Archive for the 'Venezuela' Category

Hugo Chavez fights the ghosts of the empire and the windmills in his mind, while digging the bones of the Liberator

December 17, 2007

Hugo Chavez is nothing short of remarkable. After his referendum defeat, the
autocrat waited little time before beginning his favorite form of
governing when he has problems: He left the country. While away, few of
the problems facing the country were attacked or even discussed. Now
the autocrat is back and he spends his whole speech on the
commemoration of the anniversary of Simon Bolivar’s death, talking about the oligarchy killing the Liberator
and not tuberculosis, like history books tell us. Damn the country’s
problems, who cares about them, after all, he does not feel them!

The
thing is, in contrast with problems like shortages or inflation of
which he is clueless, Chavez does have a plan on how to find out how
Bolivar died, his theory being that he was assassinated by the
Colombian and Venezuelan oligarchy. Thus, Chavez ordered that Bolivar’s
remains be exhumed and first a test be performed in order to determine
if the bones are truly those of Venezuela’s Liberator.

Saying
the oligarchies hated Bolivar, Chavez blamed not only the oligarchies,
but also all historians, cheating the people and distorting and
falsifying the truth. But it is through people like him, dedicated
students of history that the truth will be revealed.

Chavez
also said that soon after Bolivar’s death, the US Empire arrived,
buying lands, corporations and even people (verbatim!). The gringos
even changed history, accusing Bolivar of attempting to be named King.
But this was all fake, part of the gringos psychological warfare.
(Yeap!, we are supposed to believe it all started way back then)

On
and on the man went for almost four hours. Little mention was made of
the problems facing the country, from shortages to inflation; these
were simply ignored as he concentrated in his peculiar form of
historical revisionism and obsession. Since he does not even go to
Cabinet meetings, you have to wonder who is running this country!

And then the autocrat moved to another “relevant” topic calling the case against the Venezuelans in Miami an infamy
against the Argentinean President. Which only goes to show why
corruption runs rampant in our countries, as the case now has become
political. What a difference between the way Brazil dealt with its
corruption scandal and the way Venezuela, Argentina and now Uruguay are
dealing with Maletagate. It is so easy to blame the US, to call it a
conspiracy, but really, in the four months since the now infamous
suitcase arrived in Buenos Aires full of one hundred dollar bills,
little has been done by any of the three countries to deal with the
problem.

Yes, Argentina asked for Antonini to
be extradited and one Government official was removed, but none of this
has ever been explained:

–Why did the joint
oil venture between Venezuela and Argentina rented a jet plane to go from
Buenos Aires to Caracas and back? Why the urgency? Why those
passengers, in either direction?

–What was Antonini doing on that flight since he had no relationship with either company? Why was he allowed to go through without the money and then to leave Argentina two days later?

–What
was the son of a PDVSA’s VP in that plane? Why did PDVSA say the
man had resigned, which was not true and why has PDVSA yet to
investigate the case? Whatever happened to PDVSA´s investigation of the case_

–Where did the $800,000
in cash come from in a country with exchange controls? What was their
purpose? How many times similar trips been carried out? How did they
get through customs here? Why didn´t the National Assembly investigate this?

–Why were there high Argentinean Government officials (not related to oil either) in the flight?

–Why
did Antonini flee to Uruguay? Who was there? Why didn’t he just go back
to the US? How many similar trips (and suitcases!) did Antonini take?

And now we can also ask a bunch of new questions:

–Are the US tapes then supposed to be fake?

–Are
we to believe that Kauffman and Duran have become millionaires in less
than eight year’s doing an honest day’s work? Did they lie about their
high Venezuelan Government connections, which they obviously have? Or were the
threats against Antonini’s family empty threats? What about the 2 million dollar
bribe? Who ordered it? Who was going to pay for it?

Because if in the end if
the US$ 800,000 suitcase was not meant for Mrs. Kirchner’s campaign, it
must have had another propose, which was as fishy and dirty as the first
one and it is clear that neither of the two Governments wants to get to
the bottom of it.

In fact, there is no better
or alternative explanation to the one given by the US authorities which
is backed by tapes of Kauffman and Duran saying the money was meant for
Mrs. Kirchner’s campaign and the two Government would like Antonini to
say the money was his.

