The Devil's Excrement

Hugo Chavez promoting with his actions the true image and values of his democracy today June 14th. 2006. The words were just as bad as the images. Note the Panerai watch in the second image, that is a recent revolutionary acquisition, maybe it came with the rifles (Thanks Mora!)

You really
have to wonder how the revolution is capable of finding such cynical and
unethical people to do Chavez’ dirty work. The recent charade with the
Electoral Registry (REP) shows an incredible ability to lie, cheat, act, and connive
by the members of the Electoral Board who have tried to give the impression of
business as usual with regards to the audit of the Registry, but have at every
step revealed their sheer fear that anyone will be able to study and analyze
the registry with any form of technical testing. Why are they so afraid?

Clearly if
they are so scared, it must mean that the key to the earlier fraud is in the
registry, otherwise why protect with such intensity any possible examination of
the electoral registry data?

When
Central University (UCV), Simon Bolivar University (USB) and the Catholic
University (UCAB) proposed the audit earlier in the year, they did what any
technical group facing a problem would do: look for the experts within their departments. Within UCV and
USB they found statistical and database experts that could structure the mathematical
aspects of the audit, from the Catholic
University they got the
experts on demographics.

In fact,
today Tal Cual published
a table showing the structure of the academic team proposed by those three
universities and it is indeed quite impressive. From UCV you have two Ph.D.’s
in Math, one in Statistics, the other one the winner of the Polar Award, one of
the most prestigious ones in Venezuelan Science. Then, there is a Ph.D. in
computer Science who is an expert in databases and a Ph.D. in parallel and
distributed systems. There is also a support group with technical people.

From USB
the leaders are a Ph.D. in numerical analysis from CalTech accompanied by Ph.D. ‘s in
Statistics, a Ph.D. in environmental and climatological statistics and a person
with a Masters degree in complex data and databases.  From the Computer Science Department they
have a Ph.D. in databases.

From UCAB,
they got the Department of Demographic Studies, led by a Sociologist, together
with someone with a Masters degree in Demographics, a specialist in Data
Analysis and a sociologist who works on information systems.

In the
face of this team and their proposal, the CNE had to find a way to short
circuit the audit. To do this, they first selected the six experimental
universities to join the audit. Now, despite what MVR and Government big mouth
William Lara may say, these universities do only not measure up to USB and UCV
in terms of academic excellence, but simply they do not have the expertise in any of
their departments to field a team in the areas covered by USB and UCV. Moreover, not one of
them has a department specialized in demographics.

Now, the
CNE and MVR are so perverse, that in order to cover up the lack of excellence
in their team, they included IVIC, the premier research institution in Venezuela. IVIC
does have a Math Department, but nobody from it was included, but it has no
engineering or computer science department. In fact, my sources indicate that
the IVIC team was handpicked by the CNE itself, its representative showing up
at the Director’s office with a list of names which included four
anthropologists, two sociologists from teh History of Science Department, two Physicists and a computer science person.
Of these, only two anthropologists and one Sociologists have Ph.D.’s but their
area of expertise is far form that required to analyze the REP in any form. In
fact, the “official” position is that the CNE already had experts in databases
and the like, so it was looking for people in the social sciences. The problem
is that IVIC is 90% plus natural sciences, so it made no sense to go there
looking for these experts. Except that IVIC is controlled by the Government…Get the picture?

Once the
team of nine universities and IVIC was assembled the discussion began on how to
do the audit. Of course, it was democratic so that each time a topic came up
for discussion, it was voted by the full group, typically seven to three as
perversely designed by the CNE. In fact, Dr. Ricardo Rios from UCV, says in
today’s Tal Cual, that the computer coordinator for the CNE, Leonardo
Hernandez, was truly biased against their proposals and despite not being part
of the teams designated for the audit, was present at all meetings and was key
in blocking any possible agreement among the participants, going as far as
calling the technical people to tell them to take a particular position. Of course, CNE Directors claim it is the three universities that are biased.

