The Devil's Excrement

Based on some e-mails I have received, some people do not understand what the role of the fingerprint machines will be in the upcoming referendum, so they don’t quite understand what the fuss is all about when some people object to their use in the upcoming vote.

Contrary to what many people may believe, these machines will not be used to compare their fingerprint with that registered in the national identification system; such a database simply does not exist in digital form. What the machines are intended for, is simply to obtain the fingerprint from the voter and compare it to that of every single person that has voted before him or her that day. Thus, using this truly brute force method, the CNE is assured that the person voting has not voted before and there will be no use of national ID cards that are stolen; correspond to dead people or non-voters.

The biggest problem with the fingerprint system is that they are notorious for their problems in obtaining the data, depending on age, weight and type of skin. Some systems have taken a while to work properly and are usually tested for months before their implementation. In contrast, the system to be used in Venezuela was purchased less than a month ago and there will be little time or opportunity to test it.

During last weekend’s trial of the voting machines, some polling booths also had the fingerprint systems. While the results obtained with the voting machines (see story below) were quiet satisfactory, the same could not be said of the fingerprint system. The voting machines worked quiet well, the average for the trial was 34 seconds per voter and 0.6% of the machines failed, but they failed when the power was purposely shut off to see if they would act properly when power was restored and they came back on. This seems quiet adequate, even if they were not tested under conditions of high demand like there will be on August 15^th.

The same could not be said of the fingerprint machines. The average time per voter in those centers was over 4 minutes! (4 minutes and 20 seconds to be exact!). This is simply unacceptable and would imply that on the day of the elections, if such a bottleneck existed, it would be impossible for all Venezuelans that plan to participate to cast their vote. Moreover, it is unclear if the system will slow down if it has to compare the fingerprint of the voter to a few million voters that preceded him or her during the day. 

The use of the fingerprint machines will thus create a possible bottleneck that would certainly create havoc on August 15^th. if not properly tested before. The voter would register first, then it will have to go to the fingerprint machine, but would not be able to proceed until the system has compared the fingerrint to those that came before. Only after the computers have done this, will the voter be given the green light to proceed to the voting machine, which has proven to be quite effective and efficient in my personal opinion. Thus, the objection being raised about their use, which I certainly share. In fact, unless the CNE organizes another test, with fairly intensive use of the fingerprint machines, I think they should just forget about it and wait until the next election to use them as they were meant to be used: As a ratification of the identity of the person voting, not as brute force technique to prevent people from voting more than once.

The last three weeks have seen clear cut proof of three corruption cases that are relevant despite the relative insignificance of the amounts involved within the size of the corruption that is taking place in the country. They are relevant because they are clear cut, there in no way to justify what was done and nobody can deny that they are cases of corruption involving the highest officers of the land:

1)      The Citibank building that was sold to a local real state company for US$ 4.7 million, only to be sold to the Government one week later for US$ 9.5 million. Even worse, the building had been offered to the Government by Citibank itself earlier, but the Government expressed no interest. 

2)      The Bilbao building (see Editorial in Tal Cual this Monday July 19^th.) in La Urbina in which Yavonca C.A. a local company purchased some  space in that building, where a technical school had already purchased some property, for 1.92 billion Bs. Eleven days later Yavonca, sold the same space to the Government for 3.8 billion Bs.

3)      Today, there is a copy of the approval by Chavez of the repairs of a Merlin III airplane owned by the Government for more than US$ 1 million, which was published in Reporte Diario de la Economia, which has now online version. There are two things that are outrageous about this operation. First of all, the memo, which is signed by Chavez and Minister of Finance Nobrega, actually says that the funds to repair the airplane will come from monies approved by the National Assembly for social programs. A Merlin III looks something like this, holds roughly 16 passengers, so it is hard to see what its social function is going to be. But what is more amazing is that for a million dollars you could probably rebuild it! The two engines, brand new, would cost only about US$ 300,000. In fact, a quick google search reveals that you could buy used ones for less than one million dollars easily!!! So, someone is making a nice piece of change from the fund for social programs.

Unfortunately, the absence of checks and balancs in the IVth. Republic is such that nobody is even looking into these cases. Such a pretty revolution!

After last Saturday’s report that the Electoral Registry had reached 15 million voters, the Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE) approved today the final registry and it only reaches 13.89 million voters. The difference? Nobody has yet explained it. Last Saturday’s numbers were supposed to be the CNE numbers state by state as given to local newspaper El Universal. While the opposition never acknowledged the higher number, Chavez’ “Comando Maisanta” that is running his campaign asked that the registry be revised and cleaned up last Friday and the Head of the CNE himself had expressed his concerned that it would be difficult to handle the new unofficial number of voters. But after clean up, the registry went up by only 1.3 million voters. So you go figure, it is either up 1.3 million or down one million from the earlier report.

