The Devil's Excrement

Just did a huge tour of the city, not only to check out lots of voting centers, but to show the city to A.Mora y Leon who is visiting Caracas. We went all over the city, from Petare to Caricuao, Catia and downtown.The picture is the same everywhere, huge abstention all over place. Turnout is much lower than in August and I mean MUCH lower even in Chavista areas We saw at least 15 voting centers, maybe three in middle class areas, the rest in lower middle class to poor areas and in only two centers did we see any movement. By movement I mean more than three or four people that looked like they were going in or out of voting. And I mean looked like, I can’t tell if they really were. We did see two centers in middle class neighborhoods where one could see there were only the  two guards that are protecting each center. That’s it. Nobody else!

On the picturesque side, we saw a group of Chavistas singing and dancing, with all of the women wearing blonde wigs with long hair in imitation of Lina Ron. So much for our own values, the cult of blonde hair! I took Mora to see a Barrio Adentro Module in Caricuao, but it was closed!I also took a picture at a voting center of a line of Presidential Guards waiting to vote, right next to the Miraflores Palace. I guess that was the only line we saw and I can understand why they all have to go and vote. They actually looked a little intimidating so Mora was concerned about taking a picture, but she did anyway! You  can see this very singular line of voters above left and on the right a voting center at a school in dowtown Caracas, where all you can see is just military.

Just went around Caracas and into Petare. Very few people voting. At a
voting center that went for Chavez in the recall vote and was kept open
until 10 PM that August,  nobody was going in and out and one
person
was checking the voters’ rosters outside. I stopped to take pictures at
a center where the SI won last year and during the time I was there all
I saw were the two Natioanl Guardsmen at the gate. The ever cynical
Vice-President
said that there are no lines because electronic voting allows people to
vote much faster. Abstention will certainly be higher than in August.
It is now raining heavily in Caracas. Another excuse?

Maybe too early to report, it is 9:30 AM and a couple of voting centers
I went by have no line and even few hangers on around. Even in the
August regional election you would see people hanging around looking at
the lists, checking their ID numbers and the like. TV tells you little,
as clearly TV stations are holding back on reporting what is going on
at voting centers, under pressure by the Government.. Government
TV stations are not showing that either. Guess why? There is
little to show. The Head of the CNE said that by 9 AM they were
expecting all polling stations to be running as they were having
problems in four states (Barinas, Zulia, Carabobo and Miranda). At 8:30
only 80% of voting centers were opened.

So it is
the night before the elections. The events of the week have been confusing. As
you recall I was in favor of voting because the machines seemed to be safer
than they have ever been, even if the secrecy of the vote may still be in jeopardy if
anyone keeps a log of the order in which people vote. (There is no other
recording of this in the process). Conditions were much worse when the candidates registered
for the election, there were not only the problems with the electronic part of
the system, but there were the morochas, or twin candidacies that we have talked about so much and were declared legal.

The
morochas or “twins” were and are unfair, one of those convoluted legal
decisions that Chavismo has used to make the absurd and illegal appear to be legal to the
people and the world. That the Supreme Court said they were legal was proof of the
pantomime our justice system has become. There is no minority representation
anymore. Even for those that are pro-Chavez, but run under a different party. In fact, despite the guarantees
established by the Constitution, that decision gives more power to the majorities.
People from abroad may have a hard time understanding why this is illegal, or
why it should even exist in our Constitution. But the answer is rather simple
to me, the guarantees of minority representation is what has allowed small
parties to flourish and thrive in Venezuelan politics.

The
opposition parties should have withdrawn when the decision was handed down or threatened to do so. Much like in so many
of those decisions, the puppets in positions to defend the law and the people,
the Prosecutor General and the People’s Ombudsman, sided with the autocracy and
simply forgot and ignored their Constitutional mandate.

Then came
the now fateful day when the voting machines were discovered to be flawed and
the rest is simply history. I still have not made up my mind as to whether this was
done on purpose, known to the CNE and the company that made the machines or if
it was ever used to cheat us. But it needs to be known. The truth is, the flaw was there and nobody in Government is calling
to investigate any of it. It is as if it did not matter, their plan is their
plan. Period.

