There’s a certain saying in Venezuela: “Ah, muchacho pa’ bobo” — oh, silly guy! And as we can see, it applies very nicely to the mayor of a certain rich municipality in eastern Caracas, who has had to do a lot of strange contortions lately to keep on top of a political situation that has spiralled out of his control:
The mayor of Chacao, Ramón Muchacho, said surprising things in his interview with Vladimir Villegas.
For example:
“The decision to dismantle the protest camps in eastern Caracas was on the part of the government, the government…”
“The real problem at base is that the government model failed and that’s why there are protests.” (And no elections or recall referendum, Muchacho?)
“I don’t believe the guarimbas will work…They didn’t get us anywhere.” (And the money is running out.)
“No one can remove me from the mayor’s office…I’m the mayor with the most votes in Venezuela, with 84%, neither the government nor anyone else can remove me from here ike they did in San Cristóbal and San Diego…” (Nobody? No recall for him?)
“We have to go vote in San Cristóbal and deal the government a blow. Patricia de Ceballos [the wife of the former mayor, currently under arrest for putschist activities] will be the winner.”
“The students held a march yesterday, in Plaza Brión. It was headed toward the Attorney General’s office, but the state security forces impeded it and the students had no choice but to march to another site, and they went to Palos Grandes…”
“I believe we have to call on the government to reflect about spaces to demonstrate and march, since the opposition or the student movement can’t march in Libertador muncipality. Something is very bad in this country because there are restricted zones.”
Ah Muchacho pa’…
Translation mine. Linkage added.
Silly Muchacho, indeed. Who is this “we” he keeps talking about? Is he suggesting that people from Chacao will vote in San Cristóbal, several hundred miles to the west? They’re not entitled to vote there, any more than the people of San Cristóbal get to vote in Chacao. And the mayor of Chacao, whose job it presumably is to enforce laws and confine himself to municipal concerns, has instead decided to meddle in municipal politics outside his own municipality.
Worse, he’s doing it in favor of an ousted mayor who was removed because he had gotten involved with criminal gangs. Remember Daniel Ceballos? He was arrested for a reason. That reason is that San Cristóbal was becoming unlivable under his thumb. And if anyone thinks his wife will be any better as his replacement, they deserve the misery they’ll get. But the people of San Cristóbal who didn’t vote for that, don’t deserve that…and neither do they deserve any ballot-stuffing meddling from outside their city.
But then again, can we honestly say we’re surprised? This is the same Muchacho who first called for guarimbas, disrupting the peace and normal flow of traffic in his own municipality. Then, when people started getting fed up with that nonsense (noise, fires, trashed streets, vandalism, murders), he had to backpedal furiously. And he’s been at it ever since, flipping and flopping with every gust of wind, trying desperately to stay relevant. It doesn’t matter that he had 84% of the vote in better days; now it’s become clear that his popularity is dropping faster than a barometer in a hurricane.
¿Pa’ bobo? Por supuesto.
