Get your plan together, Caracas!

Plan A, B, or C? Or no plan? That is the question right now in terms of the Venezuelan elections.

Despite my unfortunately rigorous personal schedule, I will make a mad-dashing attempt to update this blog on the coming Venezuelan elections, and their aftermath.

I found an interesting English-language review of the mess that will be the coming elections here.

The bottom line right now looks like this: the opposition candidate will fall short of winning elections, and both parties are scrambling to handle the aftermath. The opposition is working on discrediting the election system, and launching massive strikes and blockades. As for Chavez? Here's a quote:

Chávez himself has echoed       this sentiment more recently in a speech on November 17th, in       which he asks of the opposition: "don't force me to take       drastic measures to safeguard the sovereignty and the stability       of the country." Attempts at destabilization would be met       with firmness, since "that permissive Chávez was       left behind that night in 2002." Chávez concludes:       "We won't allow Venezuela to be filled with bloodshed again."

That is officially called plan CH(e), asking the people to flood the streets and take the law into their own hands. If I were still in Venezuela, I don't know that I would look forward to either of these plans coming into action.

I believe I've written on the groundwork for this throughout my time in the ground on Caracas - that the opposition and revolutionaries all have neighborhoods that exist as bunkers, and they are completely outside of any tinge of central government control. As goes Caracas, so goes Venezuela, it would seem.

So - as we lead up to the polls, the majority of Venezuelans are about to cast votes, only to be silenced by armed radicals on both sides. Regardless of which side of the process you sympathize with, this should strike you as patently unfair to "the people." When I talk about the people, I don't mean the radicalized chunk of voters on either side, like most Venezuelans do when they speak the same. I mean the huge (and growing) chunk of disaffected Venezuelan citizens with no way out of impending political strife.

So, forget the politicians, lets talk about the economy??