Tascón was elected on a pro-Chávez slate as a member of the Fifth Republic Movement (MVR) for Táchira state in southwest Venezuela. His fellow deputy there is Iris Varela, a fiery legislator who, like Tascón, has a habit of talking herself into a corner at times.Whether Tascón will continue to sit in the chamber is open to question, and it's also unclear whether AN President Cilia Flores will allow him to speak if he does. Either way, his days as a legislator look numbered.
The Tascón tale started to look nasty for the deputy when Flores announced late last week that he had expelled himself from the PSUV. Her remark, like Rodríguez' statement after the meeting of the founding convention, appeared to take no account of the fact that the PSUV doesn't actually exist as a legal political entity yet.
The keynote speaker on Saturday was the President and he called on his supporters for unity. The vote to get rid of Tascón was unanimous, Rodríguez said.
I've never been quite able to understand the Luis Tascón melodrama -- because if no one writes about this stuff in english in depth, the details of the struggle inside Venezuela just don't get revealed outside the country. My take has been that Tascón has made himself powerful enemies both inside the bolivarian leadership as well as with the escualido opposition, on account of his relentless muckraking and stepping on toes. And muckrakers need to be backed up with popular support, or at least powerful patrons -- or they get stepped on themselves.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, this power play demonstrates clearly that the new PSUV is most definitely not a true grassroots organization; and is instead under the control of the usual suspects in the bolivarian leadership.
And that does not bode well for the Revolution.