The approval of the registry was not without controversy as the non-Chavze members of the CNE said they voted against it because they could not trust the numbers. One of them, Sobella Mejias, said that she had asked for updates of the number of registered voters everey month, was until the meeting began, she did not receive the update. She also added that the total number of voters that registered abroad had actually gone down in the last two and half months which sounds very peculiar. Of course, it is peculiar because in the last election, Venezuelans abroad voted 70.32% of the votes against Hugo Chavez, who only received 25.91% of the votes cast at the country’s embassies all over the world.

In the end, the CNE will likely approve only 304 new electoral poll booths in the centers that were already planned. There will be 115 centers abroad.  The new number implies that if we assume 43% abstention, there will be 7.9 million votes cast, thus if the opposition obtained a simple majority it would obtain the minimum number of votes required of 3.75 million votes.

I just came back from “voting” in the exercize organized by the CNE. Went to the same place where I wilkl vote in a month. It was mostly a test of the network and the voring machines. The choice was between two baseball teams Caracas and Magallanes. I voted for Caracas.

The machine is simple enough a touch screen. When you get to it, the screen is blocked. The Head of the polling station has a button that unblocks it. The screen appears with the question for the referendum. The two answers are below. You select your choice and a check mark appears on top of your selection. Then you select right below it “Vote”, a check mark appears on top of it and the vote is registered the machines blocks itself and prints a slip of paper that you grab and check that it correponds to your vote. Then you put the slip of paper in the ballot box and you are done. Simple enough for a single vote, I thought the screen might be too small for a multiple election.

Yesterday the Electoral Board announced the final tally of new registered voters and the numbered seems to have been a surprise to both pro-Chavez forces and the opposition. Last year, the electoral registry was open and 450,000 new voters registered. This year over two half a million registered in the same period, but somehow nobody seems to know why it happened or even understand why so many registered. In fact, the tsunami of new voters was apparently under the radar during the registration process.

Chavez and his supporters had been claiming all along that they would give new national ID cards to one million people, some of the new immigrants nationalized in a rush in the last few months, which would turn around and register to vote for Chavez. The opposition criticized the rush, but said that it did not matter, given the secrecy of the process; voters would vote however they wanted.

Last week, the Electoral Board, which is clearly pro-Chavez, decided that it was unnecessary to increase the number of voting centers. Then the tally for new registered voters comes out and it is the Chavisats that appear to be nervous. They call for the CNE to clean the Electoral Register of dead people or people who should not be in it. They ask that more polling stations be opened and the President of the CNE calls for it, despite the fact that last week he voted not to do it. So, what is going on?

The truth is I don’t know and I have yet to hear a coherent explanation. In fact, the opposition has said nothing on the issue, which suggests either that they are not worried; that they have no clue or that they are incompetent. But let’s look at some possibilities and the numbers:

1)      Conspiracy Theory #1: The Chavistas organized themselves and between handing out national ID cards and nationalizing foreigners they managed to get two million people registered.

It could be true, but they always talked about one million and seem very concerned by the new number. Both publicly and privately pro-Chavez leaders have been confidently using the one million new voter number as their trump card up to very recently.

2)      Conspiracy Theory #2: The opposition quietly worked on people registering, getting the message out.

Also hard to believe. The opposition does not have the resources to carry out such a campaign and there were no signs of it either.

3)      Spontaneous pro-Chavez theory #1: Millions of Chavistas went to register to defend the revolution.

Possible, but why is Chavez command campaign, named ”Comando Maisanta” so concerned about the “purity” of the registry? Why did Carrasquero and his mates at the CNE vote against new polling stations last week? Even Chavez has been making statements on the subject, suggesting they are surprised and concerned about the final number.

4)      Spontaneous anti-Chavez theory #1: Millions of opposition members registered to vote against Chavez.

Possible, but why didn’t they register last year in order to sign the petition for the recall if they were so strongly against Chavez? Could people have been sufficiently outraged by the maneuvers to stop the opposition to gather the signatures, to decide to register? I certainly find it hard to believe.

