There was a time – not too long ago – that many supporters of the late President Hugo Chávez detested Nicolás Maduro.

It was at the end of 2009 and Maduro, serving as foreign minister, had just signed the extradition order for Joaquín Pérez Becerra, a member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) who served as the head of insurgency group’s news outlets.

Pérez Becerra was a Swedish resident who had arrived in Caracas on a flight from Paris when he was detained. He must have thought he would have been protected by Chávez’s leftist government.

The Venezuelan Communist Party (PCV) – an unruly ally of Chávez – and other radical movements held a protest outside the Foreign Ministry in downtown Caracas with supporters holding placards that read: “Traitor” and “Juan Manuel Santos’ lapdog.” Santos, who is now Colombian president, was then the defense minister under Álvaro Uribe.

It was perhaps one of the lowest points of Maduro’s political career, which began with membership in the Socialist League, a political platform for Latin American guerrillas who had renounced the armed struggle which became popular in the 1980s.

The Pérez Becerra incident not only demonstrated the difficulties Maduro has had in seeking in ways to find conciliatory gestures among various ideological groups, but it also showed how a former bus driver and union leader got so far under the protection of the Chávez government.

If fact, the fine line between his staunch loyalty to the iconic leftist leader and Maduro’s own personality was too often blurred. US film director Michael Moore once told a story about how he always believed that Maduro was Chávez’s bodyguard because it was him who opened the door to the president’s hotel room on two occasions when he visited him.

As foreign minister, Maduro, now 50, had some successes in coming up with his own initiatives, according to several US State Department cables released by WikiLeaks in 2010, including trying to improve ties with the United States and Israel, two countries that still have rocky relations with Venezuela.

He was instrumental in helping to calm the tense situation in 2009 between Venezuela and Colombia, which almost went to war over charges made by Uribe against his nemesis Chávez, whom he accused of harboring members of the FARC.

Born in Caracas in 1962, Maduro grew up in the capital as opposed to Chávez and many other Socialist leaders who were raised in the rural parts of Venezuela. In his youth, he formed part of a rock band in the crowded El Valle sector and has one son from a previous relationship. In 1994, he became active in trying to win a pardon for Chávez, the former paratrooper lieutenant colonel who was jailed for leading a 1992 attempted coup against President Carlos Andrés Pérez. It was then when he met his current partner, Cilia Flores, the now-attorney general who will become first lady.

Source: ElPais

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Notwithstanding, some sectors are more and more unsatisfied with the news given by government authorities, as the Venezuelan leader has made no public appearance or telephone contact since his comeback last February 18.

In light of it, social psychologist Axel Capriles affirmed that rumors prop up for lack of reliable and reasonable information. “This happens when everyone hypothesizes about the reality and adds a little bit or makes his/her own construction,” he clarified.

“There is a vacuum in Venezuelans’ heads and psyches,” he explained. For 14 years, Venezuelans “have skipped not a single day waiting to see what the Venezuelan president is saying or doing.” Against such a backdrop, Capriles deems it normal that the vacuum is being filled with rumors. “If anything humans need is an answer, comprehension,” he argued.

Capriles is positive that a strained environment taking shape in the country “will compel the government to supply clear, true information.” Rumors going round could enhance “the demands of large sectors to clear the way.”

Rumors arousing emotions

Psychiatrist Roberto De Vries agrees with Capriles when saying that rumors sprout in default of appropriate information. “They hardly appear when people feel that the information levels they need have been met.”

In De Vries’ opinion, in the process of quenching the “thirst” for information, there is a quest of information that might be either false or true, or “half-false, half-true.”

De Vries, also a social communicator, emphasizes that, whatever the kind of disseminated rumors, their emergence is bound to the interest of making changes in people’s attitudes. In this regard, he infers that the main goal is exacerbating the four basic emotions: fear, rage, sadness and, to a lesser extent, joy.

Fearful population

The expert comments that rumors generally trigger fear and perhaps sort of rage and sadness. He adds that such an emotion is measured on a four-level scale related to their impact on humans and the environment.

Therefore, the specialist asserted that most of the Venezuelans touched by the tide of rumors are somewhere between levels 1 and 2. The first level is associated with the feeling of a “weird” environment, yet the subject cannot define for certain what is going on.

A “great cap kerfuffle” is underway, reported Neuman, in which leaders of Chávez’s political party are now donning the same tricolor hat they once denounced opposition candidate Henrique Capriles for wearing. Such melodrama, Neumann seemed to argue, serves as a distraction from the problems that beset Venezuelan society.

The breadth of those problems, as conveyed in Neuman’s previous coverage, is immense. As insight into the economy, he has provided vignettes of botched Christmas tree shipments and a government ice cream factory that closed down. Among other maladies, he points to a “stagnant” oil sector in need of increased production levels. Neuman’s reporting thus poses a paradox for the reader: despite “economic problems, widespread corruption, rampant crime and daily hassles”—suffered by “rich and poor alike”—Chávez has retained his “ability to convince Venezuelans that the Socialist revolution he envisions will make their lives better.”