After
that, it is very easy for the cynical members of the CNE Board to question the
three universities that made the original proposal for the audit. Question
their motives. Their intentions. Their bias. Suggest they are somehow damaging the
non-existent academic reputation of their peers at the experimental
universities. Or as CNE Director German Yepez cynically said, the audit is already
ongoing, so it is impossible for these universities to join it now. We know, it was all perversely planned this way.

Of course,
they were never meant to join anything; they were duped into believing that
they would in order to give the appearance of transparency and fairness. But clearly,
all this effort proves, once again, is that there is something fraudulent and
dirty and perverse in the electoral registry that needs to be protected at all
costs. Protecting it is essential to the fraudulent reelection of Hugo Chavez
to the Presidency of Venezuela in Decemebr.

Otherwise,
why bother? One can ask: Who is afraid of the big bad REP audit?

In fake news today, the Venezuelan Government has started an investigation of the new soccer/football blog started by well known anti-Government bloggers. It appears significant that this was started just as the US was starting to play in the World Cup, suggesting funding from Mr. Danger himself to hail the triumphs of the US in the World Cup. The Government has hired a US firm, North American Opinion Research, to do a statistical test of the opinions of the new blog with those of the New York Times and Mr. Danger himself on soccer matters to detect subtle correlations.(The CNE said that it found any statistical testing absolutely unacceptable) The absence of other bloggers in the effort suggests an important rift in the TAC or the possibility that all of the blogs are actually written by the same person, a hypothesis handled by the intelligence police DISIP and Chavez himself for many months.

Asked about it, Devil’s Poop said: “I am a Red Sox fan and this year the Red Sox will not be going to the World Cup, too many Dominicans in the team and Trinidad and Tobago eliminated them from competition, but I think the Czech Republic will win”. Alek Boyd could not be reached for comment, probably afraid of being accused of treason by Mayor Livingston if he did not say England would win.

President Chavez made no comment either; while exuberant over the loss by the US team, he was still despondent over the defeat of the Iranian eleven earlier in the day. He said he would visit North Montenegro as soon as the World Cup was over or the team was eliminated, whichever came first. He has no travel plans for the next seven days, so he could use the trip to get away from his multiple problems.

–Chacao
Mayor and Primero Justicia Leader Leopoldo Lopez was found to be guilty of “influence
peddling” and would be unable to hold public office for the next three
years as published in the official gazette today. According to the Comptroller’s
Office Lopez used his influence when he used to work at the PDVSA Economic
Office to get a contribution of Bs. 60 million for the Primero Justicia party. The
person authorizing the contribution, Lopez’ mother is also precluded from
holding public office for the next three years.

My
comment: If they had to dig so far back and find such a tenuous charge, rather
than finding something from his administration in the last four and a half
years as Mayor of Chacao, he must be pretty efficient and honest.

–Leaders
of the Patria Para Todos party (PPT), which backs Chavez, asked
Sumate to reveal where the funds for the primary will come from.

My
comment: Show me yours and I will show you mine. While you are at it, we want to see MVR’s too!

—Chavez
secretly gave a bankrupt factory in Brazil US$ 70 million in October, where
the union was controlled from workers of Lula’s party, after Lula himself refused
to give the company money to save it.

My
comment: The largesse of the autocrat that runs this feudal land called Venezuela has
no limits. But US$ 70 million is a drop in the bucket compared to the levels of
mafia-like corruption Venezuelans are witnessing in the name of the robolution. Whatever happened to the poor?

–Venezuelan
representatives to the Andean Parliament, all of them pro-Chavez since they
were elected in the December election, want to have the country continue having both
voice and vote, despite Chavez’ autocratic decision to leave the Andean Community of
Nations.

My
comment: They don’t want to lose their dollarized salaries, their travel
expenses, their diplomatic passports and their perks. You’ve got to love the
romantic aspects of the revolution! Again, do these guys remember the poor?

Smart move, the University of El Zulia, the University of the Andes, University of Carabobo and the Metropolitan University will join UCV, USB and the Catholic University in the counterproposal to the audit of the REP. This means that the top five public universities in the country and the top two private universities in the country are saying the current audit is a fraud.