I have tried to examine the numbers and see if they reveal anything. The Table shows the number of new registered voters for each state, sorted in descending from the state having the highest percentage number of new registered voters to the lowest. The column on the extreme right shows the percentage of voters that cast their vote for Chavez in the 2000 election. To see if there is any pattern, I divided states in two groups: those in red were the top twelve states percentage wise in giving their vote to Chavez, the other twelve in blue were the bottom twelve.

Nothing too clear comes out of this. Of the top twelve states in increased percentage of new voters, half were in the top twelve percentage wise in the 2000 Presidential election.

The most anti-Chavez state, Zulia, did have the second largest percentage increase in new voters with 35.38% , which could point to 4) or 2). However, one could also say that being a border state it also has a large population of Colombian immigrants that were nationalized and registered to vote. However, other border states should have shown a similar pattern. 

The most pro-Chavez state, Aragua, ranked quite low in increasing the number of new voters with only 15.8%, which would go against 1). The same happened in Vargas state, the second state in Chavez support.

Miranda state, where the opposition has good party machinery, via Enrique Mendoza, increased its number of registered voters quite close to the average which would go against 2). Bolivar which was pro-Chavez in 2000 was also average.

Thus, no clear cut pattern arises from this numbers. About the only quantitative conclusion I found which could have some statistical significance is that, given the increased number of voters, if one assumed that each state split the vote exactly like in 2000, Chavez would obtain 1.5% points less than in 2000, because, the weight in the less pro-Chavez states would have increased, giving him a smaller margin. This suggests the new voters favor the opposition slightly, but still gives no explanation for the dramatic increase in new registered voters.

The only important conclusion one can derive from the new registered voters is that it should not be difficult for the opposition now to reach the magic 3.7 million votes in the recall. Before, scenarios with high abstention could lead to a victory by the opposition that would not recall Chavez, reaching this number should no longer be an important issue. In fact, both sides could top it no matter which side wins.

Any ideas from the readers in the comment sections would be very welcome.

Yesterday the Electoral Board announced the final tally of new registered voters and the numbered seems to have been a surprise to both pro-Chavez forces and the opposition. Last year, the electoral registry was open and 450,000 new voters registered. This year over two half a million registered in the same period, but somehow nobody seems to know why it happened or even understand why so many registered. In fact, the tsunami of new voters was apparently under the radar during the registration process.

Chavez and his supporters had been claiming all along that they would give new national ID cards to one million people, some of the new immigrants nationalized in a rush in the last few months, which would turn around and register to vote for Chavez. The opposition criticized the rush, but said that it did not matter, given the secrecy of the process; voters would vote however they wanted.

Last week, the Electoral Board, which is clearly pro-Chavez, decided that it was unnecessary to increase the number of voting centers. Then the tally for new registered voters comes out and it is the Chavisats that appear to be nervous. They call for the CNE to clean the Electoral Register of dead people or people who should not be in it. They ask that more polling stations be opened and the President of the CNE calls for it, despite the fact that last week he voted not to do it. So, what is going on?

The truth is I don’t know and I have yet to hear a coherent explanation. In fact, the opposition has said nothing on the issue, which suggests either that they are not worried; that they have no clue or that they are incompetent. But let’s look at some possibilities and the numbers:

1)      Conspiracy Theory #1: The Chavistas organized themselves and between handing out national ID cards and nationalizing foreigners they managed to get two million people registered.

It could be true, but they always talked about one million and seem very concerned by the new number. Both publicly and privately pro-Chavez leaders have been confidently using the one million new voter number as their trump card up to very recently.

2)      Conspiracy Theory #2: The opposition quietly worked on people registering, getting the message out.

Also hard to believe. The opposition does not have the resources to carry out such a campaign and there were no signs of it either.

3)      Spontaneous pro-Chavez theory #1: Millions of Chavistas went to register to defend the revolution.

Possible, but why is Chavez command campaign, named ”Comando Maisanta” so concerned about the “purity” of the registry? Why did Carrasquero and his mates at the CNE vote against new polling stations last week? Even Chavez has been making statements on the subject, suggesting they are surprised and concerned about the final number.

4)      Spontaneous anti-Chavez theory #1: Millions of opposition members registered to vote against Chavez.

Possible, but why didn’t they register last year in order to sign the petition for the recall if they were so strongly against Chavez? Could people have been sufficiently outraged by the maneuvers to stop the opposition to gather the signatures, to decide to register? I certainly find it hard to believe.

