Translation mine.This article is as revealing about the undemocratic (and oftentimes, overtly antidemocratic) nature of the Venezuelan opposition as it is about Yon-Yon and his puffed-up ego. The so-called “Mesa de la Unidad” (which I translated as “Unity Table”), a conglomeration of all the parties that oppose Chavecito and his PSUV, can’t even decide whether to hold primaries or not, and in many cases, it didn’t bother. It just hand-picked the candidates by “consensus” (of whom? reached how? Nobody seems able to say.) And one of the much-trumpeted and -ballyhooed candidates who lost out in the arcane and ricky-tricky selection process…was the Cato Institute’s golden boy of democracy!Is this the same Yon-Yon who won the Milton Friedman Prize? Why yes, it is. And this is how they treat him. This was Yankee capitalism’s great white(-handed) hope, and instead, it’s yet another blown investment. Half a million gringo dollars down the toilet. Sob. Sniffle. Boohoohoo. I’m really trying hard to squeeze out a few crocodile tears for all of them here, but I just can’t seem to. That’s because I had his number from way back. Only now, somebody–his own party–actually called it. A little late, but still.My heart bleeds…no, really…bwahahahahahaha.The directorate of the Primero Justicia party decided to expel Yon Goicoechea from the party, a source linked to the opposition revealed to Panorama last weekend. “Yon took an advance position on his candidacy, which didn’t sit well with the party. For example, he would say he ‘wouldn’t accept consolation prizes’ when he talked of running for a seat in the Latin American Parliament,” said the source. The aspiration of the ex-student leader was to run for the congressional district of Altos Mirandinos, where, he said, “The polls are calling me the winner.”As part of the negotiations for the candidates of consensus, the parties of the “Unity Table” decided that Alfonso Marquina would run for that seat.The source also revealed that Goicoechea’s televised speech of the past week was “the straw that broke the camel’s back”. In it, Goicoechea was very critical of the consensus candidates, and said, “There are candidates of the opposition for whom I would not have voted.”Afterwards, he asked the “Unity Table” to make “more sacrifices”, and aligned himself with a governor, Enrique Capriles, who showed himself to be in favor of primaries for the selection of candidates. Goicoechea joined Primero Justicia in 2008, after leaving the ranks of the student opposition.
