Divisional Perplexity in Caracas

The dialogue cannot advance any faster for many reasons. First it is not a dialogue, it is a discussion about a ransom note that kidnappers have no intention to honor anyway. They want to cash the rescue and kill you at the end in case you go to the police to report the crime. That is the level of dysfunctional psychosis reached by the regime, they still think they can have an honorable career.

The second reason remains an old one. Too many inside the regime know what their fate would be if an agreement were to be signed. These people cannot be rescued under any term and thus they will do the utmost to sabotage, deny, torpedo any discussion. The most glaring case being Diosdado Cabello who keeps touring the country saying that the dialogue is going nowhere. People like him know that if an agreement is signed they can start measuring their jail cell for drapes.

A third but lesser reason is that some inside of the opposition are willing to settle more than others. But even there the regime seems unwilling to accommodate as these people will not settle for mere cash as it used to be the case in past defections from the opposition.

That is why we did not see more self congratulation from the regime than what one would have expected but also less outrage from the opposition than one would have been expecting. After all, the regime knows it has got to negotiate something, anything, and the opposition knows it has no weapons to take Maduro out so its options are limited.  It remains for us now to resume briefly the divisions in each camp.

Inside the regime right now, as it changes fast, we have the negationists, those that refuse to sit at the table. Diosdado is the leader. Then we have the negationist light who sit there because at least they know what the other guys are talking about. We can include foremost here the governor of Aragua, Tareck El Aissami, equally under investigation by the DEA. Let’s note that these people will take everyone down with them, chavista or not.

We move on to the radical-psychos, those who have lost their mind long ago but feel obscurely somewhere that the gig is up and only by gaining time they may find a way out. I have named of course the Rodriguez duo who want to shoot you whenever they will be able to get away with it but meanwhile they consent just to insult you across a table.

Finally we have the razzmatazz of chavismo that goes from military that do not want to end up at The Hague to those still with a marble or two in their heads and think that maybe some negotiation may allow them to retire somewhere. At the table we have the infamous Chaderton, the best they can offer. Ain’t it something?

The opposition is certainly more palatable, at least they speak in complete sentences with correct punctuation, even if it is to admit defeat.  Fortunately for them the radicals are not sitting. Maria Corina has not been invited and the arguably more organized opposition party of Venezuela, Voluntad Popular, has refused to sit down as long as Leopoldo is in jail. We do not know for sure at this point whether this is a plus for the opposition. Indeed, Voluntad Popular  can offer the excuse to stand up and leave, or be the carrot to bring the regime to a real measurable concession so as to bring VP to the table. We shall see.

There are two sets from the opposition at the table. One is old party AD of Ramos Allup, who already conceded that the Recall Election is dead, together with up comer PJ with Capriles and divisions of its own apparently. They represent the hard negotiation, with hues. The other side are the wishy-washy like governor Falcon or UNT from Zulia state. These are willing to negotiate something rather favorable for the regime, but they are not willing to go beyond a long transition. That is, the regime will have to leave power by January 2019 at the latest.  They are not doing that out of their good heart: they know very well that once VP, PJ and AD are in jail their turn will come no matter what. As such they want guarantees, in addition of help to avoid being rolled over by the other opposition parties.

So there you have. How can negotiations, already complex, advance fast when there is already such problems for each side to get their act together?  The real problem seems not to be that negotiations are slow but that the opposition negotiators give the impression that the regime is winning hands down………..

Surely something can be done as to how the message is broadcast?