The fact is that it is
truly sad that neither country wants this to be investigated because of
political expediency. Which in the end s the reason that corruption
runs rampant in out countries and while a harebrained theory of Bolivar
being poisoned, is more important than corruption or the problems
everyday Venezuelans have.

BBC video: The trillion dollar revolutionary

December 17, 2007

This is a good video by John Sweeney of the BBC, which was
broadcast about two weeks before the referendum. The video is long,
about thirty minutes but it is worth watching, particularly those that
are from abroad.
 
It is perhaps ironic that the
couple of praises in the video for the accomplishments of the
revolution are not true. Sweeney says that Chávez now provides medical
care to most people, just on the same day
that Human Rights organization Provea said that the Government only
built 2,700 of the 8,500 Barrio Adentro modules budgeted (I wonder if
the National Assembly will ask where the money is?). Moreover, despite
the fact that the budget for Barrio Adentro is twice that of the
traditional health care system, which is the one that operates and
performs difficult diagnoses, it turns out that 62%, yes almost two
thirds of the Barrio Adentro modules, are not functional today. That means
that only 1026 barrios in Venezuela are currently enjoying Barrio
Adentro benefits, which represent very simple primary and emergency
care.
 
In another part, a teacher, clearly
pro-Chavez, talks about the lunch program and tells Sweeney that Chavez
established that program, the video also says that more kids are going
to school which is not true either. The truth is that Chavez when he
first got to power eliminated the milk programs at all
schools in Venezuela and later reestablished them and that Chávez’
Bolivarian School system is simply the renaming of schools, as Chávez
has built less than 10% of the existing schools in his eight years in
Government, worse than the average per Presidential term in the
terrible years of the IVth. Republic.
 
Sweeney
does not mention housing, but since we are there, it has been another
abysmal failure in housing again this year with only 36,000 units built, as it seems
that under Chávez the number of new housing units built goes down every
year, as if nothing has been learnt any Chavista bureaucrats in the
institutions that are in charge of housing.

In another act of revolutionary stupidity, National Assembly makes it illegal for media to divulge reality

December 16, 2007

The Venezuelan
National Assembly spent this week dealing with something urgent: Trying to hide
reality. The whole thing would be laughablem if it were not so tragic and stupid
that their first priority after the referendum was to revise the
Foreign Exchange Illicits Bill, which establishes the regulations and
penalties around the exchange controls in Venezuela.
 
The Bill,
much like the previous one, makes the “parallel” swap market absolutely legal by
excepting from the regulations all securities (Art.9) but then it wants
to hide that same reality that males it legal by prohibiting anyone (Art. 17) from
divulging what the price of the parallel market is:
 
“Anyone
that offers, announces, divulges in written, audiovisual, radio
electric, computerized or via any other media, financial information or
exchange information the price of foreign currency other than the
official one will be fined 1000 tax units (About Bs. 37 million Bs. or
US$ 18,000 at the official rate of exchange)”
 
Can they be any more stupid and control-oriented than this?
 
After all, the Venezuelan Government sold over
US$ 11.3 billion in securities during 2007 into precisely the parallel market, in order to bring the rate
down (unsuccessfully mostly!), not only recognizing its existence but
even benefiting from it by selling foreign currency at a price higher
than the officials exchange rate of Bs. 2,150 per US$.
 
Some
people think this is censorship. I think this is so ridiculous  and silly that I
will simply call it stupidity. What’s next? Prohibiting anyone from
revealing crime statistic to see if crime will go away? This follows the issuing of epidemiological bulletins to hide the reality of health issues in Venzuela.
 
The
worst part is that in the end this will simply hurt market participants,
who will have a harder time finding out what the “right” price is, as
the measure will make the price less transparent in the end. As
transparency is lost, people are likely to pay sometimes more than they
should or get less than they should, as they will have fewer reference prices to learn what the very
active parallel market is doing. This means that some sites like Veneconomia will no longer be able to publish the price of the parallel dollar. I don’t know about others like bonos venezolanos, dolar paralelo and Venezuela fx, all of which are hosted abroad and don’t reveal who is behind them.
 
It
also means that newspapers and the media will not be able to have
stories on the parallel exchange rate moving one way or the other. In
my case, I will refrain from mentioning it explicitly, but if there is
something interesting to talk about, you can be sure I will fond spme
form of euphemism to discuss the parallel rate if it seems important.
 
