The Devil's Excrement

I just spent a week in Caracas. I talked to anyone that claims to have a relevant number on the elections. Well, not everyone, I did not ask Jesse to meet with me, I am not sure he even goes out and runs polls. I heard all sorts of anecdotes, including one that went something like this: “In my maid’s family, all but the maid (Funny, how it is always that way!)  voted for Chavez in 2006, there are seven of them and four will vote for Capriles this time around, add my maid, that is five out of seven, Capriles will win.

I did see a few pollsters, not Consultores 21, they were in New York, giving their old numbers that say Capriles is ahead by 2%, but the margin of error is 2.3%. I heard part of a Datanalisis talk, but their numbers where superseded by new ones today. These say that Chavez has a ten point advantage over Capriles 47% to 37%, with 15.5% undecided.Funny how Chavez has not moved from 46-47% all summer.

However, I can’t quite comprehend these Datanalisis results when I see this private poll by the same pollster in Miranda State, in which Capriles wins by 16%. Given that Chavez won in 2006 versus Rosales by 13%, then this represents a shift of 29% in the electorate since 2006, in a state that is as heterogeneous as you can get (rural, urban, better off and poor, but in Class D, Capriles is ahead) and which represents 10% of the country’s population. Moreover, this State is contiguous with some of the most populous states that will be key to the election in October. It is difficult to envision that there has not been at least some shift in these states and that the 10% Datanalisis advantage to Chavez seems, at least to me, to be rather inconsistent.

It is also true that in the most rural states, which have smaller populations, Chavez won by as much as 40% in 2006, which implies that some of the differences can be compensated, but 10% still seems to large. To say nothing of the undecided in a country as polarized as Venezuela is today. The latter can be explained by the fact that Datanalisis asks a very open question, which includes, “Chavez”, “Capriles”,  “other”, “none” and even “don´t know” in the question. Or so I was told…

I also heard all sorts of anecdotes, such as “My neighbor, who works at the Ministry, says Capriles is ahead by 1%” or “My friend who is an expert on Chavismo, is leaving the country”. And so on…

But after this flooding of my mind with information, here is my conclusion, after processing my data with my slide rule, which you are likely to like as much as my friends who called me to tell me I was crazy to think that (They are my friends!):

The race, last week, based mostly on polls carried out before the infrastructure accidents in Cupira, Amuay and El Palito is too close to call based on the pollsters that I follow and numbers that I saw. Even in the best of cases, Capriles is ahead by a value which is within the margin of error.

There, get mad at me for not being more positive.

Are you over it? Then here is the caveats:

-Momentum is clearly in Capriles’ favor: His rallies have grown, people want to see him, touch him and he is now more accepted than he was two or three months ago. He creates “Fervor”

-Chavez’s campaign is fairly incoherent, he shows up every other day and his time campaigning is less and less every day.

-The opposition voter is much more motivated at this time. This has always been the case, but it may be magnified on October 7th. As a pro-Chavez analyst told me, “pro-Chavez voters may not vote for Capriles, but they are more than likely to stay home, rather than go and vote. Chavez campaign is very disorganized, which explains the failed rallies”

-Anti-fraud measures seem to be in place, with three opposition witnesses scheduled to be at almost all polling stations, the biggest obstacle being intimidation. (Witnesses have already been told in no uncertain terms not to show up again in some stations)

-Abstention is key. Most pollsters predict 26-27% abstention, less than that (25%), it favors Chavez, more than that (30%) Capriles wins.

But I am a numbers guy. From everything that I saw, heard and absorbed, this race is too close to call, it is 50/50, even, dead heat, too close to call. My heart wants to say 51%. I just can’t…yet.

Just don’t hate me, this is the way I see it and I would love to change my mind before the election.

Will certainly keep you posted, that’s what the Devil does, post, post, post.

A reader sends this link of a horrifying documentary (40 mins. ) about crime, jails and violence in Venezuela today. Worth Watching.

