A bit of an update on electioneering. The so-called “unitary candidate” is a centrist of sorts, running on a platform that essentially consists of improving the social Missions so central to the Chavista project. He’s got a bit of credibility in this aspect: as governor of the state of Zulia, he’s had considerable success instituting social programs. He’s not a rightist, and we should ask ourselves why that is. And we should be clear on what it means to be of the right in this context. The far right in Latin America is far worse than many foreigners realize. We’re talking photos of Pinochet on the wall, no shit.

Centrist anti-Chavistas like Rosales are useful pawns for these kind of folks. A local friend remarks: “Rosales isn’t from the right, but the right sees him as an intermediate step. First, get rid of Chávez, then elect a conservative.” The fact that Chávez can’t be dispensed with through a rightist candidate says a lot already about the legitimacy of the Chavista project. The poor must be mobilized so that they can be smashed.

So now we’ve got Rosales and his electoral command strolling through the barrios looking for votes. This is supremely ironic for anyone familiar with Venezuelan history (or world history for that matter). When someone like Rosales goes to a barrio like Catia—like he did yesterday—my  first instinct is to wonder how he got out alive.

Truth is, he almost didn’t. El Nacional provides quite a sympathetic report of events as they occurred: Rosales was leading a march of 1,000 supporters through Catia (note: this is a pitiful number, and given that the report was sympathetic, the number was probably much less), near the über-militant 23 of January neighborhood (home to more than a few Tupamaros). The march came under attack by a barrage of bottles and some gunfire, and was dispersed by the Metropolitan Police.

I’m a little dubious about the gunfire, unless it was just warning shots, since there were no serious injuries (Tupamaros don’t miss all that often). The Minister of the Interior Jesse Chacon has denied that the assailants were associated with Chavéz, and has presented images of Rosales supporters with their guns out and throwing bottles. Rosales, who was probably (or certainly should have been) expecting something like this, played the event off the only way he could.

Unable to admit that popularly-organized Chavistas were responsible—which would be like admitting that he had no business in Catia in the first place—he had to claim that the attack was a direct intervention from above: “If my death comes, it is on the direct orders of Chávez. If I am killed, the people know what to do: the will take to the streets and topple this government. Chávez, I am not afraid of you.” Sounds pretty good, until you realize that this dude is losing opinion polls to both Chávez and “someone else.”

Both Chacon and Rosales are wrong, and they know it, but neither can admit it, for reasons good and bad, respectively. The one provides tacit support to a revolutionary community que sabe defenderse (that knows how to defend itself, the lesson learned so hard in Chile), the other has no place in that community and insulted it by daring to enter it, and he got what was coming to him.