This
is all part by the stupid frame of mind by Chavismo of controlling
everything. Their infinite belief that Government can be all powerful
and efficient and can manage to control anything. In fact, the same
Bill gives the Ministry of Finance the responsibility of enforcing the
penalties in the Bill. Funny thing is, that Ministry does not have the
personnel or ability to do that, so it will have to start a new
Department, hire people and most likely they will do little in the end.
 
Other changes to the Bill are mostly
insignificant, it increases penalties, says people can not transfer the
official dollars assigned to them, establishes that importers will
have to say in their import manifest where they obtained the foreign
currency and stores will have to post whether their products have been
bought with dollars at the official rate of exchange.
 
Meanwhile,
since the now infamous Maletagate case, the National Assembly has done
very little on it, no investigation, nobody is asking where Mr. Antonini got his US$
800,000 in cash, how he got it out of the country and what he was
planning to do with it. So much for laws, Bills and having the little
guy prove what he spent his $3,000 Internet quota, while who knows how
many suitcases full cash left Venezuela for Argentina and the National
Assembly does not even want to look into it.
 
Which
only proves how stupid the whole thing is. The recently approved Bill
will be applied to enemies and those that do not sympathize with Chavismo, while the Government’s buddies  and sympathizers are
protected and defended, while those that participate in the parallel swap market get
screwed by the Government’s prohibiting that people know what is real
and perfectly legal.
 
You got to love the stupid revolution!

A priceless moment for socialism and high fashion in revolutionary Venezuela

December 15, 2007

I was not going to show the video below, most people have seen it, until I heard a joke that I thought was perfect to post to provide a much needed light moment in the blog.

In the video, Minister of Interior an Justice is giving one of his incoherent tirades about the only way to peace, the Bible socialism and criticizing capitalism, when the reporter asks if it is not inconsistent to criticize capitalism while wearing a Louis Vuitton tie and a pair of Gucci shoes. Carreño started sttuttering and barely managed to get an answer out as you can see below

The joke going around is this:

A Louis Vuitton tie……………150 dollars

A pair of Gucci loafers……….300 dollars

The question the reported asked……….priceless

Maletagate and the robolution are everywhere, past Vice-President or future Vice Presidents included

December 14, 2007

Corruption is so rampant in the Chavez Government, that those detained in Miami are said to have involved the current Vice-President in the ¨mission to make it look like the money was Antonini’s¨. Furthermore, one of those detained in Miami happens to be none other than the legal representative of fingerprint machine manufacturer Cogent, which sold millions of dollars in the equipment to the current Vice-President while he was at the Electoral Board. He personally was in charge of that decision and negotiation.

But then it turns out that the Vice President Jorge Rodriguez is apparently on his way out for his role in the Dec. 2nd. loss and his involvement in this case. He will be replaced by former Minister of Defense Jorge Luis Garcia Carneiro.

But wait! Who are these people inviting two years ago to the burial of “the father of our dear friend, forger of so many dreams and hopes, General in Chief Jorge Luis Garcia Carneiro…” in the invitation below published in a local paper?

Those that invite happened to be two of the defendants in the Miami Maletagate case.

You see, the problem is that Chavez has used the same people over and over again and they seemed to be all in up their necks, the Government can´t distance itself so easily from them as they are being accused of being it´s agents…that is why it’s called the robolution!!!

Miami Maletagate indictments: Just the tip of the iceberg?

December 14, 2007

I repeat the cartoon above which I first posted on Aug. 14th., because the indictment in Miami yesterday relating to Maletagate may just be simply the tip of a large iceberg.

While there has been little new or news today on Maletagate, other than the fact that those indicted were denied bail, which may be surprising in Duran´s case, given that he is also a US citizen, there is did tidbit in the report in the Financial Times on the indictment which is quite intriguing:

“Mr Hacker (the lawyer for those indicted) suggested his clients were being targeted by prosecutors because of a lawsuit they filed against a
US bank last week that alleged that it had expropriated millions of
dollars from them. The lawsuit accused the bank of closing an account
holding $25m without the individuals’ permission.”

Umm, a bank holds back US$ 25 million from these guys without their permission? Just like that? There has to be more to that story. It smells like Patriot’s Act, corruption and/or money laundering. I wonder how the cheerleaders of the robolution can justify such large amounts of money being in the accounts of these people, who not only were accused of being agents for the Chavez Government, but are well known members of the new bolivarian oligarchy, with no known fortunes before 1998.

