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Chuck Boone
Feb 12, 2009

El Turpial
The TSJ (the Supreme Court) began the impeachment proceedings against attorney general Luisa Ortega Diaz today. The Supreme Court also appointed a new deputy attorney general: Katherine Harrington, famous for being directly involved in the trial of Leopoldo Lopez (and other political prisoners), as well as for being sanctioned in 2015 by the U.S. Department of the Treasury for human rights abuses.

The problem with all of this is that 1) the TSJ does not have the power to appoint cabinet ministers, let alone deputy cabinet ministers, and 2) the National Assembly (which does have the power to do that) already ratified a different deputy attorney general yesterday. So Venezuela has two deputy attorney generals right now.

The TSJ also said that it would make a decision on whether or not to impeach Luisa Ortega Diaz within five days. The decision has already been made, of course. This means that Katherine Harrington will be the new attorney general.

The rest of the day saw some familiar violence, sadly. Opposition protesters took to the streets of their towns and cities for the 95th straight day.

In Caracas, colectivos armados (regime militias) attacked the Clinica de Caracas hospital in the San Bernardino neighbourhood of the city. Here is CCTV footage of the attack:

https://twitter.com/ReporteYa/status/882358094881320960

The colectivo also fired at the building:

https://twitter.com/jesusarmasccs/status/882305023241224192

Below, a woman records a colectivo in action in the Vista Alegre neighbourhood of the city. The colectivo appears to be clearing a barricade left on the street by protesters. At the 0:44 mark, one of the colectivo members (pistol in hand) chases after the woman. The woman flees in panic, and you can hear shooting:

https://twitter.com/ReporteYa/status/882304809390485505

A 25 year old man named Engelberth Moncada was killed while protesting against the government in Tariba, Tachira state. He died after a National Guard soldier shot him with a tear gas canister.

The Public Ministry's death toll from the protests is now 91.

There's going to be a big military parade in Caracas tomorrow (July 5 is Independence Day in Venezuela). If you're want to see what the Venezuelan military is packing, you can probably find a live feed of Venezuelan TV on YouTube that will be showing the parade.



orange sky posted:

So now a loving plane crashes in the ocean?

Things aren't going well

What are the odds that this was an assassination?

The airplane was registered to the office of the vice president, but there's no word yet on who was on board. Presumably, the VP wasn't on it because we would have heard about it by now. I don't think that it was an assassination attempt.

[url=https://www.lapatilla.com/site/2017/07/04/cae-al-mar-en-margarita-avion-con-nueve-tripulantes-adjudicado-a-la-vicepresidencia-de-la-republica/Here's the link to the story[/url].

caberham posted:

drat so many posts but you guys are really patient.

Can I ask about the neighbors of Venezuela? How do they feel about the rotting situation and have people shifted the political spectrum / government management policy / immigration policy?

Like others have said, Brazil doesn't really seem to care a whole lot. It doesn't help that they've got their hands full with their own stuff right now. Colombia will occasionally wade into the discussion and call for dialogue, but that's about it. We have an ongoing border dispute with Guyana, but things about been quiet on that front for a while now. Outside of that border dispute, Guyana doesn't really talk about the crisis.

Celexi posted:

There is even an official border crossing that leads to a medium sized brazilian city, I honestly don't know why venezuelans don't use it as much and go to colombia instead.

My guess is that it's just so much easier and convenient to go to Colombia than it is to go to Brazil. The border with Colombia is much, much developed and populated than the border with Brazil.

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fnox
May 19, 2013



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oy3KbSM1yvo

Oscar Perez published another video. There seems to be several cuts in the video, which implies that it's edited, although it doesn't seem like the guy had an actual speech ready and is just angrily rambling so that may be the reason. I'm not sure if the background noise is from the actual video, or from how it seems like this video is just a recording of someone's screen.

He begins the video by saying that he ditched the helicopter off the coast of Vargas, then he and his crew made it back to Caracas by going through the Avila mountain range, which, well, at least that answers the question as to what happened to him. The rest is fundamentally a call to take the streets, followed by claim that he and his people will be alongside the resistance in protests (This seems like a call to arms), as well as a retort against those who have claimed that Oscar Perez doesn't know what he's doing, or that he's just making a show, calling out people on Twitter and social media specifically.