I have tried to examine the numbers and see if they reveal anything. The Table shows the number of new registered voters for each state, sorted in descending from the state having the highest percentage number of new registered voters to the lowest. The column on the extreme right shows the percentage of voters that cast their vote for Chavez in the 2000 election. To see if there is any pattern, I divided states in two groups: those in red were the top twelve states percentage wise in giving their vote to Chavez, the other twelve in blue were the bottom twelve.

Nothing too clear comes out of this. Of the top twelve states in increased percentage of new voters, half were in the top twelve percentage wise in the 2000 Presidential election.

The most anti-Chavez state, Zulia, did have the second largest percentage increase in new voters with 35.38% , which could point to 4) or 2). However, one could also say that being a border state it also has a large population of Colombian immigrants that were nationalized and registered to vote. However, other border states should have shown a similar pattern. 

The most pro-Chavez state, Aragua, ranked quite low in increasing the number of new voters with only 15.8%, which would go against 1). The same happened in Vargas state, the second state in Chavez support.

Miranda state, where the opposition has good party machinery, via Enrique Mendoza, increased its number of registered voters quite close to the average which would go against 2). Bolivar which was pro-Chavez in 2000 was also average.

Thus, no clear cut pattern arises from this numbers. About the only quantitative conclusion I found which could have some statistical significance is that, given the increased number of voters, if one assumed that each state split the vote exactly like in 2000, Chavez would obtain 1.5% points less than in 2000, because, the weight in the less pro-Chavez states would have increased, giving him a smaller margin. This suggests the new voters favor the opposition slightly, but still gives no explanation for the dramatic increase in new registered voters.

The only important conclusion one can derive from the new registered voters is that it should not be difficult for the opposition now to reach the magic 3.7 million votes in the recall. Before, scenarios with high abstention could lead to a victory by the opposition that would not recall Chavez, reaching this number should no longer be an important issue. In fact, both sides could top it no matter which side wins.

Any ideas from the readers in the comment sections would be very welcome.

Yesterday the Electoral Board announced the final tally of new registered voters and the numbered seems to have been a surprise to both pro-Chavez forces and the opposition. Last year, the electoral registry was open and 450,000 new voters registered. This year over two half a million registered in the same period, but somehow nobody seems to know why it happened or even understand why so many registered. In fact, the tsunami of new voters was apparently under the radar during the registration process.

Chavez and his supporters had been claiming all along that they would give new national ID cards to one million people, some of the new immigrants nationalized in a rush in the last few months, which would turn around and register to vote for Chavez. The opposition criticized the rush, but said that it did not matter, given the secrecy of the process; voters would vote however they wanted.

Last week, the Electoral Board, which is clearly pro-Chavez, decided that it was unnecessary to increase the number of voting centers. Then the tally for new registered voters comes out and it is the Chavisats that appear to be nervous. They call for the CNE to clean the Electoral Register of dead people or people who should not be in it. They ask that more polling stations be opened and the President of the CNE calls for it, despite the fact that last week he voted not to do it. So, what is going on?

The truth is I don’t know and I have yet to hear a coherent explanation. In fact, the opposition has said nothing on the issue, which suggests either that they are not worried; that they have no clue or that they are incompetent. But let’s look at some possibilities and the numbers:

1)      Conspiracy Theory #1: The Chavistas organized themselves and between handing out national ID cards and nationalizing foreigners they managed to get two million people registered.

It could be true, but they always talked about one million and seem very concerned by the new number. Both publicly and privately pro-Chavez leaders have been confidently using the one million new voter number as their trump card up to very recently.

2)      Conspiracy Theory #2: The opposition quietly worked on people registering, getting the message out.

Also hard to believe. The opposition does not have the resources to carry out such a campaign and there were no signs of it either.

3)      Spontaneous pro-Chavez theory #1: Millions of Chavistas went to register to defend the revolution.

Possible, but why is Chavez command campaign, named ”Comando Maisanta” so concerned about the “purity” of the registry? Why did Carrasquero and his mates at the CNE vote against new polling stations last week? Even Chavez has been making statements on the subject, suggesting they are surprised and concerned about the final number.

4)      Spontaneous anti-Chavez theory #1: Millions of opposition members registered to vote against Chavez.

Possible, but why didn’t they register last year in order to sign the petition for the recall if they were so strongly against Chavez? Could people have been sufficiently outraged by the maneuvers to stop the opposition to gather the signatures, to decide to register? I certainly find it hard to believe.

I have tried to examine the numbers and see if they reveal anything. The Table shows the number of new registered voters for each state, sorted in descending from the state having the highest percentage number of new registered voters to the lowest. The column on the extreme right shows the percentage of voters that cast their vote for Chavez in the 2000 election. To see if there is any pattern, I divided states in two groups: those in red were the top twelve states percentage wise in giving their vote to Chavez, the other twelve in blue were the bottom twelve.

