But without some mechanism for hearing the constituency, for empowering them, how do we get donations and volunteers?

To put it in black and white:

There's at least a significant minority (if not a plurality) of opposition voters who will not bother to get up and vote for candidates that are not unity candidates, and credible at that.

Count me there. Hell no I won't vote! if they do not have something credible this time.

There are Ni-ni's. They are disaffected. I don't see them enthusiastic about opposition candidates perceived to be egotistic, following their own hunger for power and nominated in Star Chambers. For that, they are already governed by chavistas. It is incumbent, it has the money and gives it away freely, too.

So, it would be good for the opposition parties to show that they can choose candidates well-liked by constituencies.

If they go separate, and if they don't hear the voters, the little money they might have allotted for elections will achieve little, if anything. They will not line up any money when they seem the losers already. Another bad showing as opposition and they will be (justly) blamed for the mess. Sin el chivo y sin el mecate.

Oh, and did I mention a common platform to be adhered to by all unity candidates? That's important too. That can be drafted by all political parties before the primaries, without going to any ballots. But they have not done it. Not before the regional elections.

Sure enough, Quico.

But if they have no money whatsoever for primaries... HOW ARE THEY GOING TO CAMPAIGN WHEN ELECTIONS COME? That costs a lot of money.

And they have to line up donors. If they are that flat broke, they can as well forget elections and leave them to other organizations.

And I mean it, it will be a hard, uphill campaign if they do not produce credible unity. All the signs of futility flashing red.

They will need to do a lot of campaining to get ANYTHING at all. They will not have enthusiastic opposition voters, nor volunteers from outside their already depleted parties. They will be fighting abstention and disillusion from hell just to get people to vote.

They will be running separate efforts, thus multiplying the overall costs. And they will probably ensure that chavismo's candidates (who are united, if anything) win handily. Thus reinforcing their very negative image and hopeless predicament. And they will be blamed for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

I think that's a way to convince them. If they are really in a tight spot.

They either have money for primaries (and campaigning) or not. If they do not do primaries, their money for campaining will go to waste. With their useless organizations.

But Pulpo's comment carries an itty bit of truth...

It's a pattern as old as the world, that repeats itself and has been noted by more economists and sociologists than I care to remember:

A corrupt and warped environment forces you to accept corrupt and warped transactions. Even if you do not intend to swindle. Infrequently you have no connections and win. Mostly you are royally scr*wed while under a false sense of entitlement when you receive peanuts and are robbed of everything else.

Howcome $2500 paid at a preferential rate (if you get them) will offset your having to pay some of the highest prices in the whole world for necessities the whole year? Or having to bribe everyone in sight with some "authority"? Or living in fear for property and life?

In Venezuela, corruption and thievery can be found in every layer of society. From the top to the bottom. A lot of folk don't see anything wrong with taking something not theirs that is unguarded, or to have to pay bribes, or to take your dollar allowance and use it in something else, or in driving around with gas at less than 1 cent a liter.

Only Quico is not to blame for this. The thieves are those who eschew free market mechanisms for exchange and institute a controlled market that is pure robbery and THEN make it mandatory.

Pulpo: You could well accuse the people who buy at Mercal or just anybody filling up at a gas station, they buy wares sold at a loss.

That's the downfall of democracy and the evident corruption of "socialism" centrally administered. Gifts and bribes.

Only, that to REALLY ride this gravy train and come ahead consistently, you have to be adept at "politicking, bureaucratic empire-building, scheming and intriguing". The whole system is warped.

The guys riding the gravy train do not run a gauntlet to get scarce $2500 for expenses that they actually make. They think really big and go for much bigger prizes. The fun thing is, that precisely these things, Mercal, the almost-free gas and CADIVI make possible the huge rackets these thieves operate.

Pulpo, the raw truth is, there never was a "Revolution", just a highly authoritarian and equally highly corrupt group that took over in Venezuela. It will bleed itself to death through these and more perverse mechanisms... and you will have the adequate material for feeling nostalgic.

There is a lot to suck out, but there are a lot of bloodsuckers, and the more they gorge the more they will crave. Maybe, maybe, the amounts they suck will reach a plateau. But the rest of Venezuela's economy is not in a rosy shape, so...

Quico, you have spoken pure truth... If i believed in Truth with a capital T I would say you spoke that too.

Now, if most of Venezuela's revenue is coming from oil, the arbitrageurs and the "permuta" system are just a mechanism for soaking Bs that came mainly from the government that prints them in the first instance. Wicked! if oil revenue and accumulated wealth from past years can stand it.

The thought is laughable that ANYTHING Chavez says or does will even faze "businessmen" and "importers" like that mentioned by moctavio in his comment.

The Revolution will be bled white. When that happens, it will end.

Let's begin with the well armed professional goons for the Revolution, dear John, and we will believe in the righteousness of your sentiments.

Let's continue with the immensely rich and corrupt in the government, by all means. Let's, please!

An almost off topic comment:

The State has no rights whatsoever and deserves no "security", beyond that needed to fulfill a few basic functions (mainly those outlined in the first few articles of any Constitution about preserving citizens' rights) and should never be accorded the power to violate the VERY REAL rights of citizens, for any reason.

This is what we get when we carry on with doctrines that are not only wrong, but immoral. Immoral because they allow hacks like this to perform whatever capricious actions they are ordered to perform. Wrong because they are badly enough defined to allow capricious interpretations of law-breaking and suitable punishment, not to mention fair trial, in the worst cases.

Doctrines about "state security" and "destabilization", and the like pretty words, are not new in Venezuelan discourse. Nor is the DISIP. Only now we have a government able and willing to carry them to the suitably "socialist" and "revolutionary" extreme.

Next time, if we have yet a country and not some fourth world hellhole, remind ourselves never to allow those toxic concepts, however well-intentioned the attempt might seem, to slip by us and get into law.

Huzzah!!!!

Well, he should be blamed. After all...

Hugo's (purportedly) President and should have resigned a thousand times... Beginning 11 April 2002.

You know? The President has a mission as head of the Executive, first and foremost: keeping the peace among citizens in the Republic.

This treacherous failure, Hugo Chavez, was elected President and invested President. Only he has never been that, in ten years.

Yep, treacherous fits, he failed INTENTIONALLY and perjured when he was sworn in.

Oh, go learn what Republic means, or rather meant. Venezuela is, sadly, no longer a Republic.