As someone
close to me told me today, the problem is that they made an electronic voting
machine that did too much. It was more than just a machine made to tally votes and mimick the voting system,
which is all you needed. It should not even have had a hard drive. It should
have added, tallied and printed. That’s it! And much like so much software around the
world it was flawed and the guarantee that it could not do what it did: violate
the secrecy of the votes was wrong. Software is like that, Microsoft has
been trying to plug the flaws in Windows for years and ask Sony about its
recent debacle with its software.

I still don’t
know whether what has happened is good or bad for the opposition. Certainly the
first results is that some political parties that should have disappeared long
ago, will now effectively disappear and good riddance to them! I will not miss
them.

But on Monday
morning the result will not be much worse than it already was going to be,
unless the opposition voters’ abstention was going to be lower than that of
Chavismo, which was possible. But there were too many opposition groups sending
mixed signals to people that were hampering this effort. Once again, the
heterogeneity of the opposition hurt us with this mixed message. Chavismo was likely
going to get more than 66% of the National Assembly, not because they were that
much more popular but because the morochas were allowed. Period.

With a two
thirds majority of the Assembly, Chavismo was going to be able to do the deep
overhaul it wants of the Constitution and with the backing of the votes of the “people”
as the morochas appear to have been long forgotten. Now it will be questionable how they did this.

Thus, I do
think Chavismo has a lot to lose from what has happened. I truly expected the
Government to back down and reschedule elections for January. But the absence
of the opposition tomorrow changes the event radically. This is no longer a
democratic vote, with all major opposition parties having withdrawn their candidates
(MAS is not major and Nuevo Tiempo did indeed quietly withdraw their candiadtes formally). The
world has seen this too many times, a one sided election in a Government with suspicious democartic credentials, with one
difference: in most of those pseudo democracies, a large majority of the people
vote and vote for the Government.

This
simply will not happen here. With so many international observers running
around, it will be impossible for the Government to say that even 50% of the people
voted. In fact, given the surprisingly high abstention in August, which reached
78% with some clear shenanigans that took place late in the day helping the numbers, the withdrawal
of the opposition makes it likely that this time around it will be higher, I
think even much higher, unless the results are modified electronically. I don’t
rule this out, but this time a lot of observers are watching. Of course, the absence
of opposition witnesses makes the possibility of new types of cheating quite
feasible.

Thus, the
Government has chosen a very risky strategy of making this a plebiscite and I
was surprised the
Vice-President used that word. Autocratic Governments that hold plebiscites
do not win by getting a majority of the votes of a small majority of the voters.
That simply does not work. You have to win big and have a large majority of the
voters show up and vote for you, which will be impossible tomorrow.

Since the
large abstention in the August election, things have not gone well for the
Chavez Government. Chavez’ international strategy has hurt his image loclly, people do
not like this idea of giving away Venezuela’s money when so many
things are going badly locally. Add to that the absence of the fingerprint
machines which give people the impression that this time they can vote anyway they
want (even if some, like Government workers, have to vote) and this
complicates matters further. Moreover the campaign has been lackluster, wherever it
has existed at all. In August, you had local candidates campaigning and
motivating the people. The Government spent a lot of money. This time, the candidates for Deputies have been almost invisible on
both sides.

So, if
anyone in the opposition asked me, I would tell me to emphasize that same word
Rangel said yesterday: plebiscite. This is a plebiscite on Chavez’ popularity,
looked at it that way, tomorrow’s vote will be a huge defeat for the
Government. Emphasize that! But nobody is asking me or will ask anyway.

The next
National Assembly will look like a joke and will make a mockery of the word Parliament, there will be no
discussions, everything will just be pushed thru at will, in a terribly
undemocratic way. Can Chavismo desire that?

And that is
why it is so hard to understand why after being caught red-handed with a flaw
in the same voting machines that were used in the previous three elections including the recall referendum, the
Governments should have behaved more democratically, should have tried to patch
things up and held more transparent elections in a month. It is much more than simply that this is not
their style that concerns me. Chavez has proven over and over again to have no
scruples, but when he has stepped over the line visibly, he has pulled back. This
time he hasn’t. The question is whether at the highest levels of Government
they decided this week that things have gone too slow and it was time to break
with the appearances of democracy and simply push forward. Does this represent
the ominous presence of a breaking point? That is my fear, as otherwise the
Government has too much to lose tomorrow.

