Wovon lebt ein Lehrer in Venezuela?

Ein Dozent mit 5 Jahren Erfahrung verdient in Venezuela ungefähr 3000 Bolívares pro Monat. Damit kann eine Familie von 5 Personen etwa 85% ihrer Nahrungsmittel einkaufen.

Ein Ehepaar von zwei Dozenten wäre gar nicht in der Lage, nur mit ihren Jobs drei Kinder und sich selbst zu ernähren, geschweige denn noch dazu eine Miete für eine Wohnung zu zahlen.

Schullehrer hatten es vor Chávez nicht leicht. Ihr Lebensniveau war aber nicht so niedrig wie jetzt.

Venezolaner haben ein Hühnchen zu rüpfen mit dem Caudillo

Wenn Chávez weniger in Waffen ausgeben würde, könnte der Staat Lehrer besser entlohnen.

Venezuelan Doppelgänger

Doppelgänger

What is the difference between Maximina Guillén de Villasmil, a lady born on 15 November 1938, voting in the Sucre municipality of Mérida, and Maximina Guillén de Villasmil, a lady born on 15 November 1938 who votes in the Sucre municipality of Mérida? Nothing...only their ID: one has ID 9068611 and the other 2276514 (at least until today, the CNE may modify this after reading this post, but there are records distributed to journalists abroad). There are thousands of "Doppelgänger" in the Venezuelan registry. Sometimes there are two records with the exact name and birthday in the same voting centre, sometimes the voting centre is another, most of the time but not always in the same municipality. They are less than 40000 and yet they are just the most obvious top of the iceberg in a mess called Venezuelan national electoral registry. In any country you will find a couple of persons with a very common name such a name as José Rodríguez, our John Smith, born on the same day but not when you have 4 full names on a row and not when names are very uncommon. In many cases we have IDs that differ by a regular pattern, like with these:

GARCIA GONZALEZ TANYA DEL VALLE|1942-09-11|3112687
GARCIA GONZALEZ TANYA DEL VALLE|1942-09-11|3112667

or these:


RODRIGUEZ SOSA MARIA DEL PILAR|1965-12-12|11453425
RODRIGUEZ SOSA MARIA DEL PILAR|1965-12-12|11353425

GONZALEZ BLANCO ANGELICA YELITZA|1970-10-02|8340896
GONZALEZ BLANCO ANGELICA YELITZA|1970-10-02|6340896

SANTANA ROA YEYLIN EDIVE|1984-10-16|16609883
SANTANA ROA YEYLIN EDIVE|1984-10-16|16609882

The first field of these records is the full name of the voter, the second is the birthdate and the third the ID.

Who counts?

I have written before about Venezuela's electoral registry...basically stating it is a mess. There are many more patterns that hint at some tampering. 

In some countries you can go to vote straight away on election day without having to do anything before: the population registries are organised in such a way that if you are a national of that country and you reach voting age, you are automatically placed on the list of voters, you just need to show up when there are elections or ask for a registry change if you move.

There are other countries where you have to register once for the first time and once every time you move from location. One such case is the USA (at least some states, readers can correct me here). 

In any case: in countries where you have to do the extra step and go to register for the first time one would expect some people not doing so, specially if the registry is not compulsory. 

The current Venezuelan government tells us the percentage of adult Venezuelans not registered to vote is very low, around 3.5%. Now, they also said there are around 19 million voters now. But the government-dominated Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas also said the country has 28,9 million inhabitants. That means - if both are right - that 9610659 persons are under age or cannot vote in national elections because they are foreigners. That is 33.25% of the population. The average age of those registered in the CNE is around 43 years old. The average age of the Venezuelan is 26 years, according to the INE.

Now: how come abstention in Venezuela can range from 26% to 36%? Why do so many people bother to register in the first place? Actually: either the late Census doesn't make sense or it is the electoral registry that doesn't...or both...and that is why we won't get any detailed information about age distribution from the last census until well after the presidential elections.

Unfortunately, once you enter some records into the electoral system, it is very hard to get that system cleaned. You can ask people who are supposed to be older than 120 years to show proof that they exist (the government does it now). You could eventually request the same from the 20% who were born in October 1976 (not done yet) and so on, but who is going to control you if you actually work for the current government and you are in charge of the electoral registry?

Only if we could get witnesses at every voting centre can we be sure there is no massive tampering with results. And tragically, we do not have that capability outside Miranda and a few other Northern-central regions.

In blue: Venezuelan adults who have apparently registered to vote. In orage: adults who haven't registered to vote

Do you know what a banana republic is? Wissen Sie, was eine Bananenrepublik ist?