I think we are just seeing, like in the cartoon above, the tip of a large and very diverse iceberg and the robolutionaries are below it.

National Assembly appoints new immoral Moral Power in Venezuela

December 13, 2007
A “new” and “improved” moral power was elected today by the National Assembly
and really, besides the departure of that cynical man German Mundarain,
the People’s Ombudsman, who turned his back on the people in order to
defend the Chavez Government, there is little to celebrate or cheer
about.

First, Clodosbaldo Russian was
reappointed as the Comptroller, in order to see if he can beat his
inability to contain corruption in the last seven years. The last seven
years have seen the biggest corruption scandals in the country’s
history. As an example, look at Russian’s inaction on the maletagate
case and you know what I am talking about.

But
on top of that between structured notes, the Citibank building, Bolivar
2000, Argentinean bonds and placements of CD’s without auctions, there
is more than a couple of billion dollars in obvious corruption. Include
the use of Government funds for political activities of MBR2000, MVR
and PSUV and we have witnessed order of magnitudes worse corruption
than in the previous 40 years and Mundarain simply smiles.

As
a sample, look at the CV of one of those arrested two nights ago in
last night’s maletagate post and you can see exactly what I mean. Or go
to the Aeropuerto Caracas and see the multi million dollar jets of the
boli bourgeois and there is a very simple proof of what I am saying.

Then,
Isais Rodriguez, that despicable ineffective Prosecutor General, has
been replaced by his second in command Luisa Ortega, who got there by
selectively prosecuting political enemies for Rodriguez. She was a
collaborator of the political bias and of the sectarian fashion in
which that office has been managed in the last few years. It is hard to
expect any different from her.

Finally,
Gabriela Ramirez will occupy the People’s Ombudsman. I know little
about Ms. Ramirez; she does not have any well-known Human Rights track
record. But more importantly, her appointment completely and absolutely
violates both the spirit and the letter of the law.

You see, in order to be appointed the People’s Ombudsman or considered for it, the person must:

Not
have any relation within the fourth grade of consanguinity or second in
affinity or by way of marriage or have established relationships with
members of the National Assembly or the Committee considering the
candidates (No tener parentesco dentro del cuarto grado de
consaguinidad y segundo de afinidad, o vínculos por matrimonio o
relacionados en uniones estables de hecho con miembros de la Asamblea
Nacional o del Comité de Evaluación de Postulaciones)

Clearly
the intent of the legislator was that the position be occupied by
someone involved in human rights defense and not in partisan politics.
Someone who would go and defend the people and not the Government and
would not be afraid of standing up to the Government and its abuses.

Unfortunately, Ms. Ramirez does not fulfill that
because SHE WAS ELECTED TO BE A MEMBER OF THE CURRENT NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
for the Baruta District of Caracas, for which she was backed by Chavez’
MVR even if she ran as a candidate for UVE (which merged into PSUV by
sheer coincidence)

In fact, Ms. Ramirez was a
Deputy of the Assembly within 45 days of her candidacy to the position,
was visibly present at the swearing in of the Comando Zamora for the Si
vote in the referendum in October and has been seen in many recent
political rallies supporting PSUV and wearing a red shirt.

All
of this clearly violates both the spirit and the letter of the law and
Ms. Ramirez simply does not qualify for the position.

Moreover, the procedures mandated in the Constitution for the naming of the members of the Moral Power were not followed, making it simply immoral.

But the law for Chavismo is largely irrelevant, Chavez wanted her there and the lackeys simply obeyed. Like in everything else.

Another farce by the revolution!!! Another rip off in the name of the people!!!

The top ten justifications given by Venzuelans on how they spent their $500 cash advance

December 13, 2007

As you know, CADIVI, the foreign exchange control office,  will now ask people to justify how they spent their cash advance or withdrawals while traveling. The law currently places no restrictions whatsoever on what you may spend the cash on or not and does not specify you have to get receipts for this expenditures, Below, the Devil’s Excrement, as a public service, takes a bold prediction for the top ten excuses found in the CADIVI files of how Venezuelans spent their $500 after one year. Feel free to add your own in the comments.

