique Capriles was in Chile last week as part of a tour that took him to Peru. (My take in Prodavinci here, and my analysis over at Foreign Policy’s Transitions blog – including a reference to Melanie Griffith that came totally out of left field – here). I had never…
After having the privilege of spending some time listening to Henrique Capriles in Chile (more on that in future posts), I have a better understanding of what the strategy is. Or, at least, for what he thinks the strategy should be – whether or not he leads it is still very much up in the…
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