The Devil's Excrement

It is almost 11 A.M. and we have yet to hear from the Electoral Board
(CNE). Why? Hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on buying 24,000
voting machines which were connected in real time to the mainframes at
CNE. Yesterday, we were told that by 8 PM we would have 90% of the
results. All we got was a short press conference and nothing much in
terms of real numbers. Why?

Where is the CNE? Why aren’t the results on the CNE’s webpage? Why
haven’t they been announced? What is going on?

Is this transparency? Were the voting machines worth it? Are they
adjusting the results?

You have to wonder.

The President of the CNE, Jorge Rodriguez, just recognized in a
radio interview that abstention is large. Some Chavista leaders have
been saying all day that abstention was low, as lines showed exactly the
opposite. International observers mentioned 90% abstention but we will
have to wait for real numbers. The Government first extended voting hours
until 6 PM and now they have extended it until 7 PM, claiming more voters were mobilizing, but
nobody could see them. A reporter in the Government’s TV channel said
that the hours were extended “to allow the militants to vote” in another
example of its independence. Venezuelan law says that
voting hours may be extended only if there are still people waiting to
vote, but the law has become spurious now in almost daily life in our country. Not a
pretty day for Venezuelan democracy.

Note added (20 minutes later): Gerardo Blyde of Priemro Justicia holds a press conference to point out what I said above, the law allows for polls to be open beyond 4 PM, only if there are people waiting in line.

Went to vote, very easy, no lines whatsoever. I left late to get my
mother to go with me, we voted and I dropped her off in less than
thirty minutes. I actually drove around to see if there were lines
anywhere, I visited about ten centers of all social classes, I saw
lines only in a lower midlle class area in Chacao in the East of
Caracas, but none in the West.

Below is the picture of where I voted, there are six people in the
picture of which only two are voters, the lady with yellow shirt
sitting down and a person you can barely see behind the cardboard boxes
on the left behind the guy standing up. On the right is a picture of my
finger after being dipped in the iodine based ink. Who needs
fingerprint capturing machines so that people don’t vote twice, when
you put that on on everyone’s finger? I’ve washed it twice and have
barely made a dent on it! Crazy!

A little sense of humor always helps, here is Weil with his usual sharpness doing a play on words, in Spanish “vote” is votar and throw away is “botar”. The cartoon says “You have to throw away” , refererring to the CNE into the garbage. You have to vote too!

Today is
the third year anniversary of this blog. I don’t want to make a big deal of it,
but I want to note it because it has been a surprising trajectory. I began the
blog out of curiosity for this new technology and I thought that I could write
interesting articles about the distortions in the Venezuelan economy and other
topics of my own interest. Well, while I do tend write often about economic
matters, political events have led the blog into a very unexpected territory. It
has been fun and it has been painful, the latter mostly because we seem to be
even further behind the ideal Venezuela
that I think we could have and I wish we had. But it has been fun, because by blogging I feel I
do something daily to fight this autocratic Government that has destroyed
Venezuelan institutions in the name of a personal project with no plan other
than the promotion of its leader..

At the
same time, the blog has had remarkable unexpected consequences. I have made good
friends all over. Some I have met, others have become remarkably close friends
despite their virtuality. Through the readers and the friends that I have
made, I have learned a lot about people, about new ideas, received book recommendations and, in
general, have received advice and suggestions that I think have improved the
blog as well as its writer.

Going
forward I will continue keeping this journal of this terrible times for my
country. It is simply a duty that I gladly assumed and will continueto assume, as long as
I feel it is necessary and I have the freedom to do it. Thanks for reading me!

To vote or
not to vote, that is the question that many Venezuelans have pondered during
the last few months. Today, many still remain undecided as to what they will do
next Sunday. Curiously, even within the Chavismo, there is a movement towards
abstention, in protest for the way the candidates were handpicked by the
leadership.