The timing of the video is by far its most interesting element. The 5th of July is Venezuela's independence day, which is usually celebrated with military parades and air shows, there's gonna be a whole load of soldiers and equipment out in the streets today. The fact that he's publishing this video on the early hours of such a historic date, to me seems like an assurance that he's gonna make a move today.

Saladman
Jan 12, 2010

orange sky posted:

So now a loving plane crashes in the ocean?

Things aren't going well

What are the odds that this was an assassination?

I don't think "death due to insufficient maintenance" counts as assassination, even if the chronic lack of maintenance was due to the maintenance money being stolen by corrupt officials.

While I was at it I looked into Venezuelan airlines and they're basically all banned from flying out of the country, what a surprise. Conviasa has been suspended from literally all of its international destinations.

BrutalistMcDonalds
Oct 4, 2012


Lipstick Apathy
Put me in the camp that disapproves of members of the security forces taking matters into their own hands, though I'll note that the Venezuelan government deserves a lot of blame for this since the slogan "por ahora" from Chavez's 1992 coup attempt is a Bolivarian battlecry. Who knows? Oscar Perez might become president of Venezuela one day!

I'm also impressed he managed to get away like that.

Goatse James Bond
Mar 28, 2010

If you see me posting please remind me that I have Charlie Work in the reports forum to do instead

BrutalistMcDonalds posted:

Put me in the camp that disapproves of members of the security forces taking matters into their own hands, though I'll note that the Venezuelan government deserves a lot of blame for this since the slogan "por ahora" from Chavez's 1992 coup attempt is a Bolivarian battlecry. Who knows? Oscar Perez might become president of Venezuela one day!

I'm also impressed he managed to get away like that.

I like to think that the helicopter had plenty of fuel and a place to land, but he parachuted out of it and let it crash (which is traditionally a bad helicopter-related idea, but whatever) because as an actor he's pretty sure how it's supposed to work.

fnox
May 19, 2013



BrutalistMcDonalds posted:

Put me in the camp that disapproves of members of the security forces taking matters into their own hands, though I'll note that the Venezuelan government deserves a lot of blame for this since the slogan "por ahora" from Chavez's 1992 coup attempt is a Bolivarian battlecry. Who knows? Oscar Perez might become president of Venezuela one day!

I'm also impressed he managed to get away like that.

If what he's saying is true and he climbed the Avila to make it back to Caracas, then it is perfectly possible for him to have avoided capture, the Avila is very densely forested and absolutely massive, I'd be impossible to comb it to find him.

There's a lot of conspiracy theories about why his helicopter wasn't intercepted though, that's still not clear.

Pharohman777
Jan 14, 2012

by Fluffdaddy

Saladman posted:

I don't think "death due to insufficient maintenance" counts as assassination, even if the chronic lack of maintenance was due to the maintenance money being stolen by corrupt officials.

While I was at it I looked into Venezuelan airlines and they're basically all banned from flying out of the country, what a surprise. Conviasa has been suspended from literally all of its international destinations.

I wonder if there was a specific incident that prompted the ban on Venezuelan airlines.

Saladman
Jan 12, 2010

Pharohman777 posted:

I wonder if there was a specific incident that prompted the ban on Venezuelan airlines.

Oh, I had not clicked the link further. The suspensions were all in May 2017 due to a lack of foreign currency:

https://www.ch-aviation.com/portal/news/55732-venezuelas-conviasa-suspends-international-operations

Although their website still seems to say they fly to Havana, Bogota, and Panama City, for actually pretty dirt cheap prices (550,000 BsF/direction to Panama City). I guess you do have to risk death for it, though. Hard to say if it works though. Avior Airlines seems to indicate they have international flights, but almost every date for international flights says "no hay vuelos disponibles". I finally found one to PTY and back for 3,768,933 BsF.

I wonder if the tickets are all sold out a month in advance? Or if they aren't running all the flights they say they are. I don't think I've ever seen a plane in Europe or North America sell out a month in advance unless there was some special event going on.

