The Emperor Has No Clothes!

"So now the Emperor walked under his high canopy in the midst of the procession, through the streets of his capital; and all the people standing by, and those at the windows, cried out, "Oh! How beautiful are our Emperor's new clothes! What a magnificent train there is to the mantle; and how gracefully the scarf hangs!" in short, no one would allow that he could not see these much-admired clothes; because, in doing so, he would have declared himself either a simpleton or unfit for his office. Certainly, none of the Emperor's various suits, had ever made so great an impression, as these invisible ones.

"But the Emperor has nothing at all on!" said a little child." -- (Hans Christian Andersen)

During Maduro's campaign, he had to resort over and over again to showing a video of Chavez during his last few days before he left for Cuba, anointing him as his successor, and asking people to vote for him should he become incapacitated to govern. He called himself the "son of Chavez" and tried to imitate, without success, his "father's" speech style. He had to do so, because he knew he had no merit, no qualifications, and none of the charisma of his predecessor. He had to do so, because he knew that he was in the position he was, not because he deserved to be, but because he was lucky enough to have been handpicked by a dying man. 

The chavismo movement was well aware that the chance they had to continue in power was a slim one. They knew that they had to appeal to the heartstrings of people still grieving from the death of a figure that, like it or not, became larger than life, revered and idolized by many. They knew that in order to stay in power, they had to capitalize on that grief, on that undying loyalty. To solidify their self-styled revolution, they had to obtain a solid win. It had to be a wide margin. Wider, if possible, than the one Chavez himself got in October's presidential elections. They had to show to the world that the whole country was behind them. That's the only way they could legitimize that which cannot be legitimized... and they blew it.

If nothing else, April 14, 2013 will go down in Venezuelan history as the date when Chavismo was shown to be naked.

Let's pretend for a second that Maduro actually won the elections -- we all know what actually happened -- can such a narrow victory be called a victory at all? Instead of winning by a landslide, as it was necessary -- imperative even -- for chavismo to survive, they did it by a margin as thin as a single hair. This "win" only puts in plain view a fractured movement, a movement that is plagued by internal distrust. And, as it has been plainly said, Maduro is no Chavez. The absurdly dire conditions in which the late president left the country, will be the undoing of his own revolution. Maduro cannot, and will not be able to lift the country from the hell-hole that he, his master, and his cronies have dumped it into, and sooner or later, the other half of the country, the one that still placed some vestiges of trust in the revolution, will wake up to the truth. And then, he will have to answer to them. Look!  The Emperor has no clothes!!