So, the Coordinadora Democrática (CD) is dead and good riddance. They certainly failed in protecting the votes and guaranteeing that there would not be fraud. I still think the Coordinadora should have taken a tougher stance on August 14th. and even threaten to withdraw that night if the members of the mesas were not respected. The same with the members of the Juntas Electorales at the regional level which were replaced sometimes even the same day (the 14th. of August), by mostly pro-Chavista members.
I also think the CD dropped the ball on Sunday the 15th. thinking that it had won handily and not making sure that the hot audit was performed that night. To me, that hot audit remains the single most important mystery of the whole process. First, there is no public data on it, which centers were scheduled to be audited, which ones were audited and which ones were audited in the presence of opposition witnesses. Just to remind everyone, 199 centers were chosen to be audited that evening, opening the ballot boxes and comparing them to the results. Of these, only 78 were actually audited, but opposition witnesses were only allowed in 27 of them. In these 27, the Si won handily 63% against 37% for the No vote. Remarkably, when all 78 are added together the No wins 57% to 43% in all of them. Strange, no?
The role of leadership for the opposition will be assumed by the Governors and Mayors who are part of the opposition. The group will initially be composed of three Governors and three Mayors and they will negotiate the conditions for the regional elections with the Electoral Board.
Meanwhile, the CNE and the pro-Chavez members of the CNE continue acting with arrogance. First, they denied the request by the opposition to invalidate the results of the recall vote by the usual three to two majority. Moreover, they did not provide an explanation for doing so, saying only that there was “no proof” of any fraud. Second the dance of millions continues with the CNE spending more on purchasing voting machines and the infamous fingerprint grabbing machines (US$ 20 million) which were a total failure on August 15th.
I guess the Saudi-Venezuela of the 70’s is back, let’s throw lots of money at a problem and hope things work out. While these irresponsible people do that, poverty is up, but the poor seem to be forgotten when it comes to spending money on gadgets or frivolous celebrations of anniversaries that most Venezuelans would rather forget like the one year Anniversary of the new CNE.
To top it all off, these guys are so proud of the transparency, clarity and lack of controversy of the recall vote of that they propose eliminating foreign observers from the upcoming elections “in order to give more institutional autonomy and national sovereignty to the processes”. This really worries me, Taliban CNE Director Battaglini, who is in charge of the observation process, must feel that the fraud in October will be impossible to implement if there are observers or he is simply extremely cynical and could care less about 40% (likely 60%) of Venezuelans. But that is the nature of this fascist revolution. (And I know exactly what I am saying and why I am saying it: a fascist regime imposes an authoritarian and hierarchical Government that leaves democracy on the side, this is what we have in Venezuela and all of the CNE’s decisions this week fit this behavior exactly)
The Devil's Excrement 
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