Predictions or Conclusions?
Back when our President wasn't chubby, some people already spoke of his fall from power in the present participle, as a verbal action in development.
In other words, as something that had started but not yet arrived. But four years have passed without the occurrence of this supposed fall from power. This has drawn curiosity, and abroad there are those who believe that governmental survival is an invention of journalists who are looking to draw readers by publishing extravagant stories.
It is undeniable that current conditions make a sudden change seem unlikely. But more than a century ago, the general José Ignacio Pulido, a psychologist and not quite a psychiatrist of Venezuela, declared that the unforeseeable is what always happens in this country.
If one reads the newspapers, listens to the radio, watches television, goes into the street or answers the phone, one would think that the fall of our absurd President is being planned at this moment in Fuerte Tiuna.
And this idea about the Government living, dying or agonizing does have its own perspective after all. It exists in the sense that there are people who receive official salaries, who travel for free, with an official car and driver, etcetera; but a proper government, in the sense of providing, regulating or prohibiting, does not currently exist.
I cannot even imagine the disasters committed by bolivarians as being planned by the Government.
The only thing in existence is the most absolute impunity for crimes committed by any chavista.
The thugs that have been armed by the Government form the base of its electoral sustenance.
I may be mistaken here since gangsters, the same as capitalists, do constitute a force within society; however, they are not an electoral factor. Regardless, the Government has enough power to fill Caracas with campesinos bused into the city for a rally. However, once an election arrives, those campesinos would vote in their home towns, aside from the fact that a paid road trip to the capital might not be enough to buy their votes. Of course the Government’s people are aware, as everyone else is, of their electoral degradation. And I can imagine the waves of elbow jabs in Miraflores each time the vice president or the CNE talk about numbers.
I don’t know how daring the chavista magnates will remain in the face of material obstacles, but in regards to spiritual obstacles, as with the absurd, they show signs of nonpareil boldness. Not only do they face them calmly, but they even seek them out at times through all the means at their disposal. I admire all of them but, even more than the misogynist of Valencia*, I truly admire the vice president, perhaps because he is the person who appears most frequently in the media.
I picture him at home, practicing being Little Red Riding Hood and a rattlesnake.
Aside from rare exceptions, there is one infallible prediction and that is of death. What remains difficult is ascertaining a specific date. Therefore, regarding the fall of our chubby leader, what comes to mind is the Mexican song that says “She only tells me yes, but never tells me when."
I am not prone to prophecies nor do I take those of others seriously.
The most accurate prophecy I remember, whose premonition I heard in my infancy, was spoken by the priest Frutos del Hoyo in Los Dos Caminos: “As I declared last Sunday, today is Día de Reyes.” In the same manner, despite the best wishes of the respectable majority, I will only believe in the prophecies of an imminent fall when I see something similar to that time during the Día de Reyes. But I would also remind the chavistas of the following spiritual advice: “Remain aware, because you know not the day nor the hour.” I have nothing to lose and perhaps much to win as a Venezuelan. But to those who are enjoying an exaggerated and daily increase in wealth, I would recommend you have your luggage packed and your tickets reserved.
It hasn’t rained yet but the clouds are heavy with water.
Translator's note:
* A reference to general Luis Felipe Acosta Carles, whose soldiers brutally attacked several women who were protesting against the government in the city of Valencia (January 2003).
{Francisco Vera Izquierdo, El Nacional, 5 April 2004}
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