Whether it is the ride you take to town in a tightly packed buseta full of vividly disputing passengers, your arepa con queso that gets stuck in your throat when eyescanning the newspaper headlines at lunch break, the conversation with friends or the brief chat that you have with a street artist at the traffic light, in these days, your every move, act, thought and word are all determined by the “magic date

Chronos is merciless and has imposed another countdown on daily life in Venezuela, as the day of the famous presidential recall referendum is inexorably nearing - both hoped and feared for in equal measure for being completely unpredictable in terms of the concrete situation that Venezuela will be facing in barely two weeks from now, nevermind the outcome of this unique, electoral event in Venezuela´s history, that points to a categorical ratification of the president´s mandate by a vast majority of voters.

Predicting another round of severe, political trouble from mid-August on is pretty safe, however, it is in the outlining of detailed scenarios where the problem (and with it, its solution) lies. Diagnosing the ostentatiously democratic and constitutional recall referendum as nothing else but the continuation - clad in ever new clothes -, of the notorious and by now already musty, eternal “Plan B