In point of fact, Venezuelans’ lives are already better in many ways. Like countless other journalists, Neuman prefers relating anecdotes, shying away from simply reporting Venezuela’s socioeconomic trends, which are hardly in dispute among economists. Over the past 10 years, since Chávez gained control of the country’s oil revenues, Venezuela’s per capita income has grown by 2.5% a year, its unemployment has been cut in half, and free health care has been expanded to many millions as a human right—little wonder, then, that poverty has declined by 50%, absolute poverty by 70%, and infant mortality by a third. It would therefore be impossible for Neuman to relate these figures to the Times’s readership while maintaining his misleading claim that Chávez has presided over many years of “stubborn poverty.” So he just excludes them.

Even more skewed is his portrayal of Venezuela as a uniquely coercive and menacing state. Leading up to Venezuela’s elections last October, he presented as fact the unverified allegation that “[g]overnment workers are frequently required to attend pro-Chávez rallies.” His article, “Fears Persist Among Venezuelan Voters Ahead of Election,” also focused on “anxiety” over “a new electronic voting system that many Venezuelans fear might be used by the government to track those who vote against the president.” Neuman did not even hint at the findings of international observers like the Organization of American States, which have for years vouched for the integrity and security of Venezuela’s electoral procedures. In fact, the Carter Center’s report on the electronic system’s technical features concluded that “[t]he software of the voting machines guarantees the secrecy of the vote.”

In his zeal to uncover the government’s “especially potent weapon”—the “fear factor”—Neuman committed perhaps his most blatant journalistic oversight, by including the remarks by Fabiana Osteicoechea, a 22-year-old Caracas law student. “I’m not going to take the risk [of voting for opposition leader Henrique Capriles]” she said, despite being described as his “enthusiastic supporter.” She added, “I want to get a job with the government so, obviously I have to vote for Chávez.” As a quick search revealed, however, her fear of Chávez loyalists sabotaging her career had not dissuaded her from posting a photo of herself kissing a poster of Capriles on her public Twitter account.

Reassuringly, Neuman’s two most recent pieces have demonstrated his newfound ability to perform Twitter searches—the cap controversy “has given rise to plenty of jokes,” he wrote, and he included a quip from “one wag on Twitter” as an example. For his article on Friday, February 15, Neuman simply reposted two tweets from Capriles as his conclusion.

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Neuman’s inconsistent Twitter proficiency is a minor fault compared to his newspaper’s biased presentation of the political environment in Venezuela as compared with the United States. Neuman depicts a public whose attention is diverted from deep crises by trivial posturing, like the administration’s attempt to appropriate its opponents’ symbols. Meanwhile, the government maintains a “strident foreign policy” and its leadership is populated by “yes men.”

Yet that exact portrayal could be equally applied to the United States. When the introduction to Neuman’s piece on Venezuela’s hat scandal is modified to substitute U.S. current events for Venezuelan ones, the Times’s double standards become obvious. It would be impossible for such an excoriating lead to appear in the paper:

WASHINGTON — The United States seems to lurch from one crisis to another. A recently leaked memo shows that the Obama administration has granted itself the legal authority to perform extrajudicial assassinations of U.S. citizens. Last week, a study found that over a quarter of the world’s countries participated in a CIA-led program of global kidnapping, torture, and detention. On February 9, the First Lady attended the funeral of shooting victim Hadiya Pendleton, 15, as the government struggles to address the over 11,000 gun-related homicides a year. The unemployment rate has stubbornly hovered near 8%, and lurid murders are the stuff of daily headlines.

But high on the list of government priorities was an unexpected item: skeet shooting.

This final item, of course, refers to Obama’s recent comments about shooting clay pigeons “all the time” in the midst of his effort to ban assault rifles. Five days later, responding to press requests, the White House disseminated a photo of the president firing a shotgun. The effort nevertheless failed to curry favor with gun owners who opposed his legislative proposals.

It is obvious there is little substantive difference between a politician wearing a cap styled like his opponent’s, and a politician posturing as a shooting enthusiast, given each country’s context. But, as it did with Venezuelan cap wearing, would the Times treat as a distraction Obama’s unsuccessful bid to insinuate himself into the good graces of opponents to gun control? Of course not.

Rather than write a short, bemused piece on the “absurdity” of this “political theater,” Times reporters instead conducted scrupulous “database searches of Mr. Obama’s speeches and interviews,” finding “no mention” of Obama’s use of Camp David’s skeet-shooting range in their 1,000-word story on the issue. Other newspapers covered it with even greater fervor. The Washington Post dedicated 950 words on page A2 of its newspaper, and another 1,700-word fact-check piece on its website; USA Today printed six different pundits’ views on the matter.

The major news outlets’ frenzy over this nonissue contributed to its heightened public profile—to such an extent that it attained a similar level of newsworthiness as the Obama administration’s legal justifications for killing its own citizens. On February 10, the date on which Neuman’s “cap kerfuffle” article appeared, Google News searches showed that Obama’s shooting of clay pigeons had prompted 95% as many news results as his Justice Department’s memo authorizing drone killings. [The phrase "obama drone memo" returned the highest number of news results out of a pool of related search terms, as did "obama skeet shoot."]

