Maduro's days

The Venezuela standoff goes on. Time plays against Nicolás Maduro. He sees what remains of his authority being eroded with the passing of the days. He knows that, I believe, and is certainly preparing a heavy-handed response. And that’s the main danger at this stage: serious loss of lives.

Maduro also understands that the current context is different and not very favourable to him. The opposition is united. They have a charismatic and widely accepted leader. There is regional and international support to the new leader. Moreover, the regional rapport of forces is no longer what it used to be: now there is Bolsonaro next door, and the countries of the region are against him, except for Mexico, Cuba and Bolivia. And there has been a serious deterioration of the hardships most of the population is confronted with. The circumstances are playing against Maduro.

But he is still in the Miraflores Presidential Palace. And he has the support of his generals and admirals. That is important. The question is about the support of the lower ranking officers within the armed forces. That’s one of the keys to unlock the crisis.

Bolivia and the EU

Just after the incident with President Morales ‘ flight, at the beginning of the week, I wrote in my Portuguese blog “Vistas Largas” that the EU countries involved  - France, Portugal, Spain and Austria – had made a serious mistake. They should not have prevented the Bolivian President’s plane from flying over their air space and the Austrian Police should not have searched the aircraft, after it was forced to land in Vienna. If there was any doubt about Edward Snowden’s presence on board the right approach would have been to request for information about the passenger list and take it at face value. This is the appropriate diplomatic procedure. Everything else was a humiliation of a Head of State. It would be immediately perceived as a very wrong decision taking into account the extreme sensitivities that prevail in South America where many believe the Europeans to be just arrogant and racist.

Now, a few days into this story, people are finally recognising the mistake. But they do not want to properly apologise for it. That’s to add injury to insult.