UPDATED
I know, I know, wishful thinking of the demise of Chavez has made me step ahead of myself in the past. But this time around there is a different quality in the latest departure of Chavez for Cuba. Apparently he will be leaving for a short while to receive hyperbaric treatment. No explanation of course why he must receive such treatment, and no explanation as to why such treatment cannot be received in Venezuela. There is enough money in Chavez 2013 budget for his own personal expenses to build whatever hyperbaric chamber he wants wherever he wants it.
Of course, as usual I am not going to speculate what is his latest pain in the ass. What is noteworthy this time around are the circumstances.
The guy has barely been seen since his reelection In fact, El Universal even publishes a graph of diminishing return of his appearances. His suffering in the last events of the campaign was not fake it seems and now he is gone all the way to January we presume.
However we are in the middle of an important campaign where Chavez needs to win at least 18 state houses to push forward without trouble his constitutional reform for hereditary regime. Since the beginning of the campaign Chavez has made no public appearance in favor of X, something he used to do profusely, cadena and all, in 2008. That Chavez will forfeit the only thing he knows how to do is simply astonishing.
But other signs are rather ominous Just today we got a plane crash during the November 27 "festivities". Those are for the failed coup of November 27 1992 that Chavez is trying to turn into a national holiday, yet another activity he never missed until today.
Elsewhere in Lara a Falcon rally was attacked with tear gas and stuff, leaving people injured. That chavismo is so nervous that it feels compelled to attack the campaign of falcon in such ways tells us volumes....
This all on top of a crumbling country and an obvious rudderless administration since now a few months.
You be the judge on how bad things may be turning. But you will agree that the signs are different this time around.
Now back to my Margarita Holiday.
UPDATE. You may remember the previous departures of Chavez to Cuba. One even included a caravan all the way to the airport in cadena, among "spontaneous" popular delirium at a Chavez head picking up above a truck. Not to mention farewell speeches at the airplane stair case. Well, this morning we read that Chavez left in the middle of the night, incognito for him. No pictures, no nothing.
Maybe he was on a stretcher......