The Devil's Excrement

The only thing missing is that they pass a Law that elects as President in 2012 the one that gets fewer votes

HUGO CHÁVEZ must be feeling grateful to the number-crunchers who helped him redraw Venezuela’s congressional districts. The strongman turned last weekend’s National Assembly election into a referendum on himself; he inundated the country with propaganda via the state-controlled media and even refilled government food stores. The result was an unmistakable rebuff. On a day of heavy turnout, 52 percent of voters chose opposition parties, vs. 48 percent for Mr. Chávez’s Socialists.

In a normal democratic country — even in Venezuela itself up until this year — that outcome would have produced something close to a tie between government and non-government deputies in the congress. Instead, thanks to the blatant gerrymandering he ordered, Mr. Chávez probably will have 98 seats, compared with 67 for the main opposition coalition and a small leftist party. That allowed the caudillo to claim victory in a news conference, during which he heaped abuse on a reporter who dared to ask about the discrepancy between votes and seats.

Mr. Chávez, however, didn’t deliver the victory address he had planned from the balcony of the presidential palace — an encouraging sign that he grasps the election’s real implications. In addition to the popular repudiation, the result means that beginning in December, Mr. Chávez should no longer have the ability to rule by decree or to appoint supreme court justices and members of the electoral authority without the opposition’s consent. He also faces the threat that his announced plan to rule Venezuela for at least another decade will be interrupted in 2012, when a presidential election is due that should be decided by majority vote.

There was good reason for Mr. Chávez’s loss: Alone in Latin America, Venezuela is still deep in recession, and it leads the hemisphere in inflation and violent crime. A normal democratic leader might respond by correcting errant or highly unpopular policies, such as Mr. Chávez’s steady nationalization of the economy or his import of Cuban advisers and intelligence operatives. His record, however, suggests that the president will merely step up his attacks on opposition leaders and journalists — a number of whom have been imprisoned or driven into exile — and seek to circumvent the new checks on his power.

Mr. Chávez’s apologists will be pointing to the congressional vote as proof that he still leads a democracy. But in democracies, elections produce consequences in line with the results. In Mr. Chávez’s Venezuela, they usually lead to less democracy.

Long time reader and friend John Endres took Johannesburg’s Times to task for reporting Sunday’s election as a victory for Chávez and they published his letter.

Way to go John!

Mr. President, how can it be that the opposition with more votes than your party got only 37% of the Deputies? Sorry, well… I… then… you…well, did you see the bird? Did you see it? Ah? Did you see it?

—Art. 186 of Venezuela’s Constitution (Chavez’ Constitution) says”The National Assembly will be composed by Deputies elected in each federal entity by universal, direct, personal and secret vote with proportional representation, according to a population base of 1.1 % of the population.

—Despite this, the opposition, despite obtaining approximately the same number of votes as Chavez’ PSUV party, only got 39.39% of the Deputies in the National Assembly. Not Proportional at all, as stated in the Constitution.

—This happened because of a rule change, a new “methodology”, which was selectively applied only to eight States: Zulia, Distrito Capital, Miranda, Carabobo, Amazonas, Barinas, Lara and Táchira. These are the States where the opposition has strength, except fr Chavez’ home state of Barinas.

—The top five vote candidates by vote, were all opposition candidates, the bottom 15 candidadtes by vote were Chavista candidates.

—Pro-Chavez candidates that won received on average 55,092 votes, Opposition candidates on the other hand received on average 81,728 votes.

—Without the revolutionary new “methodology” the opposition estimates it would have obtained 14 more Deputies (79), at the expense of Chavez’ PSUV which would have obtained 81 seats in the Assembly.

—In the Capital District, the opposition got more votes than Chavez’ PSUV, but only won two out of eight nominal Deputies. So much for proportionality…

—In Carabobo State, the opposition got 53.7% of the votes and PSUV got 43% of the votes, despite which the opposition only got four Deputies and Chavismo seven. Proportionality is truly dead in Carabobo.

—And it works both ways, because of the rule tampering and the methodology, in Zulia State, the opposition got 54.8% of the vote versus Chavismo’s 44.4%, but the opposition got twelve out of thirteen Deputies. That’s not fair either, but it results from the new “methodology”. The opposition getting so many votes was not in the “plan”, the “methodology” was implemented when Chavismo was more optimistic.