What can the CNE say now? What will it say?

Yes, there is a very good reason not to invest in Venezuela, it is called Hugo Chavez:

“Caracas, Jun 10 (EFE).- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez asked the
nation’s business leaders to repatriate $10 billion of the dollars they
have overseas and invest it in their own country.

“I ask you to bring back the $10 billion you took out over the last 10 years and invest it in this country. If you don’t we will have to take measures after our victory on Dec. 3,” Chavez said at a ceremony in Maracaibo, 700 kilometers (435 miles) west of Caracas.”

I only have three questions:

–Who was in power most of the time while this money was being “taken”?

–What are you afraid of that you have to wait until winning in Dec. 3d. to do it?

–Who gave you the $10 billion figure?

By now,
maybe Hugo Chavez wishes he had kept some institutional checks and balances in
place, as corruption and corruption scandals mount. Whatever the connection
between the various scandals, it is clear that there are some serious struggles
taking place within the Government and it is a struggle mostly over money and
power, in that order.

What lies
behind these fights is beyond me, but I can’t dismiss the removal of Justice
Velasquez Alvaray and the death of his right hand man that easily. To see it
significance, it is important to recall who Velasquez Alvaray was. He was a
Chavez friend and confidant, from his own state of Barinas who participated in all stages
of the Chavez Government, elected to Congress, the Constituent Assembly and the
National Assembly before being promoted to Justice of the Supreme Court.

Velasquez
Alvaray was very powerful, in charge of the much hailed “cleaning up” of the Venezuelan
Judicial system, single handedly removing more than 400 judges from their
positions, leaving some questionable ones in place, including recent law
graduates and even convicted murderers. (Some of those fired reportedly will now ask to be rehired) And then, one day out of the blue, he is
accused of corruption in the purchase of land for the a judicial compound in Caracas, in a
country where there have been clear cut cases of similar overpaying during the robolution (The Nobrega
case with the Citibank building, for example) with not even an investigation.

Then
Velasquez Alvaray claims to have taped most telephone conversation and accuses
the Vice-President and the Minister of the Interior or getting rid of him. He
does not show up to defend himself at the National Assembly, leaves the country
and his right hand man, dies under confusing circumstances. (The police has not
confirmed it was a suicide). It is almost like something out of a John Grisham movie.

And his
right hand man was no slouch either. A good friend of Chavez since they were
young, Antonio Bazarate also worked closely with Chavez’ father in the Barinas
Governorship up to the day his friend Velasquez Alvaray called him to work for
him. Barinas is not only Chavez’ state, but also the one in which there seems
to have been the biggest corruption scandals in the last three months,
including the sugar processing plant that never was, the tomato plant that does
not even exist and now this.

And the
conflict over the issue is larger than many think. More than sixty Chavista
Deputies did not even show up for the vote in protest, including most of the
Barinas clan. Not one of them explaiend hisor her absence.

Meanwhile,
the sudden wealth of the Minister of the Interior’ brother is not investigated
(Velasquez Alvaray had long ago denounced him for asking him to deposit Supreme
Court funds in his bank). Few Governors (or the CNE!) do not follow the open public
bidding law, including Chavez’ father, but it is only an opposition ex-Governor who
is charged for it, a Chavista Deputy tells the world what we already knew that
the coop initiative has become simply a way of evading taxes and not paying
workers well (Makarem’s Petrozulia is one such coop), Fondafa has become a
source of corruption and commissions financing areas larger than Yaracuy state
while farmers there say they can’t get loans and anyone and everyone
surrounding the financial part of the state exhibits such wealth that we are no
longer talking about millions of dollars, but billions of them. You have read
here all of the schemes these members of the Government’s organized crime units use
to make money. Certainly not a pretty picture.

