The Devil's Excrement

I still can’t get over the fact that Venezuela will give cheap
financing for the Uruguayans to buy oil from Venezuela. I am revisiting
this topic because I thought it was a joke the first time I heard it. A
country with 68% poverty and a GDP per capita of $4,000 per year, will
subsidize oil for a country with a GDP per capita of US$ 12,000. Can
that make any sense? Why not ask for the same deal in return? Maybe
Uruguay could send us meat, which they produce a lot of and of very high
quality, under the same financial terms to Venezuela. Would they? Of
course not, they can sell it for full price at the international
markets (or even to Venezuela) and they feel no need to feed poor
Venezuelans in contrast with our President who will subsidize
Uruguayans going to Punta Del Este this summer. They can sure use it, with two star Hotels
at 160 bucks, cheaper gas can ease the pain on those poor Uruguayans
getting a tan at the beach down there during their month-long summer
vacation. Meanwhile the majority of their Venezuelan counterparts are
up here, getting a daily tan as they walk down the barrio, no car, no
public transportation either, for a job that pays a minimum salary
comparable to a night at that Hotel in Punta del Este. Hey! since we
are down there expressing our solidarity, maybe we can buy their crappy
airline too and solve that silly problem for them too. Next stop: Venezuela helps
out Malaysia with its problems. No, No, let’s help those people from
Singapore, they really need it! .

–The Head
of the Electoral Board (CNE) said before the vote last Sunday that he had polls
that said that 75% of Venezuelans trusted the CNE and this represented a high
number. I disagree. There should be NO reasons for people not to trust the
Electoral Board. If the CNE acted impartially, without confrontation, split
decisions and had listened to everyone, that approval rating should be in the
upper nineties, like it was in the past. This is another arrogant statement by
Mr. Rodriguez, who shows by just saying it that he has very low standards for
the job he is doing. Additionally, I believe that part of the large abstention
that we saw on Sunday was due to this mistrust in the CNE by both pro-Chavez
and anti-Chavez forces. (A poll today suggested 68% of the people do not trust
the CNE)

–There is
still no explanation of why it took so long to give out the results of Sunday’s
election. The whole point of making the whole process electronic (the cost was 20 bucks a vote!) was that
results would be given out immediately removing a possible source of mistrust
that the results were being tampered with. In fact, it was very strange that
before the polls had closed at 7 PM, Mr. Rodriguez gave out the precise
real-time number of how many people had voted between 4 PM and the time he was
speaking but it took over 12 hours to give us very basis incomplete results. How
can anyone explain this? What was going on?

–Yesterday
I heard a lady on TV from the infamous Tupamaros group, questioning the results of the
election. She was actually a candidate for city councilman (woman), but
incredibly got zero votes according to the CNE. She said that her whole family
had voted for her, but the one thing she was sure of was that she herself voted her
name in So, she was asking, how could I get no votes at all? Good question, but
don’t expect an answer to it.

Two weeks ago, the opposition held
a civilized and peaceful march, mostly women, going to the Electoral
Board (CNE) headquarters to present a document with their demands for
transparent and fair elections. The CNE was surrounded by National
Guardsmen and police, tear gas and water cannons were used against the
crowd and nobody form the CNE received the document.

Today, an outlaw group called the “Tupamaros” well known for going around armed and with hoods over theri faces, holds protests
in Petare and at the CNE Headquarters without the armed forces or
police showing much interest. They are led by none other than Richard Peñalver,
the man the whole world saw shooting opposition marchers from Puente el LLaguno in April 2002,
but was declared innocent by the “impartial” Chavista Justice. It was all a mirage apparently.

To add insult to injury or to help prove my point, the CNE meets with them
and promises to do an audit of all of the voting centers that they are
complaining about. The Tupamaros say they were cheated electronically,
cheated by the “morochas” which they say limits the role of minorities
and saying phantom party UVE does not represent the revolution. Tell us
about it Richard, at least they go and talk to you!

This is simply discrimination, if you are opposition, which despite
calling for abstention got almost 50% of the vote, you have no rights,
can’t march and your complaints are not heard. But if you are a
pro-Chavez, violent, aremed, hooded, outlaw group, you will be given the royal
treatment.

Some democracy!