We will
soon know. If abstention is 80% tomorrow, the Government will no longer be able
to claim it is democratic in origin and may go and travel a completely different path
than that traveled in the last seven years. And that, my friends, is quite scary.

A single person persevered until he found that the voting machines did
keep the sequence of the voters by saving a time stamp with each vote,
which could then be correlated with the fingerprint machines and now
with the order in which people cast their vote, if anyone bothered to
keep track of it at each of the 27,000 voting booths.

Everyone imagines that this modern day hero of knowledge and technology
for the Venezuelan opposition is your typical hacker, young, geeky and
self-involved. The opposite is the truth, Leopoldo Gonzalez is an
Electrical Engineer who got his Bachelor’s degree at Universidad
Central de Venezuela in the 60’s. Fired from CANTV in 1980 when the
COPEI Government got rid of all the “leftists” engineers at the then
state comany, he then started working at a local private company.In his
60’s today, he has nevertheless kept up to date with technology in the
belief that true power lies only in kwowledge, something not en vogue
in Venezuela and its current Government. Whether Leopoldo Gonzalez will
simply become a footnote in our history or his role will be recognized
or not in the future, I don’t know.

What I do know, is that he is allright in my book. I wish in the last
three or four years there had been more individual efforts like his. I
wish there were more people who believed in science, knowledge and
technology as the way of the future for our country and its Government.
I wish there were hundreds of Leopoldo Gonzalez’ going around trying to
stop this outlaw Government with their brains.

I guess Venezuela has a new political party called PDVSA, whose members wear the same red t-shirts
as Chavez’ MVR, they are all going to vote, becuase if they don’t they
may get a black star in the Maisanta database, maybe get fired and not
be able to maintain their outstanding physiques as they join the ranks
of the real poor. I guess when they say that they don’t
participate in violence, they don’t mean the violence used by the
National Guard to kick out their fellow PDVSA workers from their homes,
or ban the kids of those kicked out from their homes from the
PDVSA schools and deny their savings to 20,000 workers fired from the state oil company, who
happened to be fellow Venezuelans first. They are now part of the new minority, the one that Chavez and
his crooks wants to discriminate against daily..

I guess it is indeed a different Venezuela, where state resources
are used at will for political campaining and workers are forced into
participating in illegal acts like the picture above.They may think
they don’t particiapte in violence, but there is something very wrong, obscene
and even somewhat violent in the above image. Shame on those that paid for
it with PDVSA resources. Shame on those that planned it and those that
forced these people to appear in it. The symbols of fascism are
now everywhere and growing. The illegalities are everywhere. The shamelessness is
pervasive. The appetite of the empty revolution is unlimited,
destroying all values in its path.

(Picture swiped from Luis De Lions website)

Today we heard from (from left to right above, we will remember), the Head of Conatel, the telecom regulator, former Minister of Information and current President of Telesur Izarra, the President of the Supreme Court, the President of the Government’s TV station VTV, the immoral members of the Moral Power and the People’s Ombudsman, spewing all sorts of garbage about ethics, the Constitution, morality, peace and the defense of the people’s rights.

Now, not one of these personalities has said anything (As we say in Spanish: No han dicho ni pio!) about two very well known facts and events

–The machines used in the last three electoral processes did not adequately protect the secrecy of the people’s vote. I have yet to hear any of this cynics calling for an investigation to determine if this was a careless mistake or a flagrant violation of the rights of all Venezuelans, pro or against Chavez. For all we know there are still unknown flaws in the system

— <!–[endif]–>None of these so called leaders, including the one that is supposed to defend us, the Peopel’s Ombudsman and the one that resigned supposedly on “ethical” grounds on April 11^th. has ever expressed a similar complaint about that most fascist technological tool, the Maisanta database, created, paid for and implemented by this Government to violate the rights and discriminate Venezuelans. This simply shows we are in the hands of absolutely immoral people, without scruples willing to do anything to preserve their power.

None of these Government officials and politicians care about the people, democracy, the Constitution, ethics, morals and Venezuela. They only care about power, money and the perks that come with their respective positions.

(P.S. I do have to wonder why the Minister of Defense (above) had to hold a press conference to say that the Armed Forces are “united, cohesive and well led”. Could it be related to these home made bombs found at the military fort in Caracas?)