Meanwhile,
the trusted head of the foreign exchange control office CADIVI resigns, saying
that she is doing it because she “disagrees with the rest of the Board”. Rumors
have it that empty containers arrive regularly at Venezuela’s ports, simply empty as
part of massive fraud via CADIVI, while Chavez tells the new Head of CADIVI
that he wants fewer imports of old Scotch, since the “people” don’t drink it.
Of course, Venezuela imported US$ 24 billion of stuff, including not only old
Scotch, but also BMW’s and Mercedes Benz’, which are imported at the official
rate of exchange. After all, the new nouveau rich revolutionaries need to
satisfy their tastes too.

But right
hand men seem to be dropping dead all over the place. What started with the
right man of the General Prosecutor, Danilo Anderson, was followed up with the
right hand person of Francisco Ameliach and now Velázquez Alvaray’s second. I
guess nobody wants to be called Chavez’ right hand at this time, just in case.

In the
end, this putrefied picture of graft, corruption and murder can simply be
traced to the disappearance of checks and balances. Chavez controls everything,
but does not get involved in the details. He has allowed others to set up their
own fiefdoms of power and corruption, as long as they do what he wants and when
he wants it. But he let’s them be in between and they do not check on each
other unless they step over each other’s territory of graft or power. And that
is exactly what is happening today. Feudal lords encroached in their
positions are fighting over territory all over the place.Just this week, a suposedly close confidant of a Governor was reported by two newspapers to have been robbed from his apartment 18 million euros and 2 million dollars, all in cash.  And there are exchange controls! Ugly and suspicious indeed!

In the end
it is the absence of checks and balances that is haunting Chavez. He removed
them to do whatever he wanted, but he failed to understand that dictators and
autocrats need efficient control and his Government is anything but efficient
or even controlling of its own people. Power groups, both political and economical,
have sprung up all over the place and they seem to be enjoying the good life
and are willing to fight and apparently even to die for it. It is not only
Chavez that exhibits luxury in his surroundings and on him, it is all over the
place by now. Private airports are full of new jets and the owners are mostly
members of the new oligarchy, even if once in a while they let an old one buy
one too. Fancy cars are selling like hotcakes, but the old oligarchs don’t want
them for fear for their lives. Even suit salesmen are now carrying unheard of
top of the line $1,500 Italian suits in order to please the revolutionaries. This
had not happened since the days of ta’barato (In the 70’s the cheapest thing in
Venezuela was a buck and
Venezuelans would invade Miami
to shop, saying “ta’barato” (it is cheap), give me two)

Thus,
Chavez faces some tough choices, but he is unlikely to do anything before December.
Whether the Chavistas without Chavez exist or not, or the midgets gang really exist, is hard to
tell, but Chavez needs at this time their support to get elected, as he spends
his time projecting himself abroad. For
now, the carnage is likely to continue, gangland style.

Paroding Venezuela’s logo “Venezuela ahora es de todos”, El Morrocoy Rojo comes out with this hilarious cartoon modifying to Bolivia ” Bolivia now also belongs to Fidel”

As pro-Chavez groups threw tear gas at Teodoro Petkoff after his presentation at Universidad Central de Venezuela (Do I hear there is democracy here from any PSF reader?), opposition figures have begun to assume their positions on the issue of the REP audit. Petkoff himself in his Editorial in Tal Cual said “The decison by the Board of the CNE goes in the sense opposite to offering guarantees for electoral particiapation, which have been so severely damaged in the last few years, as evidenced by the election last December”. Later he said “It is unaceptable for them to propose such an audit of the registry which is nothing but a joke, not serious and which shows a lack of respect for Venezuelans. We should protest it with lots of energy”.

Meanwhile Zulia Governor Manuel Rosales said that his party Nuevo Tiempo will do an independent and parallel audit of the Electoral Registry (REP). Primero Justicia candidate Julio Borges called for the three universities excluded from the process to do their independent audit using the 2005 registry. COPEI’s candidate Sergio Omar Calderon said the decision is ” a blow to the trust of the voters and weakens even more the possibility of going to an electoral process which is transparent and can be trusted”.

Thus, there will be a battle. Once again, Rosales comes up with the most politically savy proposal, let’s do our own audit and we will see. That ought to worry the Chavista members of the CNE.