Saladman fucked around with this message at 10:17 on Jul 5, 2017

Hugoon Chavez
Nov 4, 2011

THUNDERDOME LOSER

fnox posted:

If what he's saying is true and he climbed the Avila to make it back to Caracas, then it is perfectly possible for him to have avoided capture, the Avila is very densely forested and absolutely massive, I'd be impossible to comb it to find him.

There's a lot of conspiracy theories about why his helicopter wasn't intercepted though, that's still not clear.

Güón, ese pana está resteado en sabasnieves!

Labradoodle
Nov 24, 2011

Crax daubentoni

Hugoon Chavez posted:

Güón, ese pana está resteado en sabasnieves!

Todo el mundo buscandolo en otro lado y el carajo andaba comiendo sandwiches de pernil alla arriba relajado.

fnox posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oy3KbSM1yvo
The timing of the video is by far its most interesting element. The 5th of July is Venezuela's independence day, which is usually celebrated with military parades and air shows, there's gonna be a whole load of soldiers and equipment out in the streets today. The fact that he's publishing this video on the early hours of such a historic date, to me seems like an assurance that he's gonna make a move today.

I don't buy it. He's calling for people to 'take to the streets' as if we hadn't been doing that for months now. If he has backing among the armed forces, what are they waiting for? Are we supposed to rush Miraflores waving flags before they decide to step in?

My gut says he's a guy that overestimated what would happen when he took to the air in that helicopter. He thought he'd spark a rebellion among the security forces, but all he probably did was cause a massive witch hunt to weed out anyone he'd been in contact with or that might have supported him.

Ghost of Mussolini
Jun 26, 2011

fnox posted:

There's a lot of conspiracy theories about why his helicopter wasn't intercepted though, that's still not clear.
Could you expand on this? If you're going to intercept a helicopter you need operational aircraft (ideally armed) ready to go at a moments notice, coupled with a radar network. Consider that these are things which have almost no use in internal repression. For me it's very believable that such elements would be in disrepair, or if working, aren't able to go immediately into operation. I think that mismanagement of funds for the upkeep of such aircraft was likelier funneled into some air force bosses slush fund rather than anything else. I would be surprised if anyone is bothering to keep those fancy Sukhoi planes ready to scramble within a 5 minute window.

Once the helicopter is away from urban areas there's a lot of relatively sparsely inhabited places it could be landed and give time to get away from the authorities through forest/jungle.

I'm legitimately curious if people have conspiracies about because the likeliest answer seems to me to be the simplest, things were mismanaged.

Saladman
Jan 12, 2010
People prone to conspiracy theories always believe governments are both infinitely powerful (CIA can cause massively coordinated coups with a flick of the wrist and without any conspirators leaking it ever) and infinitely inept (CIAs conspiracy can be thwarted by a nitwit like Maduro). Conspirary people also find it hard to believe that governments aren't tracking everything at all times, but also that their all seeing eyes of sauron can be thwarted by tin foil hats, not drinking water with fluoride in it, and cleaning your poo poo up using paper towels instead of toilet paper.

fnox
May 19, 2013



Ghost of Mussolini posted:

Could you expand on this? If you're going to intercept a helicopter you need operational aircraft (ideally armed) ready to go at a moments notice, coupled with a radar network. Consider that these are things which have almost no use in internal repression. For me it's very believable that such elements would be in disrepair, or if working, aren't able to go immediately into operation. I think that mismanagement of funds for the upkeep of such aircraft was likelier funneled into some air force bosses slush fund rather than anything else. I would be surprised if anyone is bothering to keep those fancy Sukhoi planes ready to scramble within a 5 minute window.

Once the helicopter is away from urban areas there's a lot of relatively sparsely inhabited places it could be landed and give time to get away from the authorities through forest/jungle.

I'm legitimately curious if people have conspiracies about because the likeliest answer seems to me to be the simplest, things were mismanaged.

The thing is that the window for an interception wasn't minutes, it was hours long despite interceptors being flown on the Colombian border all the time, he also flew over airspace that should be covered by the largest airport in the country, Maiquetia. Either they were severely unprepared to deal with it, whoever could chose not to, or the government didn't greenlight an interception.

In other news, the National Assembly got attacked today, several deputies are gravely injured.

https://twitter.com/TVVnoticias/status/882645268583284737

Vlex
Aug 4, 2006
I'd rather be a climbing ape than a big titty angel.



