08.21.15: Tall Walls

Julio Borges, the national coordinator of the Primero Justicia party, said in an interview published today in Noticiero Digital that for the opposition, winning the December 6 parliamentary elections is not a matter of “if”, but of “by how much”. He said that the government has effectively ensured its own defeat by suppressing dissent, which he considers to be a sign of desperation.

Borges also said that while the opposition has become a more cohesive force recently, its most difficult challenge has not been to build consensus, but rather to get its message across in spite of an increasingly oppressive regime:

Our message and vision are very clear. The problem is not the content [of our message], but rather the difficulty in scaling the very tall wall of censorship and self-censorship. We must achieve democracy. Something as simple as the division of powers, a civil government, an army within the framework of the constitution and civil service; progressive tendencies when it comes to social justice, and at the same time an essential step to achieving all this, which is uniting all of Venezuela.

Borges also said that he believed that the ideological differences between those who support the PSUV and those who support the opposition are superficial, since as he put it “90% of Venezuelans have a terrible time because they can’t feed their families”. For Borges, any difference that exists between Venezuelans is between that 90% and the 10% he claims “are plugged-in to power and enjoy its privileges”.

Speaking on the recent spat of accusations made by Maduro and other PSUV officials that opposition figures and foreign dignitaries are involved in criminal activities, Borges said:

This government is so desperate, so decadent and so defeated that it must make use of the silliest and most ridiculous tactics. For the President to go on live television at a time such as this and accuse Marco Rubio, Obama, Uribe and the opposition makes them [the government] look really bad.

Immigration Facts Contradict Maduro’s Assertion

During a televised speech last night, Maduro said that 121,000 Colombians have immigrated to Venezuela so far this year. Maduro compared the alleged “exodus” of Colombians into Venezuela to that experienced by European countries in relation to African immigrants.

On the Colombian immigrants arriving in Venezuela, Maduro said:

[The immigrants] are a people who arrive without education, without a cent in their pockets. They are the poorest of the poor, fleeing violence, war and misery, looking to socialist Venezuela for protection and the free, public social security that we have.

Today, EFE reported that according to official figures from Migracion Colombia [Immigration Colombia], only 8,000 Colombians have emigrated to Venezuela in 2015. Out of that number, Migracion Colombia told EFE, an unknown percentage enter Venezuela in transit to a third country.

After a firefight injured three Venezuelan soldiers and on civilian in near the Colombian border yesterday, Maduro ordered three border crossings shut down for the next 72 hours.

Venezuelan Oil Drops to $39.62 per Barrel

The price of a barrel of Venezuelan oil dropped 4.3% to $39.62 this week, continuing a downward trend that has seen Venezuela’s main export fall 30% since  the start of the year.

Oil constitutes 96% of Venezuela’s foreign currency income, and the dramatic drop in the commodity’s price has helped to exacerbate shortages of food and basic necessities, as well as inflation.

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