Caracas Chronicles

Teodoro Petkoff’s editorial today is, as usual, worth a read. In it, he takes stock of the opposition’s method for deciding unity candidacies. He finds a lot to like, but takes the opportunity to slam the naysayers.

Petkoff reminds his readers the opposition umbrella group, the Mesa de Unidad, agreed that the "list" candidacies for the National Assembly should go to the parties that are strongest in each state. In other words, Primero Justicia gets Miranda, UNT gets Zulia, Copei gets Táchira, etc.

With regards to political prisoners, he says that an effort was made to place them as candidates in "sure-fire" or "close-to-sure" districts, and to avoid having them compete in a primary. That is what the Mesa has done, placing Iván Simonovis as a candidate in Baruta, Richard Blanco in El Recreo, and Gustavo Azócar in San Cristóbal.

He then proceeds to slam those who expect the rules to be changed mid-way, demanding to be placed in primo positions, or arguing that more political prisoners should be placed on the lists.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out this is a none-too-subtle swipe at Leopoldo López and Enrique Mendoza, the most vocal of the bitchin’ crowd.

I’ve been quite adamant in my support for nationwide primaries. When that didn’t happen, i expressed my disappointment but was willing to move on as long as there were rules in place that assured a somewhat orderly process.

As I understand it, what López, Mendoza and the others are proposing is a change in the rules. If they want to do that, they have to argue their point and convince the rest of the people in the Mesa – the burden of proof is on them.

But they are not doing that. Instead, they seem intent on tainting a process that, according to Petkoff, is "working well." This does everybody a disservice.