I am worried by the way some Venezuelan oppos are falling for the rumour of Chávez's imminent demise.
When one analyses the possible sources they are basing themselves on, suspicion creeps in: they think they are hearing new confirmations of what they had previously heard when they are recycling the same data over and over again, data we simply can't rely upon.
Let me clarify: I don't know what Chávez really has. All I know is that we should not focus on that. If he is lying, if he is exaggerating his disease and he is already cured or he was fine for a long time or if he is very ill but he is in reasonable shape to appeared cured for October, the opposition will come up as fools and Chávez will sell himself as The Bolivarian Phoenix. And that will be enough for him to win more momentum and push forward more autocratic measures in the following months. And that would be bad, whether he lives much longer or not.
If he does die before 7 October, he dies. Then we will know. On a political level, we shouldn't be busy about it. Instead, we should be talking to the country about how Bolibarchs are plundering Venezuela and we should be explaining how Venezuela's socio-economic structure is becoming more rotten than ever.
