The Devil's Excrement

According to this guy, Venezuela is now at the top of
labor judicial processes in the world and this has represented a successful
judicial experience in Venezuela.

Wow, how can so much crap come out of the mouth and brain
of this leader of the Chavista judicial revolution?

Can’t he remember the more than 20,000 cases of the fired
PDVSA workers, few of which the same Courts have processed and processes he
praises with such robolutionary abandon? Does he forget that these people had their
severance, savings plans, voluntary and regular pension plans confiscated?

And you may think that this fanatical judge simply does
not care about these “enemies” of the robolution and believes in labor Justice
only for the friends of the robolution. But maybe he missed this letter from
the association of retired people of PDVSA, published last Thursday in El
Nacional, page C-4 (by subscription), where PDVSA retirees complain that not
only they have not been paid for the interest from their pension fund for 2007,
but they have not been shown the financials since 2002, when the robolution
completely took over the company.

This is what supposedly places Venezuela at the top of
Labor Justice according to Magistrate Valbuena. Every single retired PDVSA employee,
whether pro-Chavez or not, has yet to receive the interest payment from their
pension fund, managed by the new PDVSA, while the company has given no
accountability of the payments made from 2003 to 2006. 

So, these Venezuelans who worked for a minimum of 25 years
for PDVSA and many as many as 35 years, are still waiting for what is theirs,
while Justice Valbuena wastes his time giving speeches about the virtual
reality of the mindless and empty revolution he lives in.

To say nothing of the hundreds of collective bargaining
agreement shelved by Chavez just because he does not feel like signing any new
ones, putting Venezuela, despite Valbuena’s words, at the bottom of judicial
labor processes in the world.

But the country is being run fanatics or by mediocre
professionals who give speeches like that to justify their status and existence
within the revolution.

But justice will come to them one day.  People like Hugo Chavez, Rafael
Ramirez, Justice Valbuena and others will have to some day respond for their
negligence and the violation of peoples rights in the name of their
revolution.

And they will call it revenge and I will call it divine justice. 

Obama
campaign spokesman Alejandro Miyar responded that Washington’s relationship
with Venezuela will not improve unless Chavez “respects democracy and the rule
of law.”

The statement contains two of the three basic elements
missing from Chavez’ autocracy, I just wish Mr. Miyar had explicitly added
human rights to the request, but two out of three ain’t bad. Democracy includes respect for human rights, but it would have been a nice and very complete message anyway.

“For the first time in the political history and in the administrative
life of our country, the high level leadership of our country, represented in
the President of the Republic, the Heads of Public Powers, their closest collaborators,
a wide range of public managers and the large majority of public servants,
maintain a marked ethical profile in the execution of their delicate functions.
It would an unforgivable error of history to obviate this truth. This is a judgment
not only on the sidelines of political diatribe, but also diffused through the
personal conviction that the authentic revolutionary conduct is against being cunning,
having willful bad faith and thievery.”

Wow! Where should I start?

How about CAEEZ, Bolivar2000, Duran Kauffman, Rafael Ramirez,
Nobrega, Merentes, Jorge Rodriguez, Maionica, Jhony Yanez Rangel, VTV, PSUV,
CNE, Cruz Weffer, Juan Barreto, Aristobulo Isturiz, El Gordo Bermudez, Chavez’
brothers, Rafael Isea, Cedel bonds, Structured Notes, CADIVI, Maletagate,
Antonini, PDVSA bond repurchase, FOGADE, commissions on official bank deposits,
Banco del Pueblo, Banco de La Mujer, Banco Industrial, Arnie Chacon, Danilo
Anderson, Rodriguez Chacin, Mercal, EDC bonds, Bandagro bonds, Citibank building,
Otaiza’s gyms (remember he was appointed anti-corruption
czar), 95% of Government contracts assigned directly, only six of 337
municipalities provided financial information as established by law, PDVSA
bonds, Bs./US$ bonds, convicted murdered named judge, Montesinos protected by
Venezuela after denials, Chinese oil drills, Fondafa, Carlos Gimenez, Supreme
Court building, Miquelena, Tobias Carrero, BBV campaign contributions, use of
state funds for campaigns…

Need I say more? I wrote that list from memory!!!

But our own ruffian simply comes up with EIGHT cases where
the violations led to the Comptroller sending the file to the General
Prosecutor, out of 958 investigations.

Amazing, no?

This is sort of like don’t seek and you will not find, everything is cool!!!

And then they pat themselves on the back and proclaim the
revolution to have a marked ethical profile, whatever that may mean in the
perverted and distorted mind of the Comptroller, who by the way does not
consider he is in violation of the law because he collects a pension and receives
a salary from the Venezuelan State simultaneously.

Yeap, a marked ethical profile indeed!!!

People are once again being naive.

Because in the end Chavez did not care about anything but
his preservation in power and if he bans or jails Rosales it is because this
fits his grand scheme of things.

And in this grand scheme, it is clear that polarizing the
voters is important, not only as we go into the regional elections, but as
Chavez seeks the legal means to change the Constitution so that he can remain
in power beyond 2013.

Which is what his active participation in the campaign for
the regional elections is all about.

In the end what is important for the autocrat is that his
PSUV score enough of a victory in November so that Chavez can press his
personal agenda to remain in power forever.

And there is no doubt he can do it.  His popularity right now could be
sufficient to carry him in a Constitutional referendum in 2009, even if he can
not use it now to score a huge victory in this month’s regional elections.

Which by the way is absolutely illegal, since the
Constitution does not allow the same question to be brought up during the same
Constitutional period. But they will have the question brought up to referendum
in a different way and argue that this simple fact makes it legal and the
Venezuelan Supreme Court will agree with it.

So, in the end, banning Rosales from office, jailing him
will be about erasing him as the closest thing the opposition has to a leader
when and if this Constitutional referendum takes place in 2009. And when the
Comptroller says that Rosales could be banned for fifteen years from running
for office, it means that even if the charges have not been formally
investigated, the case has been studied and they have even formed an opinion as
to what the penalty will be, much like on the cases of Enrique Mendoza and
Leopoldo Lopez. Thus, with a single stroke Chavez would eliminate from office
the last nationally known opposition leader who could become the leader of a
push against the approval of the referendum next year.

That is why Chavez is fighting for the regional elections
with all his might, polarizing and radicalizing the electorate. He knows that
the opposition will do well in the most populous states of the country, but he
has to limit the victories as much as possible because otherwise he will not be
able to obtain a victory next year.

While I leave the electoral predictions to Daniel, even if Chavez is
popular today, he will not be able to pass on this popularity to his candidates
in three weeks. And he knows it and we see it in his daily campaign in the
states that are key for power in Venezuela, which are the most populous states
like Zulia, Miranda, Carabobo, Lara, Tachira, Anzoategui, Bolivar and Aragua.
Of these, all but Zulia are today in the hands of Chavismo and it is likely
that more than half will fall into the oppositions hands in three weeks.

Even three weeks before the election the results are not
written in stone. Acosta Carles could withdraw in Carabobo making Chavismo a
little stronger in Carabobo, or Manuel Rosales could be jailed throwing Perez’
and his campaign in disarray in Zulia.

Sound crazy? So did all of the other candidate bans, the
shutdown of RCTV and the like. Not all of these actually helped Chavez, but
when first suggested they appeared to be strategies that sound as crazy as
erasing Manuel Rosales from the Venezuelan political arena today.

Just wait!