Venezuela and a Compression Scenario

For John, BLUF:  The importance of a Constitution that guides all.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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From this morning's Night Watch we have Analyst John McCreary's assessment of what is happening in Venezuela, one of our neighbors in South America.

Venezuela:  The opposition postponed its planned announcement of its strategy to oust President Maduro. The executive secretary of the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD), Jesus Torrealba, said, "There will be no announcement today due to the circumstances of the past 48 hours."

Torrealba was referring to an adverse ruling by the Supreme Court on 2 March which denied that the National Assembly had any jurisdiction over the Supreme Court, including the right to review the government's appointment of Supreme Court justices.

Students protested the Court's ruling in San Cristobal and clashed with police on the 3rd.

Comment:  One of the strategies for ousting Maduro included the impeachment of Supreme Court justices for political bias and abuse of power. The outgoing pro-Maduro National Assembly used its lame duck status in December to stack the Court with pro-Maduro justices before the opposition-controlled Assembly took office.

The Maduro government with the assistance of the pro-Maduro Supreme Court continues to find ways to restrict the actions of the opposition-controlled National Assembly. Little by little, the collusion between the executive and the Court are chipping away at legislative power.

Maduro has created a compression scenario by using political machinations to reduce the authority of the parliament. Compression scenarios have a single eventual outcome: a violent political eruption.

The key lessons here are:

1. Socialism, as socialism, and not social welfare, ends badly.  And we can include under the term "Socialism" the faux revolutionary movement known as Bolivarianism.
2. The leaders of a Socialist Government, as opposed to a social welfare government, never want to admit that it isn't working and won't work, and thus carry on, by means fair and foul.
3. Having an agreed constitution, that is rock firm, and not some "living" document, provides a means for the People to bring about the change THEY want.  And, at the end of the day it is about the People and not about the Socialist Vanguard.

Regards  —  Cliff