Nothing too clear comes out of this. Of the top twelve states in increased percentage of new voters, half were in the top twelve percentage wise in the 2000 Presidential election.

The most anti-Chavez state, Zulia, did have the second largest percentage increase in new voters with 35.38% , which could point to 4) or 2). However, one could also say that being a border state it also has a large population of Colombian immigrants that were nationalized and registered to vote. However, other border states should have shown a similar pattern. 

The most pro-Chavez state, Aragua, ranked quite low in increasing the number of new voters with only 15.8%, which would go against 1). The same happened in Vargas state, the second state in Chavez support.

Miranda state, where the opposition has good party machinery, via Enrique Mendoza, increased its number of registered voters quite close to the average which would go against 2). Bolivar which was pro-Chavez in 2000 was also average.

Thus, no clear cut pattern arises from this numbers. About the only quantitative conclusion I found which could have some statistical significance is that, given the increased number of voters, if one assumed that each state split the vote exactly like in 2000, Chavez would obtain 1.5% points less than in 2000, because, the weight in the less pro-Chavez states would have increased, giving him a smaller margin. This suggests the new voters favor the opposition slightly, but still gives no explanation for the dramatic increase in new registered voters.

The only important conclusion one can derive from the new registered voters is that it should not be difficult for the opposition now to reach the magic 3.7 million votes in the recall. Before, scenarios with high abstention could lead to a victory by the opposition that would not recall Chavez, reaching this number should no longer be an important issue. In fact, both sides could top it no matter which side wins.

Any ideas from the readers in the comment sections would be very welcome.

Haven’t written very much in the last few days. The main reason was that there was really nothing I felt very inspired to write about or did not have enough information to write something coherent or significant about without boring you. You could say I had fuzzy vision all week. But here is a wrapup of what I thought writing about this week:

The CNE keeps sending very confusing signals. It sounds very disorganized over there, which is discouraging. People are getting fired, fingerprint machines may not be here on time, Battaglini gives militant statements to the press, more and more international observers are invited daily (good!) and the Board of the CNE missed two meetings. It seems as if there are many decisions to be made, but either they are being postponed or they are being made by only the pro-Chavez Directors in private.

I was a little surprised and puzzled by the large number of people that registered to vote in the last six weeks. Last year the Electoral registry was opened for two months and 450,000 new voters registered. This year, it was opened for six weeks and two and a half million new voters registered. Can anyone explain this to me? It certainly bothers me that there can be such a huge difference despite the fact that the places to register were the same, the lines seemed similar and the campaign to have new voters register was also quite the same. What gives?

I have also been doing a study on pollsters, looking for as much information as possible about what each pollster was saying in 1998 and 2000 about who was going to win. I am still working on this, but I can say the following: All of the major pollsters said in 1998 and 2000 that Chavez was going to win. One was right on the money both times: Consultores 21 who had the final percentages in both elections right within a couple of per cent. Mercanalisis was almost as good. Datos and Datanalisis were not. Datanalisis was right on the money in 2000 but way off in 1998. Datos was really off in 1998 and not too precise in 2000. I don’t have complete data on Keller and I am still looking for the data right before each election, as close as possible to the election day. For now, if Consultires 21 or Mercanalisis speak, you should listen.

A second important conclusion to what I have been doing is that ALL of them were way off in what abstention was going to be. In fact, all that mentioned it said that they were expecting lower abstention in 2000 than in 1998 by a lot. Abstention was higher in 2000 when compared to 1998.

Oil has also been on the news. It is still unclear how much oil Venezuela is producing. In separate news OPIC, a US government Agency that sells risk insurance to private companies ruled that PDVSA had confiscated the property of SAIC in the joint venture between PDVSA and SAIC to outsource PDVSA’s IT needs. The ruling means that OPIC will pay SAIC six million dollars and will go to arbitration to have PDVSA reimburse the six million dollars to OPIC.

Finally, I was going to write about the simple corruption case with the sale of the Citibank building to the Government but it has already been covered in detail in Caracas Chronicles.

I was also busy with training to participate in election day and with the Zonageek Meetup Caracas in which a bunch of bloggers got together this week to have a good time. You can read about it there or in Hugo’s blog.