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Setting aside the media’s general obsession over drivel, the Times’s differing treatment of Venezuela and the United States conforms to its pattern of criticizing the governance of countries deemed enemies of the United States, while providing much more docile coverage of domestic leadership. Thus, New York Times contributors, as well as its editorial board, have railed against the “authoritarian” behavior of Chávez (and of Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa). But the newspaper is guaranteed never to describe Obama as a “strongman,” an “autocrat” or an “authoritarian” as he arrogates to himself the radical power to secretly kill any U.S. citizen without due process—even, possibly, on U.S. soil.

Similarly, Neuman’s news stories in the Times characterize Venezuelan foreign policy as “strident” and “contentious,” but the paper does not use such language when reporting on U.S. foreign policy—even as South African Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu, in a letter to the Times, speaks on behalf of “those of us who live in the rest of the world” in condemning Washington’s international drone-assassination program.

Finally, the headline to an article by Neuman described Chávez’s vice president as a “yes man,” and the piece reported critics’ claims that new government employees are judged “by their loyalty” to Chávez. But the Times included no derogatory words in its reporting toward Obama’s Justice Department, which drafted the leaked assassination memo. Such language would be warranted, however. As constitutional law expert Glenn Greenwald argues, this secret memo is obviously “the by-product of obsequious lawyers telling their Party’s leader that he is (of course) free to do exactly that which he wants to do.”

The newspaper’s reporting reinforces attitudes that Latin American politics can be little more than a primitive charade, starring authoritarian leaders and a hoodwinked public, punctuated by risible distractions. Thankfully—at least within the world of New York Times coverage—the “political theater of the absurd” isn’t “commonplace” here at home.

In the chess game of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), Diosdado Cabello has lost several pieces these days. The last official gazettes have been warning that some of his closest collaborators have been dismissed from their strategic positions. Viz his brother-in-law Rafael Contreras Hernández who was in charge of Bolivariana de Aeropuertos until January 8 of the current year, by order of the Ministry of Air and Water Transport.

A removal also took place in the State Railway Institute (IFE): the first one to get dismissed was its president, Franklin Pérez Colina, who has publicly stated that his partnership with Cabello started back in 1992. The very Speaker of the National Assembly put him in charge of the million railway  projects and he remained in such position for more than three years until last January 3, when his dismissal was shown on the Official Gazette.

It was the Vice President of the Republic who ordered his dismissal. Since he took over the presidency, Nicolas Maduro has appointed only one person, and we are precisely speaking of the Minister of Land Transport, Juan García Toussaintt, who has been designated as acting President of the IFE, in replacement of the one appointed by Cabello before leaving the Ministry of Public Works.

The truth lying behind the pictures, the hugs and the handshakes is that everyone is taking advantage for their own benefit. Otherwise, Deputy Ismael García does not comprehend how Darío Vivas appeared as the second in command at the National Assembly.

“On January 4, we all witnessed that Diosdado Cabello had announced Darío Vivas’s comeback, who now shares the leadership position of the board of directors with Pedro Carreño and Blanca Eekhout; Pedro came that day very well dressed wearing his Vuitton tie, and what happened?” García wonders. “Nicolás Maduro imposed one of his important pieces in order to bring balance.

The comeback of Foreign Minister Jaua
Around Chávez, there are movements which go from hardcore collectives of low-income Caracas’ barrio January 23 to what they baptized in their own group as the endogenous right. García, who also gravitated towards this orbit until 2007, points out that it is wrong to suppose that the United Socialist Party of Venezuela has solely rearranged in a civilian wing led by Maduro and in another wing of military nature represented by Cabello.

With no conductor, Deputy García defines the PSUV as a “group federation.” It is some sort of an alliance of several factions with apportionment of positions and power share. In fact, by the end of 2009, he already denounced four different associations involved in the so-called financial centrifuge, which finished in bankruptcy and placement in receivership of 11 banks.

In those days, he indicated that the then Minister of Public Works, Diosdado Cabello, held an important position in one of the groups. On another spot, he put Barinas Governor, Adán Chávez, together with businessmen like Ricardo Fernández Barrueco, who was precisely behind the bars at that time. He also indicated Jesse Chacón in another clan in company with his brother Arné, who has been just released from jail, and finally, he pointed out that former Vice President José Vicente Rangel was a leading figure of another conglomerate, which counted on business people like the current fugitive Pedro Torres Ciliberto.

Many of these representatives continue exerting a great deal of influence; however, there are also other stockholders at the moment, who should be added when joining efforts. Some of them are: Freddy Bernal, Jorge Rodríguez, Jesse Chacón and Erika Faría.

Elías Jaua also belongs to the aforementioned group. Between 2010 and 2012, he was first seen in the cabinet with strategic allies such as Juan Carlos Loyo, Eduardo Samán and Richard Canán from the Ministries of Trade, and Agriculture and Lands. Subsequent to his recent comeback as a Foreign Minister and Vice President for Political Affairs, he is placed in the PSUV as ideologically closer to Maduro than Cabello; nevertheless, at this time, there is no other option but to smile together in front of the cameras.

