OK, now that I got your attention I got nothing. No one can. But it is time to state a few points that cannot be avoided in case anyone has a script to propose. In no particular order.
The opposition has no supreme leader. May this be good or bad the fact of the matter is that Lopez may have started the rioting but he was forced into hiding which looks bad. Capriles may try to look frontal now but he totally underestimated the anger in the street and this looks bad. Maria Corina tried to lead the riots, and is back in the street but she is too much of a lonely hero, which does not not look good. Ledezma looks bad even if undeservedly. Aveledo has too much trouble keeping a minimum of coherency and does not look bad but boring.
The regime has no leader. True, Maduro is the front man but he is unloved, un-respected, incompetent, vulgar, Colombian and what not. Cabello fares worse and has roots only in the upper corrupt groups. And so on. Thus for chavismo it is easy to dispose of Maduro if need be. But that can only come after they settle for a successor. After all, no matter what constitutional manipulation they can come up with they cannot avoid a presidential elections more than a few months after Maduro departure.
The country is bankrupt. Whomever is in charge, Maduro, Cabello or Ledezma for that matter, coffers will be empty. Does any one truly wants to be in charge? Note that with a truce and a few months of better management and cutting off Petro Caribe and Cuba we could have a functioning country by the end of the year. But who is going to dare to do so inside chavismo?
There are no institutions left. That is, the regime has neutered so well the courts and the administration that it cannot even rely on them to support its dictatorship so inefficient are they (they are very efficient to dictate crazy laws but when they need to be applied it is another story).
Paramilitary groups are nearly independent. Those groups, colectivos, tupamaros, etc. were created by Chavez to give him his own security forces, red shirted storm troopers if you like. Even Chavez already had trouble controlling them. Maduro clearly has no control as seen lately. I doubt that anyone in chavismo (except a Chavez daughter, you know, for royalty inner reflex) can control them. And much less the opposition. A confrontation with the army, whoever is in charge at Miraflores palace is almost a given.
I can keep going but you got the picture. I do not know how we can reach a conclusion but there is only one possible conclusion that can spare us the worse in violence: a transition coalition government.
Should the opposition accept?
After all the opposition risks to share the blame for something that they have no guilt for and have warned the regime for years. But it should accept under one non negotiable condition: the Cubans are out of the country and they have to accept no more than half the money they get now and for no more than 1 year. A pay off for they departure if you wish. We will never recover all the money we lent to Cuba but a further 50% annual tribute is a small price to pay to have them off our back and avoid a civil war.
All the rest is negotiable although a few principles must be agreed upon such as the return of the rule of law after removing laws whose sole intent was political control and repression.
PS: from my the first two comments I have not been quite clear. I do not need to edit but I need to add this codicil.
Too many chavistas have committed too many crimes to go unscathed into oblivion. The regime is far from considering any form of transition or coalition. This is far from being played. What I meant is that we can wish that after a few days or weeks someone inside chavismo will prevail and accept to sacrifice some of its major offenders so that the other ones have time to cleanse their record (or find comfortable and safe exile). That can only be done through a transition/coalition government which will be a political contraption to avoid civil war or outright bloody dictatorship which will be worse in the long run for chavismo.
The thing is that now it is not possible anymore to forgive all the looting chavismo has done, someone has to pay and those need to be sacrificed by chavismo. Otherwise eventually they will all hang. Latin America is not Africa, where even Rwandan murderers eventually find their way to international courts.
The opposition has no supreme leader. May this be good or bad the fact of the matter is that Lopez may have started the rioting but he was forced into hiding which looks bad. Capriles may try to look frontal now but he totally underestimated the anger in the street and this looks bad. Maria Corina tried to lead the riots, and is back in the street but she is too much of a lonely hero, which does not not look good. Ledezma looks bad even if undeservedly. Aveledo has too much trouble keeping a minimum of coherency and does not look bad but boring.
The regime has no leader. True, Maduro is the front man but he is unloved, un-respected, incompetent, vulgar, Colombian and what not. Cabello fares worse and has roots only in the upper corrupt groups. And so on. Thus for chavismo it is easy to dispose of Maduro if need be. But that can only come after they settle for a successor. After all, no matter what constitutional manipulation they can come up with they cannot avoid a presidential elections more than a few months after Maduro departure.
The country is bankrupt. Whomever is in charge, Maduro, Cabello or Ledezma for that matter, coffers will be empty. Does any one truly wants to be in charge? Note that with a truce and a few months of better management and cutting off Petro Caribe and Cuba we could have a functioning country by the end of the year. But who is going to dare to do so inside chavismo?
There are no institutions left. That is, the regime has neutered so well the courts and the administration that it cannot even rely on them to support its dictatorship so inefficient are they (they are very efficient to dictate crazy laws but when they need to be applied it is another story).
Paramilitary groups are nearly independent. Those groups, colectivos, tupamaros, etc. were created by Chavez to give him his own security forces, red shirted storm troopers if you like. Even Chavez already had trouble controlling them. Maduro clearly has no control as seen lately. I doubt that anyone in chavismo (except a Chavez daughter, you know, for royalty inner reflex) can control them. And much less the opposition. A confrontation with the army, whoever is in charge at Miraflores palace is almost a given.
I can keep going but you got the picture. I do not know how we can reach a conclusion but there is only one possible conclusion that can spare us the worse in violence: a transition coalition government.
Should the opposition accept?
After all the opposition risks to share the blame for something that they have no guilt for and have warned the regime for years. But it should accept under one non negotiable condition: the Cubans are out of the country and they have to accept no more than half the money they get now and for no more than 1 year. A pay off for they departure if you wish. We will never recover all the money we lent to Cuba but a further 50% annual tribute is a small price to pay to have them off our back and avoid a civil war.
All the rest is negotiable although a few principles must be agreed upon such as the return of the rule of law after removing laws whose sole intent was political control and repression.
PS: from my the first two comments I have not been quite clear. I do not need to edit but I need to add this codicil.
Too many chavistas have committed too many crimes to go unscathed into oblivion. The regime is far from considering any form of transition or coalition. This is far from being played. What I meant is that we can wish that after a few days or weeks someone inside chavismo will prevail and accept to sacrifice some of its major offenders so that the other ones have time to cleanse their record (or find comfortable and safe exile). That can only be done through a transition/coalition government which will be a political contraption to avoid civil war or outright bloody dictatorship which will be worse in the long run for chavismo.
The thing is that now it is not possible anymore to forgive all the looting chavismo has done, someone has to pay and those need to be sacrificed by chavismo. Otherwise eventually they will all hang. Latin America is not Africa, where even Rwandan murderers eventually find their way to international courts.