Note added: Apparently the video is blocked in Venezuela, please report below if you can watch it anywhere in Venezuela. To others, Daniel has a different version in two parts (From Youtube)

I have always wondered what would happen, were Chavez to lose, to my blogging. Would I lose the drive to blog often? Would there be enough material to blog on? While I have always seen a possible Chavez departure as a likely end to my blogging, the more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that I will continue.

The reason is simple. I don’t want a better Venezuela, I want the best possible Venezuela. But it is clear that the effects of the devil’s excrement will simply not go away with a change in Government and I will continue to have a lot to write about (and criticize!). Of course, Chavez represents the worst effects of the devils’ excrement, he put high power steroids into its effects by his ignorance and belief that you can invent a new economic model out of the blue. But it does not look like all the effects of the devil’s excrement will go away with a new Government.

While I support Capriles and I am sure that his Government will be orders of magnitude better than Chavez’, the pressures on him will be enormous and it is not clear to me that he has a clear line of thinking on economic matters. And while oil can cover up the mistakes in economic decision-making, we will not have the best country possible unless we impose a rational economic system in Venezuela. Capriles’ Chief economic adviser said it well today, when he said “We don’t have a grave financial problem, we have a management problem”

But I think it was absolutely irresponsible for Capriles to say last night in his presentation of his first 100 days that he would increase the minimum salary and index it to inflation. The first part I agree with, but to build inflation into the economy via indexation is playing with fire. It has not worked anywhere and as it happens when you impose such artificial rules into the economy (Chavez has imposed dozens of them), they are easy to implement, but almost impossible to remove.

And it is irresponsible for Capriles to say that, because he either means it or he does not. If he does, he will create a new economic distortion that Venezuelans will pay for for many years. If he does not mean it, then he should not say it. Period. I know that he wants to get rid of Chavez, but over promising may be the surest way to not be successful once he is in office.

Once Capriles is in office, he is going to have to deal with the myriad of distortions imposed by 14 years of ignorance and improvisation. He can not start by adding to the foolishness, there is simply too much that needs to be done and fixed.

And you can be sure that I will be here blogging if Capriles wins on October 7th. In fact, there will probably be less incentive to blog if Chavez wins, he is simply too repetitive. But you can be sure that I will be here stirring up the discussions on the economy and criticizing what I don’t like if Capriles is President. We do need the best Venezuela we can make and it is possible with rational and coherent economic policies.

So, it does look like there is certainly life for this blogger after Chavez. But let’s get the job of electing Capriles done first. There will be plenty of time to criticize him later, if he does not do what needs to be done.

(A la vivora a la vivora de la mar, por aqui no podran pasar)

Well, the ever diplomatic Brazilians seem to have realized what a screw up it was to allow Venezuela through the back door into Mercosur and now they are holding meetings to allow Venezuela to exit Mercosur via the front door. None other than Brazil’s Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota (Chavez would love to have a Minister with that last name!) said that there have been three meetings to reevaluate the rushed decision by the President’s of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay to trample over Paraguay’s rights and allow Venezuela into Mercosur following absolutely illegal procedures.

The decision creates a legal problem once Paraguay holds elections next year and could also be a problem if there is a change in Government in the upcoming Venezuelan election. Thus, the Foreign Minister appears to be promoting some sort of resolution to a possible legal contradiction.

It will be interesting to see if a decision is reached before October 7th. or not. A rocky period right after the election will ratify the concerns of the Paraguayan Senate, which ratified its decision against Venezuela’s entry into Mercosur in early August based on the fact that they do not believe the Chavez administration conforms to the Mercosur’s democratic charter. The Venezuelan press curiously decided to ignore that new decision by the Paraguayan senators.

Will they have to photoshop the picture above if the decision by the three irresponsible President’s is revoked?

Stay tuned!

During the last two weeks, there have been three events in Venezuela which demonstrate the basic incompetence of the Chavez Government. First, the Cupira bridge fell down, despite earlier warnings that it needed maintenance. Then, there was yet another tragedy at a Venezuelan jail, this time the Yare prison, which left 20 people dead. Finally, in the early hours of Saturday, an explosion rocked the Amuay refinery in Falcon State, leaving at least 39 dead and 89 injured.