Ramírez’s checkbook
Rafael Ramírez is also on the spotlight. He has managed oil holding Pdvsa since 2004. If anyone overlooked a detail, at the beginning of the current year, he was among the few people invited by Raúl Castro to take part in what several media agencies have called the Pact of the Havana. This pact is composed of the following members: Vice President Nicolas Maduro; National Assembly’s Speaker Diosdado Cabello; Solicitor General Cilia Flores; Barinas state Governor, Adán Chávez, and Minister of Science and Technology Jorge Arreaza.

While the meeting was held privately in the Havana; back in Caracas, Maduro and Cabello were seen working together in the inspection of a state-led company, with the intention to clarify that there exists no division among the two of them.

Former Deputy José Albornoz, who also supported Chávez’s project until 2010, believes that Maduro, Cabello and the rest of leaders of the PSUV have no other option but to work together, although behind the scenes, they continue to be in a power struggle that can be easily seen in the appointments and destitutions like the one seen in the State Railway Institute. “That is the way to win at chess,” he says. “When someone plays chess, they put their pawns forward and protect their bishops.”

The Arias Cárdenas factor
Maduro is known to be a former member of the Socialist League. He started as a labor union delegate in Caracas Subway, and he has climbed positions in the Government in company with Solicitor General Cilia Flores, former Vice President José Vicente Rangel, Deputies Fernando Soto Rojas and Darío Vivas, and Minister of Electrical Energy Héctor Navarro, who has been appointed –not in vain- as the acting Vice President during Maduro’s visits to Cuba.

Diosdado Cabello, for his part, made his first appearance on February 4, 1992 and on the road, he has been seen closely related to fomer treasurer Alejandro Andrade; former Minister of Basic Industries and Mining Rodolfo Sanz; Deputy Pedro Carreño; President of the Commission for the Administration of Currency Exchange (Cadivi), Manuel Barroso, and his own brother, José David Cabello, who is in charge of the National Integrated Service for the Administration of Custom Duties and Taxes (Seniat).

José Albornoz, from the Venezuelan Progressive Movement, indicates that the Speaker of the National Assembly does not only count on the military power attributed to him, but he also counts on business people and figures from the Government strategically established in both Infrastructure and Finances fields.

In the same sense, lawyer Rocío San Miguel comments from NGO Citizen‘s Control, that Cabello’s clout on the National Armed Forces (FAN) is a myth: “In these 14 years, he has created work teams in order to get benefits from the public administration in which active military officers participate, this attributes him no power or clout in the FAN whatsoever.”

San Miguel believes that the role played by the 10 military Governors, voted in the PSUV electoral roll, will be quite relevant in the time ahead. Among them, one in particular calls attention: Zulia state Governor. “I would say that Arias Cárdenas is the most influential retired military officer inside both the chavist and the non-chavist national armed forces at this time, especially in the Army,” she claims.

Neither Arias Cárdenas nor any of the other 19 chavist governors can be disregarded. Albornoz points out that they belong to the political structure that Chávez set, in case he was not able to take back office. In such rearrangement, everyone is in a power struggle. Not in vain, Maduro appeared on January 8, in a mandatory nationwide radio and television broadcast showing a video conference in company with the Military High Command. “That mandatory nationwide broadcast was not intended for us, but for power sectors inside the Chávezism instead,” Albornoz concludes.

Vice President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela wore a patriotic cap to a parade Monday in Caracas.

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela seems to lurch from one crisis to another. President Hugo Chávez has virtually disappeared since going to Cuba for cancer surgery more than eight weeks ago. Last month, 58 people were killed in a prison when inmates clashed with soldiers. Inflation is spiking, the government just announced a currency devaluation and lurid murders are the stuff of daily headlines.

But high on the list of government priorities last week was an unexpected item: baseball caps.

Even in a country where political theater of the absurd is commonplace, the great cap kerfuffle took many Venezuelans by surprise.

It all started over the summer, when a young state governor, Henrique Capriles, ran for president against Mr. Chávez. Mr. Capriles started wearing a baseball cap decorated with the national colors — yellow, blue and red — and the stars of the Venezuelan flag.

In response, the electoral council, dominated by Chávez loyalists, threatened to sanction Mr. Capriles for violating a rule against using national symbols in the campaign. The move struck many people as patently partisan because Mr. Chávez regularly wore clothes made up of the national colors and patterned on the flag and used vast amounts of government resources to promote his re-election.

Suddenly, the tricolor cap became a symbol of Mr. Capriles’s underdog campaign, and soon it could be seen everywhere, on the noggins of his supporters.

But Mr. Capriles lost the election in October, and the cap was mostly forgotten. Until now.

At a rally on Monday to celebrate the anniversary of a failed 1992 coup led by Mr. Chávez, a host of government officials unexpectedly pulled out caps like the one Mr. Capriles had made famous and put them on.

Had Mr. Chávez’s top cadre switched sides? Nothing of the sort.

