The Devil's Excrement

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?

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.