Saladman posted:

Oh, I had not clicked the link further. The suspensions were all in May 2017 due to a lack of foreign currency:

https://www.ch-aviation.com/portal/news/55732-venezuelas-conviasa-suspends-international-operations

Although their website still seems to say they fly to Havana, Bogota, and Panama City, for actually pretty dirt cheap prices (550,000 BsF/direction to Panama City). I guess you do have to risk death for it, though. Hard to say if it works though. Avior Airlines seems to indicate they have international flights, but almost every date for international flights says "no hay vuelos disponibles". I finally found one to PTY and back for 3,768,933 BsF.

I wonder if the tickets are all sold out a month in advance? Or if they aren't running all the flights they say they are. I don't think I've ever seen a plane in Europe or North America sell out a month in advance unless there was some special event going on.

Domestic flights in Venezuela are a saga unto themselves. As far as I can tell from reading between the lines of what our fixer/handyman/bachaquero told us, he had to queue for a whole day, three months before our flights were due, and tickets were released to a fixed schedule and in limited quantities. Even then we had to drop him off at Puerto Ayacucho airport from time to time "pa'que no venden los viajes, carajo!" and on the day we turned up at 9am for a 1pm domestic flight delayed to 4pm. There was a little palm greasing going on too, I think.

I have to say, the inside of the airplane itself is fine and the view of the Orinoco you get when taking off is :krad:

wdarkk
Oct 26, 2007

Friends: Protected
World: Saved
Crablettes: Eaten

fnox posted:

In other news, the National Assembly got attacked today, several deputies are gravely injured.

Fuccckkkk.

Pharohman777
Jan 14, 2012

by Fluffdaddy
Who attacked the assembly? One of the colectivo groups? Police? The army?

Saladman
Jan 12, 2010

Vlex posted:

Domestic flights in Venezuela are a saga unto themselves. As far as I can tell from reading between the lines of what our fixer/handyman/bachaquero told us, he had to queue for a whole day, three months before our flights were due, and tickets were released to a fixed schedule and in limited quantities.

Are the domestic tickets sold for pennies? All their international flights were priced using the real exchange rate, and even then they were more expensive than a typical flight should be for that route and distance, e.g I think it was like $450 for Caracas<->Lima when Bogota<->Lima flights are like $200.

Zikan
Feb 29, 2004

holy poo poo

https://twitter.com/nickriccardi/status/882686270899716098

fnox
May 19, 2013



One of the colectivo members attacking the Parliament had what seems to be fireworks explode on his leg. The PSUV media is trying to pass that as a shotgun blast apparently fired by an opposition deputy, which is beyond absurd. The only people armed there are the GNBs which did nothing to stop this.

Vlex
Aug 4, 2006
I'd rather be a climbing ape than a big titty angel.



Saladman posted:

Are the domestic tickets sold for pennies? All their international flights were priced using the real exchange rate, and even then they were more expensive than a typical flight should be for that route and distance, e.g I think it was like $450 for Caracas<->Lima when Bogota<->Lima flights are like $200.

Until I left Venezuela in February this year, they were still being sold for BsF 4000 Puerto Ayacucho-Caracas, and similarly low rates elsewhere in the country.

Anyway I'm going to stop making GBS threads up the thread with my tales because holy poo poo:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/05/four-politicians-wounded-venezuela-attack-on-congress

quote:

“This doesn’t hurt as much as watching how every day how we lose a little bit more of our country,” Armando Arias said from inside an ambulance as he was being treated for head wounds that spilled blood across his clothes.

fnox
May 19, 2013



The National Assembly is still under siege by colectivos, there's people still locked in.

beer_war
Mar 10, 2005

La Patilla has more photos: https://www.lapatilla.com/site/2017/07/05/asaltada-la-asamblea-nacional-al-menos-cinco-diputados-heridos-fotos/

Meanwhile, governement media doesn't show any of these photos and instead focuses on Maduro's promise to investigate the attack (yeah, right).

Telesur's article has this chestnut:

Telesur posted:

[...]otro grupo permaneció en el lugar donde posteriormente se registraron hechos de violencia.