“It is the cap of the revolution,” Vice President Nicolás Maduro said from the stage. “They can’t steal it like they’re accustomed to stealing it.”

He held up the hat, which had a small emblem commemorating the coup’s anniversary, and shouted, “Cap in hand! Tricolor in hand, everyone!”

A day later, at a session of the National Assembly, legislators on both sides of the aisle showed up wearing caps. The chamber looked like the stands at a baseball game.

All of this has given rise to plenty of jokes.

“The cap — expropriate it!” said one wag on Twitter, referring to a famous episode when Mr. Chávez, a socialist, in what seemed like a spontaneous act, ordered the nationalization of several buildings in the center of Caracas.

Then came a new twist on Thursday night, when the government interrupted regular television and radio programming with a special broadcast. Anxious Venezuelans worried about Mr. Chávez’s long absence might have wondered if they were about to get an update on the president’s health.

Nope. The two-minute broadcast consisted of images of Mr. Chávez, at various points of his 14-year presidency, wearing the tricolor cap.

A secret plot might bind the constituent elements of chaos in Caracas. Mushrooming squatting; lack of authority with motorbike riders and bus drivers; street vendors taking the streets one more time; homeless staying in hotels; violation of urban rules;  sidewalks used like deposits of building materials as part of Mission Housing, or criminals as the owners of the night.

All of that might be not only intertwined but also fostered by the Venezuelan national government, according to experts. They are positive that the government bolsters anarchy for its sake.

This has been the assumption of architect Leopoldo Provenzali. The fact of the matter is that the first Planning Secretary at Caracas Metropolitan Mayoralty coined this way of living “the strategic neglect.”

He explains that lack of rules fits the current regime, because in this case, everyone takes refuge in his/her own individual projects, the notion of a group vanishes, and a submissive citizen is born.

Sociologist Trino Márquez reasons that, while a paradox, authoritarian regimes do foster permissiveness in the daily routine to fuel chaos and thrive. And he lists, for instance, the early years of the Bolshevik revolution; mobilizations in Hitler’s Germany; Mao Tse Tung’s Cultural Revolution, and the Cuban revolution in the 1960′s.

Carlos Raúl Hernández, also a sociologist, coincides with it. “The law is used to chase dissenters, but not for citizen’s cohabitation. Motorbike riders are regarded as allies, as it were, and their excesses are overlooked.”

In this way, Hernández thinks, insecurity is prompted by the government as well. “Insecurity is mostly a matter of concern for the middle class, and the government is interested in keeping it terrified, preventing it from mobilizing.”

The seeds of disturbance

Hernández feels that the chaos strategy was used by the current regime from the outset. Evidence of it, he believes, is some of the remarks made by President Hugo Chávez early in his first term in office.  For instance, he conceded that he would rather steal should he have nothing to feed his children.

Shortly after, in October 2003, the president scolded then Caracas mayor Freddy Bernal for evicting the squatters of Menca de Leoni forest at La Rinconada, located to the east of the capital city. The mayor stopped the evictions. Nowadays that forest has become a shanty town. In February 2012, the president ordered the militants of ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) to seize any abandoned storehouses across Venezuela. The goal is to stir actions oriented to social disorganization.

Márquez calls this strategy “the joker’s model,” in reference to a fictional character that appears in Batman comics. That is, governing in the midst of a total mess.  And he deems it naïve at this stage thinking that all the chaotic events happen by chance.

He tells that in other historical cases, after taking root in the government, a repressive, instead of permissive, model has been chosen for the people. However, in the Venezuelan case, a variable changes the whole outlook: the oil income. The ideological momentum is replaced by the monetary strength.

“I do not anticipate the disappearance of such a model in the next future, for that matter. Rather, upon Chávez’s pullout of the pubic scene, the trend seems to be insisting on underpinning anarchy.”

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez smiles at supporters during a campaign rally in Propatria neighborhood, Caracas, Venezuela, Sept. 17, 2012. Venezuela’s presidential election is scheduled for Oct. 7.
Ariana Cubillos / AP

During his 14 years in power, Hugo Chávez has built a reputation as one of the most aggressive and effective campaigners in the hemisphere, easily winning his last three elections. “Hurricane Hugo” was known for his energetic, back-slapping style that had him plunging into throngs of supporters and electrifying crowds.

This year, however, his campaign seems to have been downgraded to a tropical storm, as Chávez, 58, has kept most appearances tightly scripted and, for the most part, close to the Miraflores presidential palace.

On Monday, he briefly high-fived supporters and hugged a baby in southern Caracas before climbing onto the red campaign truck that has been a prominent feature of his rallies.

“We’re going to give the bourgeoisie a historic lesson,” he said, as thousands of supporters cheered him on.

But with less than three weeks before the country’s crucial Oct. 7 vote, even a low-intensity Chávez is proving he can inflict serious damage.

In the last few weeks, Chávez opponent in the race, Henrique Capriles, 40, has had to face aggressive government supporters and almost daily accusations. The barrage began early this month, when a former ally produced a document that he said proved Capriles was bent on rolling out punishing economic reforms. The campaign denied the charges and said the papers were forgeries straight from the Chávez dirty-tricks machine. But it put Capriles on the defensive.