Somebody posted these links for the Maisanta program:

Program Misanta 1.10

http://rapidshare.de/files/8459214/MaiSanta1.10LuisTascon.part1.rar.html

http://rapidshare.de/files/8465470/MaiSanta1.10LuisTascon.part2.rar.html
http://rapidshare.de/files/8468790/MaiSanta1.10LuisTascon.part3.rar.html

http://rapidshare.de/files/8469702/MaiSanta1.10LuisTascon<!–
D(["mb",".part4.rar.html

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);
D([“ce”]);
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);

//–>.part4.rar.html

Can someone please check it out and comment whether it works. Thanks.

Hugo Chavez tonight:

“A
mí nadie me vio en ninguna parte levantándole la mano a candidatos, el
Aló Presidente respetuosísimo de las normas impuestas por el CNE porque
la ley tiene que entrar por casa y yo estoy obligado a dar el ejemplo
como Jefe del Estado que soy”

“Nobody saw me anywhere raising
the hand of candidates, Alo President has been extremely respectful of
the regulations imposed by the CNE because the law begins at home and I
am obligated to give the example as Head of State that I am”

Well,
the law also prohibits the use of his image to promote candidacies, but
below are the four basic ballots for ALL pro-Chavez candidates in the
upcoming elections, which are combined with UVE or whatever party is
partnering up with Chavez in each district. ALL campaign posters, ads,
ballots and banners have this likeness. Of course, the drawing is from
the time that Chavez was much thinner, so many of you may no longer
recognize him. In any case, the opposition asked the CNE not to allow
this at a time that there were no observers and the Government was not
trying to appear so impartial. I imagine when the observers ask who is
that with the beret on the ballots, they answer: Oh! That is Maisanta!
Or do the they say it is Santa Ines?

As the British would say: “Bloody respectful of Mr. Chavez!”

Or how about those guys at the National Assembly, shamelessly using
the website of the Assembly to promote their party and show pictures of
their march today? The whole thing is so dirty that on the right where
they have the “legislative news” (which you may not distinguish), it
says ” list of Deputies for the Bloque de Cambio” (those that
support Chavez) That is, they are using an official Government page to
promote themselves, their silly accussations, marches, using public funds and there is no equivalent list
for the candidates of the opposition. How respectful of them!
These guys are just incredibly cynical and shameless.

Incredible:

–The CNE was named illegally and has been running a flawed and biased electoral show for over two years.
–The CNE was caught redhanded with a critical (and fatal) flaw in the
same software that was supposed to protect the citizens and their
secret vote.
–The CNE has spent million of dollars in very sophisticated equipment, wasting money and making unilateral decisions on it
–This flawed system has been used in three consecutive elections..

The response by Government officials has been:

“Vayanse pa’l carajo (unstranslatable, go to Hell does not say it all)” ( VP Rangel)

“Rosales is a coward and coup plotter” (Hugo Chavez today, the same man jailed for a staging a bloody coup in 1992)

“Rosales is promoting a coup” (VP Rangel who had praised Rosales the day before for his democratic position)

“Nothing to negotiate, the elections will be on Sunday because the Electoral schedule has been fullfilled” (Cheater Jorge Rodriguez, who has never cared about formalities, now inds them essential)

“Washington designs strategic plans of the opposition” (Nicolas Maduro,
star accuser of the Government from his position as President of the
National Assembly. Find a case, he can find some evidence agaisnt
whomwever is against the Government)

“I am concerned about the slowness of the set up of polling stations” (People’s Ombudsman, who always speaks for the Government, appearing once to be defending the rights of the people)

“Elections should proceed this Sunday” (The same People’s Ombudsman, a couple of hours later, after surely being called by someone in Government to scold him for his earlier statement)

“The opposition will pressure international observers” (William Rara )

“The same thing is going to happen to the hermaphrodites of Primero Justicia” (Nicolas Maduro in a moment of serenity, openness and searching for a meaningful dialogue)

Now, is this the way the leaders of a democarcy behave? Note that
nobody, even the People’s Ombudsman speaks in favor of the right of the
people to have their vote be secret. And what about the way in which
three consecutive elections were performed with a flawed software and
wasteful expenses on equipment Jorge Rodriguez did not understand? None
of this matters.

This is a sick democracy indeed.