Venezuelan opposition's support would fit in a taxi

They fit in a taxi: the burden of Venezuela's opposition

Venezuelan politics is often measured by rally attendance. The latest jab compares the trinc of an opposition figure nicknamed Charo to the space inside a taxi: they would not even fill a minibus. The image is circulating as an argument to dismantle the narrative of massive support for the opposition.

The underlying issue is electoral. After the last elections, one line of thought holds that the official result is not backed by the tally sheets: "that's not what the tally sheets say" would be the central argument, against the opposition's insistence on a clear victory. The absence of verifiable tally sheets fuels the theory of a scheme orchestrated from outside Venezuela, with recurring mentions of Cuba and foreign interests.

The accounts of the alleged scheme differ: some see foreign meddling as the only explanation for the internal incompetence; others, more prosaically, simply see a failure to mobilize. The taxi and minibus metaphor highlights the gap between media noise and the real ability to fill a square.

A historical note: resistance against the invader, from Napoleon to Cuba, appears in the exchange to downplay external aggression or to lament the lack of an equivalent rebellion. The analogy falls short: neither 1808 nor the Sierra Maestra can explain twenty-first-century Venezuelan politics.

With the facts on the table, the only verifiable headcount is the joke's: a taxi. As long as the tally sheets remain unpublished, the dispute between "they fit in a taxi" and "we won" will keep going around in circles, probably without direction.