Days later, emboldened Chávez supporters forced Capriles to cancel an appearance in Caracas. They followed up by barring him from the airport in Puerto Cabello and burning one of his campaign trucks.

“It’s safe to say that the government has entered the negative phase of the campaign,” said Herbert Koeneke, a political science professor at Simon Bolivar University, who sees a hint of desperation in the acts. “I think it’s evidence that, within the government, there’s fear [of losing].”

The biggest blow to Capriles came last week, with the release of grainy video of Juan Carlos Caldera, one of his closest advisors, taking money from an anonymous donor and offering to set up a meeting with the candidate. Caldera said the money wasn’t intended for Capriles but his own mayoral bid, but the ruling PSUV party has called for an investigation suggesting Capriles is being backed by shadowy forces.

Capriles expelleed Caldera from his coalition, but the incident has generated doubts in corruption-weary Venezuela.

Hernando Ramirez, a Caracas construction worker, said the opposition had a chance at victory until it was “pummeled” by the scandal. “It’s shameful,” he said. “The president is going to win again.”

While most polls give Chávez a comfortable lead, the opposition dismisses many of the studies as government propaganda. Even so, one of the most respected pollsters, Datanalisis, gives Chávez 46.8 percent of the vote versus Capriles’ 34.3 percent. The Datanalisis numbers have been widely reported in the local press, but the company will not confirm the proprietary information. Consultores 21, another closely watched pollster, however, predicts a much tighter race, giving Capriles a thin lead with 47.7 percent of the vote versus Chávez’s 45.9 percent.

A former tank commander, Chávez is used to rolling over rivals — not being forced into hand-to-hand combat. During the last election, in 2006, he won 62.8 percent of the vote versus Manuel Rosales’ 37 percent.

But this year is different. The president’s attempts to blame previous administrations for soaring crime, double-digit inflation and food shortages are ringing hollow after holding the top job since 1999.

In addition, Chávez entered this race as he was recovering from an undisclosed form of cancer. While he claims he has completely overcome the illness, his appearances are usually confined to television studios or podiums high above the crowd, which have many speculating that he’s watching his health as carefully as his campaign.

Over the weekend, during one of his few campaign stop outside of Caracas, in San Fernando de Apure in central Venezuela, Chávez nearly wept as he rattled off all the towns he would like to visit.

“But as you know, I can’t walk the streets of San Fernando and I can’t make that trip right now,” he told thousands of supporters. He went on to ask God to give him a chance to be “free as the wind” for a few years, after he finished remaking the nation.

Chávez says he needs another six-year term to cement the gains of his 21st Century Socialist Revolution. He’s pledged to step up his trademark social programs — they include free housing and health care — increase minimum wage and strengthen the country’s ties with China.

He may be right to double down on his policies. Many surveys show Chávez with approval ratings in excess of 50 percent. And he still has a rabid core of supporters.

Yoander Vasquez, 25, works at a government-owned cement plant in Monagas state, where Chávez won 71 percent of the vote in 2006.

As Vasquez struggled to explain Chávez’s appeal, he finally compared him to a former Colombian drug kingpin.

“Chávez is like Pablo Escobar,” he said. “He’s simply fearless…The opposition will never win here again.”

The president routinely denigrates Capriles, who he calls a “mediocre boot-licker,” and says he won’t stoop to having a televised debate with him. He warns that Capriles wants to gut social spending and roll out a wave of neoliberal economic reforms that would lead to chaos and might even spark a civil war.

Last week, Chávez blamed Capriles’ campaigning in government strongholds for the recent street violence.

“Where does this violence come from historically speaking? From the bourgeoisie,” Chávez said. “They only defend democracy when it’s convenient.”

The president has also raised fears of a foreign destabilization campaign. In August, Chávez announced the arrest of a U.S. citizen and former marine, who he said may be a “mercenary” bent on disrupting the elections. Early this month, authorities detained a U.S. flagged boat in the port of Maracaibo on arms-trafficking suspicions. The sailors were eventually released without charges, but the investigation into the “mercenary” is ongoing.

Capriles is trying to stay above the fray. Campaigning in Barquisimetro, in northwestern Venezuela on Friday, he asked Chávez not to drag the country into his “swamp.”

“End the dirty war and the insults,” he said, “because what we’re building, with our own hands and lots of effort and work, is something big and beautiful — the Venezuela of the future.”

But the opposition is bracing its supporters for more surprises.

“We’re going to see new videos, new [breaks in the ranks] and the government wants to impose violence,” Ismael García, an opposition congressman, told Globovisión on Sunday. “The desperation of their acts demonstrates that they’re losing the election.”

Like any good strategist, Chávez has been cryptic about the final phase of his campaign, only saying that it would be “multi-pronged” and “creative.” If he has any doubts about victory, he’s savvy enough not to admit them in public.