(Amounts may vary according to the age and sex of the recipient of the $500 in cash)

10) 25 cents when I bought a newspaper at a machine on the street

9) Bought a $5 pen from a blind man at the airport

8) Gave $ 10 to a homeless person on the street

7) Paid the valet $5 at a Restaurant

6) Gave a $10 tip at the airport

5) Bought some hot dogs at the ball game

4) Bought $50 in lottery tickets

3) Gave 20 bucks at church

2) Spent 100 bucks on a prostitute

1) Gambled away 500 dollars at an Indian casino

Maletagate scandal hits the fan again as US charges four as acting illegaly as foreign agents on behalf of the Venezuelan Government

December 12, 2007

The US Department of Justice announced
today
that three Venezuelans and one Uruguayan were arrested yesterday on
charges of acting and conspiring to act as agents of the Venezuelan Government
without notifying the US Attorney General as required by law. A fifth person is
being sought in connection with the charges. They face up to ten years in
prison and up to US$ 250,000 in fines. The Venezuelans are Antonio Jose Canchica Gomez (at large), Moises Maionica , Franklin Duran and Carlos Kauffman. The Uruguayan is Rodolfo Edgardo Wanseele Paciello.
The charges relate the now infamous maletagate and Guido
Antonini; the case of the Venezuelan caught trying to go into Argentina with
US$ 800,000 in cash in a suitcase. According to the charges the money was to be
used for the campaign of an unnamed candidate, likely to be Mrs. Kirchner that
was sworn in yesterday.

The charges allege that the men participated in a conspiracy
acting as agents of the Venezuelan Government to get Antonini to hide as well
as not reveal the origin of the US$ 800,000 in cash. It also says that the defendants named
various high-ranking officials, including the Vice President Jorge Rodriguez
and members of both the intelligence police and the Ministry of Justice.
According to the details of the complaint filed in Florida Court against the five men:

—On August 17, 2007, Duran, Kauffman and Maionica entered the US. Six days later they met with Antonini where Duran advised Antonini that he had spoken to a high ranking member of the intelligence police (DISIP) and told him both the Venezuelan and Argentinean Government would pursue him if he did not say the US$ 800,000 belonged to him.At that meeting Kauffmann advised Antonini that his future course of action might put his life at risk. Maionica advised him that PDVSA would pay all his expenses and financial penalties relating to the case.

—On Aug 27, 2007, Mainioca, Duran and another individual met again with Antonini. At this meeting Duran warned Antonini that revealing the objective of the money may result in the loss of the election by the candidate and both Venezuela and Argentina wanted the “mess to be solved so that the truth would not come out”. At this meeting, Duran identified the person who brough on board the plane the US$ 800,000 as the assistant to the CEO of PDVSA (Rafael Ramirez)

—On Aug 29, 2007 Duran spoke with Antonini on the phone and asked for a power of attorney and told hyim the matter was being handled at the top of the Venezuelan Government.

—On Sept. 16, 2007 Mainioca spoke with Antonini and told him that his involvement in the case began with a three way call between the office of the Vice President of Venezuela, the DISP and Mainioca, at which he was assigned this mission.

—On Oct. 4th. 2007, Mainioca told Antonini that an emissary was being sent to him and he should personally tell the emissary what Antonini required to participate in the conspiracy. Later he gave him the code word for identification.

—On Oct. 28th.2007, Rodolfo Wanseele drove Antonio Jose Canchica to a meeting with Antonini at which the latter acknowledged the code word and told Antonini that he would be helped. Antonini was told he was the last link in the chain.

—On Nov. 6 2007, Mainioca advised Antonini that a man from DISIP named Arvelo would call him. On the same day Arvelo called Antonini and told him Antonini’s concerns were being addressed.

—On December 11, 2007 Mainioca, Duran and another individual met with Antonini and held discussions on how to create a false paper trail to conceal the true source of the US$ 800,000 in cash.

Clearly, Antonini was cooperating with the FBI throughout all of this.

Very interesting and damaging stuff indicating the levels of corruption in Venezuela, this goes all the way to the top as expected.

For Chavismo, not much seemed to happen with the No victory on Dec. 2nd.

December 12, 2007

It is as if December 2nd. and the defeat of the
Constitutional reform was somehow an accident, which as the days go by
becomes more and more irrelevant to the autocrat and his cronies.
Almost every act and every statement by Government officials seems to
ignore the serious damage to the process by that defeat, even if it was
not necessarily a glorious victory for the opposition. What’s
interesting is that this may actually be working in the opposition’s
favor for once, as the people want the Government to solve their
problems and a large fraction was actually punishing Chavez by
rejecting the reform, which to many of them represents a vaporous
concept for their daily lives.