Venezuela is without any doubt a banana republic. Public hospitals are neglected, there are less public libraries in a two million city than in a 30000-strong European village and parents rich and poor have to buy their children's textbooks. Still, the military regime is now giving subsidized plane tickets and subsidized dollars for people to go see Venezuelan pilot Maldonado in the Formula 1 competitions in Europe and North America.

Venezuela ist ohne Zweifel eine Bananenrepublik. Öffentliche Krankenhäuser sind heruntergekommen, es gibt weniger öffentliche Bibliotheken in einer 2-Millionen-Stadt als in einem 30000-Einwohnerdorf Europas und Eltern müssen alle Bücher ihrer Kinder kaufen. Trotztdem subventioniert die Militärregierung Flugzeugtickets und Devisen, damit die Leute den venezolanischen Formula-1-Fahrer Maldonado bei Wettrennen  in Europa und Nordamerika sehen.

Ruddy beauty

This is the ruddy-breasted seed eater, found in most of Latin America, also in Venezuela.

ADVLATOR MAXIMVS

I asked you to tell me who you thought the greatest sycophants among Chávez's minions were.

The poll allowed for multiple selection.

Adulator maximus

And this is what you voted for:

Clearly, the former military coup-monger Diosdado Cabello comes first. Then we have former bus driver and current minister of foreign affairs Nicolás Maduro (my grandparents were farmers but then they didn't tried to deal with international relations or drive a bus). On third place we get notorious police officer Freddy Bernal. I agree with most choices but for Maduro. I think Maduro honestly loves Chávez. He is thus not really a sycophant but a true puppet. Most of the others are more on the profiteering side.

I put in green those who were military or whose dad was a military coupster (Izarra). I didn't put Adán Chávez on the  list because we know: familia es familia. This is about pure sycophants.

If Chávez really is healthy again (there are many who think he never was ill, something foreign journos dismiss as outrageous conspiracy theory), the whole discussion about a dauphin or dauphine becomes moot. Else, this is the list to watch, plus Chávez's daughters.

Chávez without cancer, beginning of new stories?

The military caudillo Hugo Chávez declared on his return from Cuba that his cancer treatment has been a success. From 1998 until a month or so before the cancer rumours spread, he and his people were denouncing plots against  his life every third months or so. Once Chávez announced he had cancer, the assassination attempts disappeared and the drama took another style.

Now that Chávez has announced for the second time that he has overcome cancer one can only wonder: will he and his employees start announcing once again about "magnicidios" on a quarterly base?

Stay tuned, it's election time.

Chávez tweeting and other things

This is Chávez's twitter account pattern since 1 March.

Does it mean something? Perhaps, perhaps not. Capriles should rather outvote and not just outlive the caudillo. Even if the caudillo's wealthy minions will probably get into a cataplectic state for a time, we can be sure the most powerful already have a plan B.

Why is Capriles' popularity still so low compared to that of the caudillo?

There are many factors. Among other things, Capriles doesn't have the petrodollars Chávez has. Chávez's regime gives Haier washing machines and refrigerators by the hundreds of thousands. Chávez has all the state media and Capriles has only access to channels that can only reach 30% of the population. Even after two former Chavista honchos started to tell their stories about corruption within the regime, their former colleagues - dodders to the petrostate - remain unrepentant...and most Chavista followers either don't care or don't understand what level of corruption have been attained.

But this is not the only reason why Chávez remains so popular. Capriles also lacks charisma. The popularity of one is largely based on the lack of charisma of the other. And why is this? The main reason is rather technical: he doesn't have oratory skills...at least not yet. And why is that? There are again many factors, but one of them is his previous lack of interest for reading. This is fairly common among Venezuelans, even among those from wealthy origins. Capriles has got formal education but unlike Chávez, he hasn't probably read more than what he needed to read to finish his studies or to understand technical reports. Chávez may not know that mankind is older than 25 centuries and he has read in a very chaotic manner, but he still has read key books and fragments of stories that touch all kinds of people people...Not for nothing did he read Les Miserables and the Count of Monte Cristo while he was in jail for his bloody coup in 1992-93. He has also trained for decades to tell all kind of stories - first in the soldier's barracks, then in the palace and on every TV. 

Capriles is visiting Venezuela house-by-house. This can seem impressive for some but it is not very efficient. He needs those oratory skills to address the masses and he needs to present his message in a moving story. 

Chávez, on the other hand, cannot rely forever on Haier refrigerators and the sympathies derived from his countless shows of the past. He needs to start travelling through Venezuela in August at the latest.