Within the
opposition, many view abstention as an act of protest against an Electoral
power who is so aligned with the Government that it not only allowed the violation
of the law, but has violated it itself repeatedly in the last year. By allowing
the “morochas” or twins, it will allow Chavez’ party to obtain more
representation on the city councils next Sunday, than the Constitution allows or they deserve.
This will allow Chavismo to have a large majority even in the cities and towns
where political forces are balanced. Even worse, it will give Chavismo a simple
majority in municipalities, where opposing forces are larger.

There are
other tricks ready. People who do not exist will vote, conveniently registered
in municipalities where their vote is needed. Others have been transferred to
other districts without them knowing it, despite the fact that these transfers
were done after the time limit allowed for such transfers.

And then
there is the fact that they will fingerprint voters as an excuse to insure that
you have not voted before, supposedly checking with a huge database where it will
compare your fingerprint to all of those that have voted before you that day. Then
I ask in my naviete: Why do they also dip my finger in indelible ink to show
that I have voted?

 The fingerprint machines continue to bother me intensely and immensely. There
is something behind them that drives their utilization. For this election alone,
the CNE purchased another US$ 20 million in fingerprint capturing machines. Why?
Clearly, the biggest suspicion is that somehow the voting machines and the
fingerprint machines will keep track of the order in which you voted, allowing
the Government to know exactly which way you voted. We will all be “tagged” politically,
as friend or foe, and one day it will come to haunt all of us in the opposition. Perverse? Have you ever heard of the Tascon list? Of course, others take a
more cynical position, wondering what commissions the CNE Directors received
for purchasing the equipment.

But
on
Sunday I will go and vote. Why? Because I believe in activism. I don’t
believe in staying home as a form of protest. It’s too comfortable, too
easy. If someone had planned some form of
active protest that would have surely shown that the large majority was
abstaining,
then I may have considered participating in it. But I doubt that I
would not have gone and vote anyway.

I
am a
democrat. I believe in democracy and all that goes with it. Good and bad. Democracy
is more than elections, even if the Chavistas seem to want to sell the
idea that elections is all there is to democracy. Democracy begins with
elections, that is why I can’t justify not going. If I
am going to say my vote was stolen, I have to vote first! I respect
those that
will not be voting, it is their right. It is not “impregnated by
the
spirit of coups” as suggested by our Vice President. In fact, Hugo Chavez spent
the years 1994-1997 advocating abstention, because one could not trust the electoral
system, at the time led by democratic bodies with all parties having political
representation in it. In fact, he was elected under that system that supposedly
did not work and was unfair.

I also
feel I have a duty to support the Mayor of the municipality I live in. He works
very hard. He does a good job.  By not voting I will endanger his ability to
execute and thus provide me with all of the services that my municipality gives
me. How would I feel if a city councilman from his party lost by one vote?

Yes, we
will be cheated. Yes, votes will disappear. Yes, we will be underrepresented. But one has to fight, even if your
vote is swiped. Even if your choice is silenced. Even if your name is blacklisted. There is nothing to do but
fight. So, I will go and vote.

With the elections so close, here is another trick being used by
Chavismo to abuse the law and the electoral system, with the
collaboration of what should be an independent power, the Electoral
Board, as told by Tal Cual’s Editor Teodoro Petkoff.

The “twins” are unconstitutional by Teodoro Petkoff

After some grandstanding on the part of CNE Director Jorge Rodriguez,
with which he pretended to show how tough he is, alleging that if the “party”
UVE does not present the documentation his pulse would not tremble in not
approving its legality, with which Chavez’ MVR would have lost it twin, the
CNE- did anyone doubt it or believe its president?- consecrated the validity of
that national party. With this the Electoral organization has made itself the
accomplice of this illegal trick which is to validate that mechanism for
cheating called “the twins”. It is the CNE’s job to enforce the constitutional
principle of proportional representation of political parties and other electoral
organizations in elected bodies, according to the votes they obtain. The CNE
has distorted this mandate of the Constitution
when it “legalized” a clone of Chavez’ MVR, which will allow it to thwart
that principle, when it allows that it splits into two and to those elected by
list add those elected directly from UVE, as if this was a different party. This
mockery, the unconstitutionality of which is evident, MVR and its twin will be
able to obtain up to double the number of councilmen that would correspond to
them according to the proportion of their votes. Chavismo will be overrepresented
and its adversaries underrepresented.

