If you think that after Sunday 16 the drubbing of the opposition is over, think again. Some of its past decisions are going to come to haunt the MUD. Actually, it is already starting.
The scenario right now, at least if we interpret the cryptic messages from chavismo, is that Chavez may recover but not for January 10. There is already in preparation yet another constitutional coup where the limit date for swearing in of January 10 may be pushed over. Or said swearing be held in a Havana hospital. Then again we are a Cuban colony and this does not trouble me at all, it is logical.
Besides these deontological considerations we must take at face value that the next elections ahead are on May 28 2013 for mayors. The announcement of Tibisay Lucena, electoral board CNE's chair, should send shivers though every opposition politician that wishes to become mayor or enter a municipal council assembly.
First, let's comment on yet a new delay for that election. It was going to take place around April (never mind that the elections for municipal councils are overdue by 4 years). Now it is the last Sunday of May. Why? Off hand, two reasons. Chavismo is not ready, has no candidates, and Chavez is no condition right now to decide who goes where. But the good news for chavismo is that by the time elections roll in the 20 chavista governors will have had enough time to set in place an electoral machinery to crush the opposition. Let's face it, their goal is to take 90% of town halls and they can do it: they only need to buy votes in Lara, Miranda and Amazonas. Any positive administrative sign in the other states will be enough to herd the chavista voter. Or so they think, anyway.
I may add that the "comuna" system is not finding great favor even among chavistas, and those comunas which already exist are showing early signs of decomposition and corruption. Why force the creation of comunas as a way to ruin local opposition power when you control 20 states and have a good chance to control 90% town halls? Redrawing the legal map of Venezuela would be made much easier when local authorities collaborate happily to their destruction.
The paradox is that chavismo will be helped greatly by a 2011 mistake of the opposition which decided then to run primaries in February 2012 for all, from president to mayor. I trust that you can see for yourself the folly of that right now, as the mayoral "nominees" will have been made so almost 18 months before the vote, and with two major electoral disasters in between that have reconfigured the opposition character and strength. Now the counter argument that even this blogger reluctantly embraced that the mayoral and gubernatorial candidates where available to help Capriles in his October campaign is moot. They did not help as much as planned and now they are under mounting criticism as many think that maybe they should be the ones running for mayoral office instead of the previous nominees. And I concur. Which means that there is yet another disaster in the making for the opposition.
I suggest one thing to the MUD directorate. Looking at how sticking with the primary result in Monagas helped, where the winner got only 3% of the vote, it is fair to review the mayoral candidacies of the opposition. If you do not go on vacation and negotiate fast by early January you may solve half of the candidates and you can even call a few SUMATE organized primaries with pencil and paper in a couple of dozens districts where candidates should be obliged to pay for primaries if they really want one.
It is time to grow up and face reality: negotiations and primaries are not the solution against chavismo who has an electorate voting for whatever garbage is sent their way. What we need is combative and organized candidates and it does not really matter which way they are nominated as long as enough in the MUD support them. Look at what happened to Mendez in Tachira when he went against a MUD nominee, that was not even ratified through primary. Do not worry, at this point there is little to lose.
Unless of course Chavez is not there but then chavismo has more to fear from that.