De acuerdo con medios locales, varios legisladores y manifestantes chavistas resultaron heridos.


[...]another group remained at the location where acts of violence were subsequently recorded.

According to local media, several chavista legislators and demonstrators were injured.

http://www.telesurtv.net/news/Maduro-ordena-investigar-hechos-de-violencia-registrados-en-Parlamento-20170705-0029.html

"Chavistas were at the AN, and acts of violence were recorded. These two statements are completely unrelated."

"Independent" pro-government media like Venezuelanalysis are probably still debating how to spin this. Same goes for the English edition of Telesur.

fnox
May 19, 2013



Don't wanna break the flow too much, but I need to unwind a bit. Here's something else that happened today, Hatillo neighbours suddenly found an ostrich running amok.

https://twitter.com/alexagomez2000/status/882671320965804034

Goatse James Bond
Mar 28, 2010

If you see me posting please remind me that I have Charlie Work in the reports forum to do instead

fnox posted:

Don't wanna break the flow too much, but I need to unwind a bit. Here's something else that happened today, Hatillo neighbours suddenly found an ostrich running amok.

https://twitter.com/alexagomez2000/status/882671320965804034

That ostrich is taking its life in its feet, plenty of meat on it.

Bip Roberts
Mar 29, 2005

GreyjoyBastard posted:

That ostrich is taking its life in its feet, plenty of meat on it.

Well I want to be the person in line to grab it after it disembowles the first three people.

Chuck Boone
Feb 12, 2009

El Turpial
The attack on the National Assembly was really ugly.

To be absolutely clear, the attack was carried out by a pro-regime militia (a colectivo armado). The militia were dressed in PSUV colours, carried chavista slogans and logos on their clothing, and one of them even carried a flag of their colectivo (called 23 de Octubre).

The colectivo appears to have simply walked onto the legislature grounds. The video below shows the colectivo opening a gate and just walking in. For some reason, the gate had been left completely unguarded and unlocked:

https://twitter.com/AlbertoRT51/status/882682115669798914

Once on the grounds, the colectivo began attacking deputies and other workers, and destroying property:

https://twitter.com/JuanAndresMejia/status/882645123850436608

https://twitter.com/AlbertoRT51/status/882641809188552704

The video below shows National Assembly deputies and other workers fleeing in panic into the Assembly chambers as the attack began:

https://twitter.com/ibepacheco/status/882649503739916288

At least five deputies were severely injured along with seven workers. I won't paste the images of the bloodied deputies because they're a bit graphic, but they are here and here.

The same colectivo that attacked the legislature also brutally beat a woman on the street just outside the National Assembly's gates:

https://twitter.com/venezoIanos/status/882708818785914880

Maduro said that he was going to order an investigation into the "strange happenings" at the National Assembly. He refused to call it an attack. He also blamed the opposition for the attack, saying:

quote:

[These were] strange happenings. They're always strange whenever the opposition is involved. 

This is not the first time that a pro-regime militia has attacked the National Assembly, but it's probably the most severe example of an attack.

This attack happened because the regime encouraged it, and because the regime let it happen. Just a week ago, Maduro said that if the Bolivarian Revolution lost an election, the PSUV would reclaim power"with weapons".

How is it that when my grandmother goes to a peaceful march because she wants to be able to elect her political leaders she's met with 100 National Guard soldiers and tear gas, but when these people showed up to the Assembly there was literally not a single police officer to stop them from breaking in and carrying out this attack?

If you support the Maduro regime, you're supporting this type of violence whether you want to admit it or not.

EDIT: Here's a picture of a National Guard soldier calmly looking on as colectivo members brutally beat a National Assembly deputy:

https://twitter.com/EdinsonFerrerA/status/882705720478765056

Chuck Boone fucked around with this message at 23:41 on Jul 5, 2017

beer_war
Mar 10, 2005

La Iguana TV - a pro-government TV programme - has more video of the attack, set to a rousing heavy metal soundtrack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbiZzZHg7y8

Man, we sure showed those fuckers, huh?

beer_war fucked around with this message at 05:33 on Jul 6, 2017

Pharohman777
Jan 14, 2012

by Fluffdaddy
This is a disturbing echo of the Nazi brownshirts attacking their opposition.
Venezuela looks more and more like an incompetent echo of nazi germany every day.

