First up today we have our friends at Caracas Chronicles with the headline, “How Third-Way Parties May Look To Erode The Opposition Vote In 2024” After reading this piece a few times…well…my head hurts.

 Let me begin by saying that the article made a valiant effort to explain the virtually unexplainable, the Venezuela political landscape. Politics is just like everything else in Venezuela, the “Three ‘C’s” definitely apply. That would be “Complicated, Chaotic, and Corrupt”. Let’s see if we can wade through some of this…

 The two major political entities in Venezuela are PSUV, the Chavistas, and Unitary Platform, the opposition coalition formerly named MUD (I know … “Your name is MUD”…but it’s a Spanish acronym). That was before June,2020 when Maduro’s TSJ (Venezuela Supreme Court) jumped in the political mix and through a series of wild rulings basically created a “Third-Way”.

 With the TSJ intervention you now had some of the major political parties that make up the opposition coalition with doppelganger versions of themselves making up a new coalition, Alianz Democratica.

 They claim to be a “Third-Way”, independent of PSUV and Unitary Platform, but looks can be deceiving. Various members of Alianz Democratica are alacranes (scorpions) or parties formed when TSJ intervened forcing new boards on existing parties (consisting of individuals more acceptable to Chavismo) so you have Voluntad Popular, the opposition party of Leopoldo Lopez (one of our heroes) and Juan Guaido, formerly “interim President”, and Voluntad Popular (alacran), the new “Third-Way” party and so on.

 The ballot confusion created by this was evident in the last elections for governors. Despite 60% of the vote going to non-Chavistas, PSUV (the Chavistas) won most of the governors races.

 In many of the state and municipal races clueless voters thought they were voting for the Accion Democratica candidate or the Copei candidate (two examples of many) when they were, in fact, voting for the Accion Democratica (alacran) candidate or the Copei (alacran) candidate, the names and logos of the parties being nearly identical.

 You might think this would be illegal or wouldn’t be allowed by the CNE (electoral council) but this is Venezuela under Chavismo where the TSJ, in it’s first 50,000 rulings of cases and/or petitions had a record of pro-Chavista rulings- 50,000, anti-Chavista rulings- ZERO!

 Add to this lunacy the fact that a well-known PSUV- associated politician recently petitioned the TSJ to intervene regarding the National Commission of Primaries so we may have an “alacran” version of the commission adding further confusion relating to various primary issues. If you’re feeling a bit confused, don’t worry… it is, after all, Venezuela.

 Remember, Venezuela is the land of the “Three C’s” complicated, chaotic, and corrupt. At one time they had a president, an “interim president”, a National Assembly, a Constituent Assembly, and a “new National Assembly”.

 Oh, and and how about when there were three “official” government exchange rates for converting bolivares (local currency) to dollars and a black market rate as well.

 It’s just another day in Venezuela so…politically speaking… “Let the games begin!”

 P.S. – I’m still trying to figure out what price I would pay for a liter of gasoline in Venezuela, the subsidized price, the international price, or if I wanted to pay with a foreign currency would I pay a different price for each which would include the foreign currency tax? Tylenol anyone?

 Then we have Rio Times telling us that Brazil President, Lula da Silva, and Venezuela President (dictator), Nicolas Maduro, issued a joint declaration including a proposal to intensify coordination between their intelligence agencies and enhance information networks.

 This commitment has sparked apprehension given the controversial track record of Venezuela’s intelligence services under Chavismo including allegations of interference in Colombia by former president of Colombia, Ivan Duque, who claimed the new leadership of Colombia’s current president, (Marixist) Gustavo Petro, was being exploited by Nicolas Maduro.

 Then we have another piece from Rio Times telling us that during a UN (United Nations) session the Venezuela government urged the repeal of coercive measures (sanctions) arguing that they contribute to increasing poverty and inequality and also asserted that they undermine multi-lateralism.

 No mention was made of the reasons for the sanctions, you know, little things like Human Rights violations, possible crimes against humanity, the collapse of democracy and the rule of law, etc.

 He also cited a Venezuela government figure (and favorite of all Maduro regime apologists) that as a result of sanctions, Venezuela’s oil revenue sales dropped from $56 billion per year to $700 million per year.

 I’ve debunked this falsehood before so I’ll be brief…Overall sanctions were in place for years before Venezuela’s oil business was sanctioned and most of the decline was either before oil sanctions or as a result of two decades of oil infrastructure neglect and under-investment.

 That will do it for the week. We’ll be back Monday with another Venezuela : Down The Rabbit Hole segment and more current news. Until then… Have a great weekend everybody!!!