Here is clear evidence of corruption in the revolution. The full page ad on
the left was published today in at least all of Caracas’ major newspapers. It
is a self-congratulatory ad by the Metropolitan Mayor of Caracas, who
is a member of Chavez’ MVR. Congratulating Venezuela, because the
“people” have won. On the right I have blown up the symbol of the city,
which was stolen from Harris as reported earlier,
in another act of unethical behavior. It also says among other things
“With Chavez only one Government” and in the top part the voting
“ballots” for Chavez’ MVR and the phantom party UVE, then “The votes of
the social groups increased” which is certainly a sentence without
content and then “Now to work for more unity, with Chavez and the
people, with only one Government for the revolution of the XXIst.
century”. Somewhere else it also self-congratulates his party for the use
of the illegal “twins” or “morochas”.

Now, to begin with Mayor Juan Barreto is using public funds to
finance promotion of a party, its activities and self-congratulate
themselves This is illegal according to two Venezuelan laws, the one
that regulates political parties and the anti-courruption law. But of
course, nothing will happen, this is the same way they finance their
marches, their voting drives and even their personal activities. And nothing ever happens.

It is not clear what the 96% refers to, maybe the percentage of
councilmen they received in the races, but in any case it is deceiving,
because they did not get that percentage of votes. But it goes in line
with that autocartic and dicatorial and anti-democratic frame of mind
that likes to win with 99% of the votes, a la Saddam or Mugabe.

But the messages that
bothers me the most are its autocratic tone, things like saying “only one Government” and
the like, as well as the partisan message in what may have been at most an
institutional ad. The references to Chavez and Chavismo are certainly
completely out of line and illegal.

Additionally, I still find it amazing at the lack of shame for using
what is nothing but illegal cheating to win more positions, wehn they
congratulate themselves for using the “morochas’ trick. This
clearly shows the unethical nature, the innate corruption and the lack
of scruples of this sad robolution.

In any case, another demonstration of the corruption and autocratic
nature of the Chavistas and the impunity surrounding the robolution.

Latest Chavez joke:

Venezuela accuses DEA of spying, severes ties.

Drugs will flow through Venezuela like water through a strain from now on.

Chavista abstention by Teodoro Petkoff in Tal Cual

The Chavista people called in their debt. This is the most
significant aspect of yesterday’s election: the huge number of “backers” of the
Government who did not vote. Abstention in general, in municipal elections, is
not a rare thing, but, in this case, it is a phenomenon which deserves
attention, the huge level that it reached in the popular bastions of Chavismo. The
most probable thing is that in terms of positions won, MVR with its cheating
with the twins of UVE and the illegal application of the electoral statute,
obtained a majority, but the most prominent political event is that the people
that Chavismo believed were their captives did not attend their call to vote.

Officialdom assumed the campaign full blast. That is why the
abstention of its supporters can not be seen, much like the spokesmen for Chavismo
want to make it look now, as a mere expression of the traditional “indifference”
towards municipal elections. Chavez himself got involved directly making frequent
calls to vote, calls that, obviously, were meant to be an “order” for his MVR,
an order to move all logistic and financial resources in order to mobilize its supporters.
And by the way, they did it. The CNE, on its part, in an umpteen demonstration
of abuse of power, extended by three hours the time to vote to give more time
for officialdom to make an extreme effort to find those reluctant to vote. Nevertheless,
it was all useless. The abstention of the Chavista people was “militant”. There
was a message with a destiny there.

On the one hand, it was a clear protest given the imposition
of candidacies. The myriad electoral formulas proposed by the Chavista bases in
the face of the official twins, was part of a first expression of
dissatisfaction-probably without consequences in the distributions of
positions, given that the “twin” artifice also affects the dissidents of the
Chavista hardcore, but it is full of political significance.

On the other hand, this abstention is the political-electoral
translation of the dripping in front of the Miraflores palace, of popular
groups identified with Chavismo, that demand satisfaction for their vindication
or complain about the inability of the Government to take care of them. “A very
good speech by the President”, people say, but we want to “see the cheese in
the arepa”*. Yesterday we heard the tolling of a resounding bell.

Maybe tomorrow we will be able to comment on the results of the
vote. Nevertheless, there is something we can give you a preview of. That
result will confirm that the illegal application of the Electoral Statute on
the part of the CNE and its tolerant complicity with the treachery of the twins,
will give MVR a presence in the municipal councils and parochial boards which is
disproportionately larger than the number of votes. On the other hand, the abuse of power on the part of the CNE already pointed out,
when it extended voting hours, only underlines the partiality of that
organization

These are all capital themes in the face of the electoral
process in December to elect Deputies for the Nacional Assembly.