Chuck Boone
Feb 12, 2009

El Turpial
There have been lots of clashes all around the country. Today is the 97th consecutive day of protests against the regime.

These videos fare from Caracas yesterday evening and into the night. The first one shows the residents of a residential complex in the neighbourhood of El Paraiso in Caracas throwing Molotov cocktails at a National Guard armoured truck, after the truck tore down the building's front gate:

https://twitter.com/NTN24ve/status/882779680889335809?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

This video was recorded in the San Juan neighbourhood, and it shows a National Guard truck backing down a street as it comes under attack:

https://twitter.com/jesusarmasccs/status/882763655296815104

You can't see much in the video below, but you can hear a colectivo armado in action in Caracas. Between the sound of gunshots you can hear residents cursing at the colectivos:

https://twitter.com/ReporteYa/status/882794749299740672

There were clashes in Caracas today, particularly in the neighbourhoods of Las Mercedes and Chacao, which is they usually happen.

The big news today is that the National Guard and National Bolivarian Police chased protesters into the Sambil shopping mall, and then fired tear gas inside the mall. As you can imagine, there were people in the mall (including children and the elderly) who were in the mall and had absolutely nothing to do with the protests. They were sent into a panic by the attack, and at least 45 people had to receive medical attention due to tear gas exposure:

Here's one video of the attack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jx9MvxRku08

And another:

https://twitter.com/InfoVzlaNet/status/883054787679449088

Maduro also spoke today on a televised speech about the upcoming Constituent Assembly election. This is the election that has everyone riled up, since the Constituent Assembly will have the power to rewrite the constitution (or write a completely new one, if it wants). The assembly will be made up of about 545 individuals, and they will be elected on July 30.

During his speech, Maduro showed what kind of election this is going to be. He issued a threat to Venezuelan workers to go vote on July 30 or else, because he was going to check the electoral register to make sure that every worker voted. This is what he said:

quote:

Listen carefully. Hector Rodriguez, the head of the [electoral] campaign: tally up all of the institutions, companies, and start organizing things (...) at the end, go over the list. If we have 15,000 workers [in a company], 15,000 workers should vote, no excuses. Company by company, state by state, ministry by ministry, state by state, municipality by municipality.

It doesn't get more brazen that this. If you live in Venezuela and you're employed by the government, Maduro just told you to go vote or else.

Anyway, the Constituent Assembly is overwhelming unpopular. I linked some surveys a few pages back showing that somewhere around 70-75% of Venezuelans do not want this thing to go ahead. The way that this is supposed to work is that before the Constituent Assembly, err, assembles, there has to be a referendum vote. Maduro skipped the vote because he knew he would lose, and just declared the the assembly would take place.

With the election looming closer, Maduro is clearly afraid that hardly anyone will show up to this thing, hence the threat.

ugh its Troika
May 2, 2009

by FactsAreUseless
The people of Venezuela should boycot it, imo. Voting in it at all merely suggests that it's legitimate.

Chuck Boone
Feb 12, 2009

El Turpial

ISIS CURES TROONS posted:

The people of Venezuela should boycot it, imo. Voting in it at all merely suggests that it's legitimate.

Yes, and there's every reason to believe that they (a majority of them) will in fact boycott it.

But Maduro knows this, and that's where today's threat comes from. Maduro just told the entire country that if you work for any level of government or any company owned by the state and you don't vote for this thing, you'll be out of a job. And that's just the best case scenario.

Mozi
Apr 4, 2004

Forms change so fast
Time is moving past
Memory is smoke
Gonna get wider when I die
Nap Ghost
And why not just say he ended up with 99% of the vote with 100% turnout regardless of what actually happens, if it's reached this point already.

Chuck Boone
Feb 12, 2009

El Turpial

Mozi posted:

And why not just say he ended up with 99% of the vote with 100% turnout regardless of what actually happens, if it's reached this point already.

There was a report in the news last month that the CNE had skipped something like 100 administrative steps so far that ensure free and fair elections. And that's only by their own standards. Some of the steps included the certification of electoral workers and observers.

