An open letter to Bruce Sterling

Dear Sir:

You said that a certain item from the Foreign Policy blog was “infinitely delvable”, and I heartily concur–though perhaps not from the angle you would like me to.

I presume you wanted to know how a certain soap opera in the Venezuelan mayoral elections of Sunday last would end.

Well, Sir, I have an answer, courtesy of Aporrea.org. I hereby translate:

The ex-first lady of the Republic, Marisabel Rodríguez, saw her chance to be mayor of Barquisimeto evaporate upon obtaining a lamentable 2% of Sunday’s votes.

According to results released by the National Electoral Council’s website, in the municipality of Iribarren, which contains the capital of the state of Lara, Marisabel Rodríguez obtained third place in the regional election, receiving 6,696 votes, or only 1.97% of total electors.

The mayoralty went to Amalia Saéz of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), who received 187,741 votes. Second place went to Alfredo Ramos, who represented diverse parties and organizations of the opposition with 139,816 votes. Meanwhile, Marisabel Rodríguez, as representative of Podemos, COPEI and UNT, took third place. The remaining five candidates came in with less than 1%.

Iribarren municipality has a total of 618,863 voters.

Well, Sir, there you have it. Not only did she lose, she lost big-time. Who knew that campaigns based on false accusations won’t impress voters who aren’t stupid?

Unfortunately, since you didn’t allow commenting on your blog, I decided to comment on your “infinite delvability” here. Looks to me, Sir, like you have an infinite amount of delving to do. Best to start your delving by learning Spanish, and from there, progress to reading alternative and independent Latin American websites. You may also want to read books by Richard Gott, Gregory Wilpert and Steve Ellner, all of whom provide useful backgrounders into the general political situation of Venezuela. That way, you can see how it’s a foregone conclusion that an ex-first lady, who threw in her lot with the most discredited of the old parties, could lose so badly.

Of course, that all entails a rather deeper understanding of Venezuelan politics than your average US-American is likely to get, especially from right-wing sites like Foreign Policy. But you did say it was “infinitely delvable”, and I did say I concurred.

Please carry on writing science fiction, it’s your true métier. But you may not want to say too much about Venezuela from now on, lest you get pwned.

Best regards,

Sabina C. Becker.