The Government has tried to evade responsibility in all three cases. Without an investigation, the Head of the refinery complex was already saying that deferred maintenance had nothing to do with the worst accident in PDVSA’s history. A temerary statement to say the least. There may be no record of maintenance for Cupira, there is not even an annual report for the newly created Ministry of Prisons, but PDVSA’s Memoria y Cuenta, which you can find here, tells the full story of delayed maintenance and increased accidents and shut downs.

As an example, the Paraguana Refinery Complex is composed of Amuay and Cardon. According to the Memoir, Amuay was supposed to be shutdown nine times in 2011 (page 371):

But seven of them were postponed until 2012 for lack of parts. Thus, not only there was no maintenance, but there was no planning for it either, as the parts and materials necessary were not purchased ahead of time.

Cardon is even worse, there were thirteen scheduled stops for maintenance:

ALL OF THEM were postponed for 2012. That is not what maintenance is supposed to be about. It is the tragedy of Chavista mismanagement.

In fact, if we go back to Amuay and look at the ten plants it is composed of, these are the days of programmed (42 days) and un-programmed (639 days or 64 per plant on average)

What this shows is the failure of the Chavista model. You can’t fire 20,000 people because you disagree with them. You can’t hire people on the basis of loyalty. You can’t have someone be The Minister of Energy and Oil and the President of PDVSA and Head political honcho at PSUV and have him be at all of Chavez’ speeches and rallies and hope that PDVSA and/or the Ministry will run well. You can’t give away ambulances to Bolivia and not have any near one of biggest industrial complexes where they may be needed. You cant’ have all your Ministers involved with the day to day of the Presidential campaign. And so on.

In fact, you can’t put politics and ideology above all. The sad truth is that all of the political leaders of Chavsimo have been involved in the last two months with the campaign and nothing else. The Ministers are all at political meetings and get involved with he most detailed planning. Nothing is being done to run the country. Announcements are made that are only meant to gain votes, but decisions are being postponed until after the election. A campaign they can fund, micro-manage and over manage. A country? Sorry, that is not the priority.

Meanwhile the strategy is deny and minimize, while the outgoing-Presidente-saliente either can’t appear on camera live or has been advised not to do so.

It would seem irrational for the voters not to react to all this. A horrible tragedy has developed in front of their eyes and the same man who claims to “love” the people and appears on TV for the most trivial events is still in hiding. The country is falling apart, piece by piece due to Chavista mismanagement, but it is nobody’s responsibility. Even medical supplies for the injured are limited, they are probably sitting on a ship outside the Puerto Cabello port now under Cuban management.

It’s all part of the same tragedy.

The picture above shows why the opposition needs to have witnesses in more electoral centers that it has done in the past. In the plot, voters are divided in seven groups of equal size, roughly 2.5 million voters per group, going from polling places where the opposition wins 80% to 20% on the left, to where Chavismo wins 76%-24% on the right. The vertical bars show the vote difference between the two sides in each of these seven blocks.

Note that as we go from left to right, abstention increases, going from 27% where the opposition is strong and increasing steadily to 39% in block six, but then surprisingly going down in block seven. Curiously (not shown), the number of null votes, also increases from left to right, but magically also decreases in the last block, which comprises some of the poorer areas of Venezuela. We also note that the poll stations on the right block on the extreme right, tend to be small, one or two mesas at most and in isolated locations. The opposition had almost no witnesses in these polling stations in the Parliamentary elections.

The conclusion that the Comando Venezuela has reached, is that the trend of higher abstention and lower null votes in block seven on the right, simply reflects the fact that we had no presence. If you extrapolate the trend of higher abstention the more pro-Chavista the area is, you would have expected abstention to come in at 42%, a full 6% points above what was obtained. We are talking about 150,000 votes that should not have been there.

The hypothesis is that these votes were not cast by voters, but by members of the polling stations, once no more voters were in line to vote and in the absence of opposition witnesses.