Yesterday, Sumate introduced
in the Electoral Board (CNE) a request that the Electoral Registry be
published as established in the Law of Suffrage and Political
Participation. This is one of those subtle points that need to be
explained in detail, because it is part of the bag of tricks used by
the Government to cheat and manipulate elections.

The law says the Registry has to be made public, In fact, the law says
the Electoral Board will give a copy to all political parties “whenever
they request it” (Article 95), as well as saying that every month it will have to notify and post publicly any additions or removals to the Registry. (Article 106). Last year, before the
recall vote, Sumate also tried to get the registry published, to no avail. You see
the registry not only contains the name and ID number of each voter,
but also his/her address. Last year and this year, using personnel
outside of the Office of Identification, the Government gave out ID
cards and registered to vote over a million new voters. This supposedly
“democratic” registration drive took place only after the opposition
managed to get the required signatures to vote on a possible recall of
Hugo Chavez as President.

Incredibly enough, in some municipalities there are now more voters than inhabitants a subject that I have discussed
before in this blog more than one time. These type of anomalies and
many more have led Sumate to make a number of request to the CNE and
even to ask the Supreme Court for an injunction, which was rejected. If
you have the patience you can read the decision here.
Well, the Court used the old trick of using a critique of formal steps
in order to not decide on the substance of the case. What is clear is
that the law says the registry has to be published. It hasn’t. Why?

The reason is obvious. Now more than ever those people registered last
year are needed in the upcoming election. Last year Chavez needed sheer
numbers, now his party needs the votes where it matters. We will be
electing this Sunday, members for the City Councils of all of
Venezuela. Chavistas need the votes where they don’t have the Mayors to
make the life of opposition Mayors really difficult. And they need to
win handily where they have the Mayors to do as they please with
municipal Treasuries.

Sumate, once again, is trying to use the law, asking the CNE directly
to provide the Registry. This is called an administrative recourse. The
CNE will obviously not hand it over, it would reveal what a farse
elections are now in Venezuela. Thus, much like last year the CNE did
not do the audit that had been agreed on the night of the recall vote,
and refused to open all of the ballot boxes to count the votes
manually, it will refuse to hand over the registry.

That is why Venezuela is no longer a real democracy. In a real
democracy you need to have transparency. In a real democracy you have to
follow the laws. There is no transparency in Venezuela with regards to
the Electoral Board and its actions. The law was and is being violated
on electoral matters. A few simple actions by the CNE would have
revealed last year and this year whether there was something funny
going on with the votes. The CNE refused, with the support of the
Electoral Hall of the Supreme Court, to follow these simple steps. Even
the most naive individual could not help but ask: Why? What do they
have to hide?

A great
first week for that wonderful independent programming that TV station Telesur
is bringing us. In the last week we have seen the following non-biased,
politically independent programming:

–Four and a half continuous hours of Chavez. Well deserved, he is after all
the leader of the Continent. Coming soon to a Continent near you.

–One hour of a wonderfully entertaining cartoon in which large Cuban Rambos
(Not used in Angola)
defeat small US soldiers in a very bloody and gory battle. This was so violent as to make
it illegal in Venezuela
under the gag law, but it is not illegal anywhere so it was shown anyway. What
good is a revolution if you can’t do what you please?

–One hour and a half documentary against organized crime. In this case the
Catholic Church. Most of the program was centered on one of its capos the so
called “Priest of San Mateo”, who taking advantage of his important
position in the “family”, regularly smuggled drugs to Europe to raise funds for the kids in his parish. But he
was caught. In 1985. Of course, this fact was not mentioned in the program
making it sound as a current event in order to carry the message against organized
crime.

Well, I hope on Sunday Telesur publishes its full programming guide, so that I
can know what wonderful stuff I will be watching next week. This is required by
law in Venezuela,
but they have not done it yet. I guess they are too busy thinking of these
wonderful things they want to tell us about.