In another example of revolutionary logic and political bias by the CNE, CNE Director Jorge Rodriguez “asked” the Government to refrain from abusing its power in campaigning for the “No” vote, but banned an opposition ad that described the difficulties getting to the recall vote for considering it “insulting and disrespectful to the electoral authority”.

Contrast that with the leniency towards Chavez and the way the resources of the Government have been focused on promoting the “No” vote. In the last two days newspapers like Ultimas Noticias have had pages and pages of ads promoting “No” despite the fact that the regulations establish no more than one page per issue. Additionally, the regulation ahs been bypassed by the Government by instead of publishing and ad within the paper, distributing pamphlets with it.

But what is truly amazing is to see these ads by FOGADE (The equivalent of the US FDIC) on the right below and a group of Government institutions, on the left below, which subliminally use the word “No” in their half page ads in the papers this weekend. Of course, people say “No” to contaminating Maracaibo Lake, of course people sy “No” to going back to the past, but people will not say “Yes” to keeping Chavez either:

I wonder what the CNE would say if this ad was used by that well known soft drink. It would be the same, attempting to unfairly take advantage of the power of that brand; much like Chávez takes advantage of the power of his Government.

Yesterday in his Sunday address President Hugo Chávez, besides suggesting that English was the language of the devil, made the accusation that the program presented by the opposition called “Consensus Pais” (Consensus Country) was financed by Bush’s Government’s via the National Endowment for Democracy to the tune of US$ 316,000

The error in the accusation is that the project that received the financing is a project that has been around for quite a while called “Construyendo Consenso” (Building Consensus) which has been carried out by CEDICE the Center for the diffusion of economic knowledge since 2002. In CEDICE’s website you can find the description of the project which is not exactly an economic plan, but a project to aid the private sector in responding to Government initiatives and assist Government officials and organizations in initiatives that promote a market economy:

Consensus Building: Private Sector Formulation of Public Policy
In order to provide the directors and officers of the chambers and associations affiliated to the top entrepreneurial entity with theoretical practical support for the development of strategies and effective techniques of responses to proposals of public policies made by other sectors, and for the making of own proposals, and assist legislators, governors and other organizations in the proposal and approval of laws and rules promoting the market economy in a democratic society. This program is supported by the International Center for the Private Enterprise (CIPE).
Many have been implemented so far; Seminars, Cost/Benefit Analysis and/or Proposals on the Organic Law of Agricultural Development and Feeding Security, Social Security (package of Laws), Telecommunications Bill and rules of the main municipalities in tax matters, Bulletin on Legislative Trends, for analysis of national parliamentary activity.

What probably confused the self-confessed “discoverers” of this financing Eva Golinger and Jeremy Bigfoot is that Diego Urbaneja, who participates in CEDICE as a representative from the Coordinadora Democrática, was the Coordinator for the opposition plan and was likely behind the use of the word “Consensus” in the title. As far as I can tell, that word and the overlap in some people that participated in CEDICE’s project and the proposal by the opposition. Urbaneja said the same today to the press. That the opposition would choose someone who has participated in that project should not be a surprise, after all, it did require a lot of consensus building to reach a consensus for the “Consenso País” project presented by the opposition. That CEDICE would also like to help in a project like that is clear from its mission statement on its webpage:

“To become the most influential institution of economic thinking in the country”

The rest is superficial research and conspiracy building for electoral purposes. The truth is, that the “Consenso Pais” project can not be attacked for its content, because it is simply a list of priorities that everyone, pro and against Chávez would agree with. You can agree or disagree with what are the main priorities or not, but not with the issues and goals themselves. In fact, most of these issues and goals are the same ones that Chávez campaigned on in 1998, but has failed to act effectively in ant of them. Where the two sides certainly do not agree is that CEDICE and the opposition want to promote a free market economy and Chávez and his friends do not. If that is the basis of the conspiracy, then it certainly exists! And the Devil’s Excrement is part of it! And many of its readers too!

Finally, the discussion is silly anyway. Receiving funds from abroad for legal activities is perfectly legal and not as Chavez implies is an act of treason. What was not legal, was for Chavez to receive US$ 1.5 million for his Presidential campaign from a foreign bank and not declare. To this day those funds remain unaccounted for, but the obscene profits of those same banks in these five years, the last year at the official rate of exchange, are there for everyone to see.

What is not legal today either, is for the Government to fund the political campaign to save Hugo Chavez permanence in the Presidency and his administration is spending daily amounts higher than the one for the CEDICE project to promote the “NO” vote in the upcoming recall. But for almighty and unethical Chávez, that is not a relevant issue.