Well, the
spinning began in earnest this afternoon, after the CNE finally announced that abstention
was indeed 70%, but even more surprising, even for the opposition was the fact
that the Chavistas, including the trick of the morochas, only obtained 58% of the
number of city councilmen up for grabs. This, despite a confident Hugo Chavez
saying this morning on TV that his party had obtained 80% of the seats and
abstention was irrelevant, that what mattered was the huge triumph by his
party.

Let us
first look at the results. Consolidated results are hard to get, the CNE has on
its website a center by center total, which makes it very difficult to get
numbers, particularly when you take into account that everyone is checking and
thus it is very heavy. But in any case the data is too large and it can not be
found yet in a single table. What we do know is that Chavez MVR gave results in
a press conference that is not yet on any website saying that they got 58% of
the total number of seats being voted on, which includes the totals from both
the lists and the direct election, the so called “morochas” or twin trick. This
means that if we assume that the Chavistas got one individual candidate per
municipality, roughly the Chavismo received 50% of the vote, if not less. Even
more remarkable, in the same press conference MVR leaders said that in Zulia
state, the one with the largest population of the country, the combination
MVR/UVE obtained only 7% of all seats. This is
really surprising, more so, given that it was the opposition that was on the
side of abstention and the Chavistas worked very hard to get the vote out, had
buses to take people to vote, offered food and closed by extending voting hours
beyond what the law allows to try to improve the numbers.

After
saying all week that abstention will be at a historical low in the elections,
the Head of the Electoral Board CNE, kept lying all day saying abstention was
normal. It was anything but normal, in fact, abstention in the last election in
which city councilmen were elected was 48.2%, a far cry from the 69.2% that we
had yesterday. With his characteristic arrogance, Rodriguez or “Jorgito” then
asked Venezuelans to look abroad, as if a tradition of voting in Venezuela was
irrelevant and given numbers that are not in agreement with what is in the CNE
website. (Where, curiously, I could not find all of the data from the 2000 election,
but maybe I am slow today).

In the
end, there was no explanation for why it took almost 24 hours to “know” the
final results after sending US$ 200 million in voting machines and some $60
million dollars in the infrastructure to process the data real time. This followed
his cynical explanations for violating the law when the voting hours were
extended, in violation of the law, which was justified by saying “What do you
expect to say to those in line”, but of course, there was nobody in line.

In the
end, abstention will need to be evaluated by everyone By the Chavistas, because
it sends a message that people are not as happy as they like to think. People
are not happy in the barrios, people don’t want Venezuela
to be like Cuba,
and they care little about socialism and other Latin American countries. They
care about their daily life and that one has not improved much under Chavez. For
the opposition there is also a message. If some opposition groups had not promoted
abstention, the results may have been truly earth shaking with an opposition
victory, despite the resources, the treachery and abuse of power of the
country.

Note added: The detailed results have not been posted to the CNE
website yet. I tried to get some “extreme” (for and against each side)
cases of total number of votes, to no avail. All I recall from the
press conference is that Chavez’ MVR got about 50% in Yaracuy, 7% in
Zulia, 100% in Vargas and 58 % overall. Can’t find any reference to it
either and TV is all showing Chavez seeing the parade of the delegates
to the Youth Congress. These guys parade as if they were athletes, but
as far as I know they will just talking BS this week here in Caracas
with all expenses paid by yours truly.

CNE says 70% abstention

Ojo Electoral, a pro-Chávez ONG says it was 74.8%

AD says it was 77%

It appears the Chavistas did not vote either. AD claims opposition had
between 40% and 60% of positions, given that MVR had the morochas that
would be extremely high.

Still no results. So much for
automation. So much for spending an absurd amount, for a poor country,
on electoral machines. Another day, another farce of the revolution.

You have to love the revolutionaries. Friday before the election, the
Tax Superintendent warned the National Assembly, that it should not
allow in the new lottery bill for machines and electronic systems to be
used. According to Vielma, one of the most efficient officials in the
Chavez administration, “they can be manipulated via the software, which
does not guarantee that all players have the same opportunity to win.”

Did he know that we were going to vote on Sunday? Does he mind voting
with electronic machines? Is he clueless?