Also, in previous elections, you'd vote on a computer screen. Once you click the "vote" button, the machine prints out a paper ballot, which you then check to make sure it's correct and then deposit in a ballot box. This is done for obvious reasons: if the number of votes cast for candidate X on the machines does not match the number of votes for the same candidate in the ballot box, then something's gone wrong.

For the Constituent Assembly election, the CNE is doing away with the paper ballot step. You'll only vote on the machine.

They're not even trying to pretend like this is a free and fair process anymore. We're at that stage.

Ghost of Mussolini
Jun 26, 2011

Chuck Boone posted:

Yes, and there's every reason to believe that they (a majority of them) will in fact boycott it.

But Maduro knows this, and that's where today's threat comes from. Maduro just told the entire country that if you work for any level of government or any company owned by the state and you don't vote for this thing, you'll be out of a job. And that's just the best case scenario.
Is there a reliable figure for how much of the workforce (involved in legal enterprise/work) is employed either directly by the state or with state participation or maintained through subsidies? I assume that given the state of the economy, if one puts the black market to one side, a large sector of the population must be employed either directly or indirectly from public funds.

Labradoodle
Nov 24, 2011

Crax daubentoni
Approximately 3 million people, I think, but I'll add a source for this when I'm on my computer. Over 13 million people voted in the parliamentary elections.

It's a significant figure, but even if they all voted, the elections should be a failure as far as turnout goes. Of course, if they don't use paper ballots, as Chuck mentioned, then all bets are off. They'll just fabricate a number and say the elections were a success.

Chuck Boone
Feb 12, 2009

El Turpial

Ghost of Mussolini posted:

Is there a reliable figure for how much of the workforce (involved in legal enterprise/work) is employed either directly by the state or with state participation or maintained through subsidies? I assume that given the state of the economy, if one puts the black market to one side, a large sector of the population must be employed either directly or indirectly from public funds.

The size of the public sector workforce doubled from 1999 to 2015.

In 2014, official figures put the number of public sector employees at 2,463,759. By the early part of this year, that number had jumped to 2.8 million.

fnox
May 19, 2013



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBB3pGDsgT4

This is something really uncanny I just stumbled upon. This is a taping of Adriana Azzi's show in 2002, featuring Nicolas Maduro, Leopoldo Lopez, Tarek William Saab and Cilia Flores. Adriana Azzi is an astrologist, and on this show she's trying to predict the future of Venezuela using some Tarot bullshit, this is happening just after the 11th April coup.

In another bizarre turn of events, Maduro somehow channelled Darth Vader on a televised rant and said [url=http://www.europapress.es/internacional/noticia-maduro-santos-colombia-fundo-aqui-yo-soy-padre-hincate-padre-20170707064725.html]"I am your father, you must kneel before me" to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos.

fnox fucked around with this message at 21:43 on Jul 7, 2017

Saladman
Jan 12, 2010

fnox posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBB3pGDsgT4

This is something really uncanny I just stumbled upon. This is a taping of Adriana Azzi's show in 2002, featuring Nicolas Maduro, Leopoldo Lopez, Tarek William Saab and Cilia Flores. Adriana Azzi is an astrologist, and on this show she's trying to predict the future of Venezuela using some Tarot bullshit, this is happening just after the 11th April coup.

It's crazy to see all those people together -- and drat, how young they look. Also along those lines, here's something you might appreciate:

http://www.theonion.com/article/bush-our-long-national-nightmare-of-peace-and-pros-464

Check the date of publication: January 17, 2001. Basically everything in that The Onion article came true. (The Onion, if you're not familiar, is a famous satire "newspaper", which is kind of staid now but was popular and trendy back in 2000.)

BeigeJacket
Jul 21, 2005

Why the gently caress were senior politicians on a tv tarot show? Is that a big thing in Venezuela?

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Labradoodle
Nov 24, 2011

Crax daubentoni

BeigeJacket posted:

Why the gently caress were senior politicians on a tv tarot show? Is that a big thing in Venezuela?

To answer that, I'll just tell you that today the new Vice Attorney General tried to sneak into the Public Defender's office inside the trunk of a car to assume her post. Venezuela is a crazy place where nothing makes sense ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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