“When that mediocre guy gets into the ring he’s not going to last one round,” Chávez predicted recently. “It’s going to be a devastating knockout.”

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/09/18/v-fullstory/3009091/venezuelas-hurricane-hugo-may.html#storylink=cpy

Oscarling De Ávila Pineda, Liberkeis Figueras Escalona, Geral Enrique Herrera Libernal and Jhon Rivas have been missing since May 13, 2009. In such case, the involvement of police officers is indicated, but the progress in the investigations has been null all the way up to now. Their mothers have struggled all this time to make the Government enforce their right to know what happened to their children, and therefore make it possible to set appropriate responsibilities. It has been fruitless though

For some reason that she cannot explain, she believes that 2013 will bring her news, will clarify the doubts, and will present the truth before her lifeless eyes.  Good or bad news. She just wants to know the truth; she wants to overcome this entire situation that has been a nightmare, the dark side of uncertainty: Where is he? Is he fine? Will she find his body or will she see him coming in the same door of the house from where he walked out more than three years ago?

Neris Pineda has faith. It is a desperate faith that seems to shatter at times. It is a hope maintained by some ethereal force, the faith in a God that should -must- be merciful: her son Oscarling and other three friends of him disappeared in May 2009. She has searched him to the point of despair and with an important restriction: her financial opportunities. False traces, mockery and indolence are the obstacles that she has encountered in this quest. Here, nothing is clear, but there is certainly a huge sense of emptiness. “We fear that our children stay out there as if they were homeless, as if they were beggars. That is what we do not want.”

Oscarling de Ávila Pineda left home on May 13, 2009 driving his father’s vehicle: a Machito car. His agenda for that day was full; two of his plans were to go to the campus to pay for the new term enrollment and to take his brother-in-law, Liberkeis Figueras, to buy spare parts for a bus.

At 3:30 pm, Neris was leaving the University Clinic Hospital and she got surprised when she saw her husband’s car parked in the Hospital’s parking lot: Neris first thought that Oscarling had decided to pick her up. Then she realized that something was not right and made a phone call to her other son in order to ask him to bring her the spare keys: the car was completely robbed inside and the battery did not work. And why was that car parked there? “There seems to be a lot going on here: since police agents do not enter this area, burglars take stolen cars to the UCV’s (Central University of Venezuela) parking lot. The vehicle was under expert testimony for two months and they were not able to find a thing.”

Geral Herrera Libernal woke up very early and left home at 7:00 am. At 11:30 am, he communicated with Carmen Libernal, his mother, and told her that he was at Petare Facility of Rodolfo Loero Arismendi Industrial Technology College (IUTIRLA), where he was studying Tax Administration. He also texted his girlfriend to let her know that he was about to leave the classroom.

At 1:00 pm, he was called several times, but he never answered the phone. “Only two months left for Geral to get his degree before he left,” Carmen says.

“I woke up very early looking for him in the streets,” Carmen Libernal says almost whispering: “I went to the CICPC office, to hospitals, everywhere… and found nothing. Then I went to the hospital based in El Llanito and to the local CICPC office.”

Neris Pineda and Haydée Escalona –mother of Liberkeis Figueras- saw that short lady who asked about his son’s whereabouts. They met each other there and realized that their shared unfortunate event kept them together. “We had a talk. My son’s dad told me that they were indeed friends, that he had seen the boys together at the motorbike race track in Guarenas. I did not know that, and my son knew them for little time.”

The motorbikes seemed to be the common factor. Oscarling managed to make ends meet by delivering meals on his motorbike. Geral had worked as a motocab driver. And he even had a photograph where he appeared on Mauricio’s motorbike, the fifth young guy involved in this story of four disappeared people.

Thanks to his testimony and other people’s, it was possible to know that Oscarling, Geral, Liberkeis and Jhon Rivas were hanging out near Palo Verde Mall that day and that they were detained by presumed police agents from the Scientific, Criminal and Forensic Investigation Agency (CICPC) and police officers from the Metropolitan Police (PM).

In a document written by non-governmental organization Venezuelan Committee of Families of Victims of Human Rights Violations (COFAVIC) submitted on October 19, 2010, to the Attorney General, Luisa Ortega Díaz, it is explained that “the youngsters were forced to get in a green-colored Toyota Corolla vehicle, whereas officers of the National Guard station stopped the traffic, so that the youngsters were taken into the aforementioned vehicle.”

The reason is still unknown, but Mauricio was lucky enough to have not gone on this trip.

The dilemma: To keep the mouth shut or to speak up

Carmen and Neris drink tea one morning at NGO Cofavic facility, a human rights advocate that advises them in their claim for justice. It has been more than three years since they started searching, waiting. They sit besides each other, to tell each their story again.

- We have been to prisons, hospitals, police stations; we have tried everything… we just want our sons back no matter what.

- We even consulted some psychics who told us to go to this and that place, that they saw them in Puerto La Cruz; that they saw them in Táchira… but the truth is that we have not known a thing since then… ever.

- About a week after he disappeared, they threatened me over the phone: “You stop talking to the authorities, because you do not know what we are capable of doing to your son.”