While I have
found extreme Chavistas to be obviously disappointed by their defeat,
there is a sense of relief among those that never supported Chávez and
those who were at some point sympathetic to his project in the past. It is as if a new future had opened up in which the Government
would be forced to talk to the other side, to Govern for all. But no
such luck, the divisiveness continues, as witnessed by the extreme
statement by the Minister of the Interior and Justice who said today that “There can be no national reconciliation without the reform”.

That’s
it. There are two Venezuela’s and it is Chavismo’s will never to accept
the other, whether via democratic means or not. Even worse, he sees no
possibility of a dialogue. No possibility of even talking to each
other. Thus, the inescapable conclusion seems to be that if democracy
will not determine how the Government will govern, if dialogue is
impossible, if policies will only be implemented for “one side”, what
are we suppose to do then? Collective Hara Kiri? Divide the country in two? Civil War?

But the people seem to be calling for something different. And not giving it to them may be the worst path for Chavismo.
And
despite the fact that the main spark for the rejection to the reform
was the proposal to have Chavez be reelected indefinitely, Government
spokesmen have had no qualms or shame in saying and admitting that it was
only that part of the reform that mattered. The Mayor of Liberator
District said it clearly today:
“ Within the Government we are looking for the legal and constitutional
mechanisms to allow the reelection of President Chavez in 2012”. So much for accepting the democratic will of the people!!!

That’s
it. That is all that mattered. The rest as we all knew was simply
fluff. The No did not win; the Si suffered a minor setback. For now…

And if the Government does not want to recognize the democratic victory of the No on Dec. 2nd. it is actually continuing to implement a full court press against democracy and the people. By controlling the flow of foreign currency, it has managed to shutdown newspaper Correo del Caroni in Guayana, one of the oldest in the country. What a simple way to censure, no?
Moreover, in
order to block one of the most important tools of the student movement
in its mobilizations, the telecom regulator Conatel issued this week new
regulations for SMS messages
, making telcos “responsible” for the content
of SMS messages, forbidding “texts that promote crime or contain
messages which contain unsolicited information or advertising”. Just
think, one pro-Chavez student receiving the “wrong” message can stop
the whole student movement on its tracks if these regulations are
implemented. (On Dec. 2nd., the student movement sent a massive sms calling for students to go and vote at 2 PM)

Add
to this physical attacks on Cardinal Urosa, the order to capture former Governor Enrique Mendoza who
quietly and with little visibility engineered the victory of the No in
Miranda state, Chavez suggesting he will block foreign currency to
Colombian imports if he feels like it, the spat with Guyana, ignoring
the request for an Amnesty Bill this Christmas and even suggesting that the calls for reconciliation are part of a destabilization plan and you get the picture.The No did not really win, or it just does not matter in an autocracy.

Not much seems to have happened to Chavismo on Dec. 2nd.

But
the truth is it did. It was not a resounding victory by the opposition,
but it was a victory. Part of what was one day the pro-Chavez vote
abstained or voted against Chavismo. Add to that the opposition voters
who did not go and vote because they did not believe their vote will be
counted and the numbers may be even larger next time. Calling the
victory s h i t does not help either and neither does maintaining the
level of confrontation within and outside Venezuela.

And
the problems are not going away, shortages, inflation and crime are
still there. The change in time has turned out to be a pain in the neck
for workers getting home in the dark at 6 PM and seeing no benefit from
it. And on January 1st, there will be the conversion to the
Bolivar Fuerte, which will create only confusion in the population who
has been sold the idea that this conversion will somehow be a panacea
in which they will have the same amount of money in their pockets, but
everything will be cheaper. Sure, just wait!

But there will be no such luck and unless the autocrat admits that he suffered a significant defeat on Dec. 2nd.
and there is some form of introspection as to its causes, the future of
the Chavista process may be truly in question. If the first quarter of 2008
is spent in submitting a new constitutional reform as the Bolivar Fuerte proves to be
a failure in holding back inflation, the people will turn even more against the Government, making
the 2008 regional elections and a possible constitutional reform
referendum certain victories for the disorganized Venezuelan
opposition.