In fact, the same trends seen in the graph above have been used to identify ¨critical¨voting centers in blocks five and six on the right, where there exist anomalies in either abstention or a low number of null votes. These critical centers are the subject of special attention in the upcoming Presidential election and could make the difference in the outcome.

Now, I definitely don’t want to go into the details of what is being planned, but essentially, the objective is to have witnesses everywhere uniformly. In the past, political parties were assigned this task and typically they would fill the “easy” centers first. This time, all centers are considered alike, regardless of location and size and witnesses have to be found uniformly for them. However, “critical” centers have been identified as a way of checking that the plan is working. That is, a number of checks are defined for these witnesses. Things as simple as, do they answer the phone? Have they been trained? and the like. Then, every week, random auditing is made of the witnesses and these parameters are quantified and compared between centers using not only the “critical” versus non-critical parameter, but also geography, socio-economic background and the like.

What I was shown, is that these audit numbers, seven weeks before the elections, differ little for each of the blocks shown in the chart above or even if you look at it differently, using geography or other parameters. This implies, that the witness coverage will be the same or equivalent whether a center has on mesa, is located in a city or in an isolated region. This should be key in the upcoming election, as it would wipe out or significantly reduce the possibility of fake votes, as it is suspected there were in the past.

In the opinion of the people in Comando Venezuela, this issue is more important than any of the others. If the opposition can have witnesses present in all these polling stations, we can prevent thousands of non-existing votes from being cast, far more than errors or fake ID’s in the Electoral Registry could ever generate.

Could there be problems? Of course, no plan is infallible. The military via the Plan Republica could interfere. Some witnesses may be threatened or scared away. But vote protection should be orders of magnitude better than it was in 2010. And as I always tell people who are worried: We did win that election in terms of the number of votes, even if gerrymandering gave the victory to Chavez.

The Comando Venezuela will have to work with the same voting system used in the previous four elections. This system has been audited extensively and there is no proof that via this system any votes have been modified since the 2005 election. The only part that is different in this election, is that a new fingerprint software has been introduced, which implies that there will be extensive checks in this new part of the system.

The voting system process is like this:

The voter shows his or her ID card and register the fingerprint. If it is that in the database (which is local) the President of the “Mesa” unblocks the voting machine and the voter can cast the vote. Should this fail, the voter fills out a form and registers a new fingerprint. Thus, one of the audits that will be performed is that of the quality of the fingerprint database to insure that it is uniform across the country in both geographic and socio-economic terms. This are checks on the fingerprints which have international standards of quality.

The Comando Venezuela knows that the only purpose of the fingerprint system is to intimidate, it will thus audit and check the system to insure that voters can cast their vote with confidence that it will be secret.

The vote itself only contains information about the vote, it has no information about the voter and it is all encrypted. When the vote is stored in the machine, it goes into a temporary memory:

Each time a new vote comes into this temporary memory, another is moved at random to the permanent file with the record of the votes. Thus, theer is no sequencing in the memory. The national ID number (cedula) also goes into the machine, also into five memories and one is moved at random, to record that this voter already cast the vote and can not do it again. The two registers and files are separate and they are both encrypted. Recall that the opposition did not participate in the Parliamentary elections in 2005, precisely because the tests showed that there was some sequencing which was later corrected.

Once all of the votes are cast, the machine prints the total tally, with enough copies for all of the witnesses at each “Mesa”. After this printing has taken place and only after, the machine is connected to the telephone line and the results transmitted to the CNE. At the CNE, all political parties have representation in the totaling room. This has been the case since 2005. (Note that 2004 is not included)

After all of the mesas in one center close, 54% will be audited at random. That is, 54% will be counted by hand and insure that the manual count agrees with the machine count.

Thus, if we have witnesses at all Centers and Tables, it is very unlikely that the vote is not secret and/or that the vote can be changed. In fact, there is no evidence that any vote cast by a voter has been changed since 2005 or that the machine count has been altered after the vote was completed.

However, we need witnesses everywhere, as we need to insure that the votes are truly cast in each mesa and center by real people. In part 3, I will describe what the problem is and why the Comando Venezuela has made of this the centerpiece of its strategy to protect our votes.