- We made denunciations regarding all those phone calls, by providing the phone numbers to the CICPC, but they did not move a finger. There are also witnesses, many people witnessed the event, but nobody is going to put his life at risk for this. I took a young girl that had witnessed the whole scene to the police station, so that she explained to police agents what the people -who took them away- looked like, and officers from the CICPC scared her off immediately.

- I would not wish this on my worst enemy. It is a killing pain…

What about the grandchildren?

“My oldest grandchild is seven years old,” Neris comments: “I am not brave enough to tell him a thing. I always tell him that his father went to study far, very far from here.

Carmen Libernal maintains on track in the search. Actually, it is only the two of them who continue struggling to get the slow machinery of public institutions going. But they are poor, there are tons of denunciations, you know how this goes, and there are few public prosecutors and few options that enable someone to seriously investigate a complicated matter like this one.

Cofavic has backed them. And in their documents submitted to the Public Minister, they remind the Government of its constitutional obligation to defend citizens’ lives; to respect the right to personal freedom (Article 44); the obligation to make investigations and punish crimes against human rights and the explicit prohibition of forced disappearance of people exercised by any public authority, “be it of civilian or military nature, even in emergency state, exception or warranty restriction,” according to what is contemplated in Article 45 of the National Constitution.

“I do believe that the public prosecutor in charge has worked on the case,” Carmen concedes: “But we have to keep on waiting… it is a lot of cases that they have to get on…” She does not shoot herself in the foot; nevertheless, she does not share Neris’ wishful thinking: “When I found out that my son was taken by those police agents, I immediately thought: “They killed my boy.” But, what is the purpose of taking them away?” she does not know the answer, although she does seem to be certain about something: “If they were somewhere, they would have tried to escape or communicate with us all this time.”

Neither production by state-owned factories nor government-funded imports have helped bridge the gap between supply and demand (File photo)

In today’s Venezuela, a nation run on the premises of “Socialism of the 21st Century,” acquiring a brand-new car is an ominous task. Hundreds of keen car buyers fall short because of limited supply on hand at dealers and state-operated networks.

A few years ago, President Hugo Chávez scoffed at “how sad” it is that most young professionals think of getting a new car as soon as they graduate. “That is part of the poison brimming from the old society,” argued Chávez.

On January 21, hundreds of customers gathered outside state company Suministros Industriales Venezolanos (Suvinca) to get their hands on one of the 9,400 Chery vehicles imported by that organization. “We want cars!” chanted the crowd as an official assured them that no more vehicles were available.

Private dealers face similar scenarios. Waiting lists for a Chevrolet, Ford or Toyota model may extend for over six months.

Government-party representative Elvis Amoroso has dusted off a draft law initially brought to light in 2009 in an attempt to put an end to distortion within the automotive sector.

The automotive industry and its dealers worry that new laws like those proposed by Amoroso would actually make a bad situation worse. Conversely, they warn that state intervention has been one of the causes for distortion.

According to data published by the Venezuelan Automotive Chamber, Cavenez, in 2012 a total of 104,083 vehicles were assembled in the country. This represents only 40.97% of the installed capacity of the seven privately owned companies.

Last year’s result is not isolated. In fact, a retrospective view of production shows that from 2007 to 2012 production plunged 39.6%, falling from 172,418 assembled units to only 104,000 in 2012.

This slump in domestic production, however, coincides with the 2008 implementation of “automotive policies,” a series of regulations created by the government to “strengthen” the industry.

“Why do they put a stranglehold on the industry by making access to foreign currency sluggish? Why would delivery of non-production certificates or permits for Imported Vehicle-Assembly Materials undergo such delays? Why would imports be shut down?” asked a top director of an assembly company, who opted to remain anonymous as a result of the hassles his organization has faced since the launch of automotive policies.

The state’s role

In addition to restrictions faced by assembly companies, the government has also shut down imports for a few years now by limiting them to trade agreements entered into with allied countries, such as China or Ecuador.

Those 9,400 Chery cars, imported by Suvinca, make the state the largest importer for that particular market, not taking into account transactions made by other state organizations. Makes like Nissan, Honda, Renault or Fiat, to name a few, have had to face years without being able to obtain permits or only receiving marginal amounts to meet domestic demand.

Nevertheless, neither those cars nor those produced by state-owned assembly companies like Venirauto and Corporación ZGT (responsible for assembling Chery cars in Venezuela) have translated into consumer satisfaction.

Poor production levels and limited imports have widened the gap between actual supply and demand. In 2012, 130,533 cars were sold, only 52% of the 250,000 experts believe the Venezuelan market requires.

No irregularities acknowledged

The void between supply and demand has given way to market distortions and has turned vehicles into investment assets.

Amoroso has accused automotive companies of running mafias perpetrating all sorts of illegal transactions. Nevertheless, Ford Motor de Venezuela issued a statement indicating that it sells vehicles “only” through its formal dealer network and that it conducts its business “in accordance with” consumer protection laws.

In addition, the company warned that it “does not offer new or low-mileage” cars through its employees or third parties “other than its dealers.”