—Finally, no matter how you want to spin it, the truth is that Chavismo did not do well. As proof, here are the voting trends in three Chavista strongholds of the past, including Vargas State, once considered as strong Chavista territory as could exist. The chart shows the percentage of the vote for Chavez for President in 2006, for the Chavista Governor and for the list vote in this election. The trend is clearly not Chavismo’s friend in any of these states. Just extrapolate two more years.

(Sorry for the post in Spanish)

Querida Socorro,

Con curiosidad leímos tus declaraciones del día de hoy, en las que dices, con la precisión de un reloj suizo, que las circunscripciones electorales fueron diseñadas por un “método” basado en la “ley.”

¿Cuál es ese “método” Socorro?

Los únicos estados donde hubo modificaciones fueron Zulia, Distrito Capital, Miranda, Carabobo, Amazonas, Barinas, Lara y Táchira. Qué casualidad que siete de estos ocho estados favorecen a la oposición, y el otro (Barinas) es el estado natal del Presidente.

Cosas de la matemática, dirás. Pero dinos, ¿será posible que compartas con nosotros la mágica fórmula matemática – “el método”, como lo llamas tú – que dio ese maravilloso resultado?

No seas pichirre, vale. Si tienes un “método” exacto que obliga a unir Baruta con Chacao y Leoncio Martínez, ¿acaso no es un crímen tenerlo guardado bajo llave?

Debe ser fascinante ese “método” que los llevó a dividir el Municipio Sucre del Estado Miranda en tres partes – dos partes en las que tradicionalmente gana la oposición, y otra en la que gana el gobierno y que fue anexada a Guarenas.

Debe ser muy sabio ese “método” que unió las parroquias de El Paraíso y La Vega del Distrito Capital – en las que la oposición salió relativamente bien – con las parroquias de Antímano y Macarao, donde el chavismo nos da palo.

Ese método debe ser tan sofisticado que por eso nadie lo entiende. ¿Será por eso que tu colega Vicente Díaz dijo que no existían criterios técnicos para los cambios? ¿No crees que ese “método” – que ni siquiera el otro rector del CNE conoce – quiere ver la luz del día? ¿Acaso no merece tu “método” salir del closet?

Mira, Socorro, nosotros no somos sino unos simples ciudadanos blogueros. No tenemos a la mano la fuerza del aparato del Estado, ni comandamos el Plan República. No tenemos las armas tecnológicas, financieras, ni matemáticas que ustedes, los poderosos, sí tienen.

Lo único que sí tenemos – por ahora, ¿verdad? – es nuestra voz y el artículo 186 de la Constitución, que dice que la representación en la Asamblea deberá ser proporcional.

Y por eso te invitamos a discutir tu “método” con nosotros, donde quieras y cuando quieras. Trae tu fórmula, y nosotros traemos nuestros estudios que, modestia aparte, creemos son bastante serios. Trae tu “modelo” y nosotros traeremos las predicciones y pronósticos que hicimos y que lograron predecir el resultado de la elección.

Porque si es verdad que el “método” no favorece a nadie en particular, no deberías tener problema en debatirlo con nosotros. Si tu “método” es como lo pintas, te lo reconoceríamos sin dudar.

Es más, si nos convences, te hacemos tronco de publicidad. Como nuestro trabajo ha sido citado por The Guardian, The Economist, la BBC, Reuters, y otros medios internacionales, capaz y hasta te ayudamos a revertir esa “matriz de opinión” contraria al CNE que también hoy denunciaste.

Sería sólo un simple debate entre compatriotas. Democracia pura, pues.

Entonces Socorro, ¿te anotas?

Los autores de

www.caracaschronicles.com

www.devilsexcrement.com

http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/

http://alekboyd.blogspot.com/

I have known Andreina since the early days of blogs when she was a journalism student in Barquisimeto and had this personal blog. The blogging community was so small, we had parties and almost everyone showed up. That was a while back and I was very proud yesterday when I saw the video of her question to Chávez, as a Radio France reporter, and how she stood up for herself, refusing to accept being called ignorant and trying to get an answer that she never got from the autocrat. He also lied about Radio France and today Radio France responds to him

It’s very simple to explain, as El Pais said it this morning, the most populous states with 67% of the population only elect 53% of the Deputies.

In fact, under the old regulations, the opposition would have obtained roughly the same nummber of Deputies as  Chavismo according to El Nacional.

Way to go Andreina!

The Venezuelan opposition scored a big victory, despite its defeat in not having a majority of the National Assembly. The opposition obtained 52.9% of the vote, obtaining 635,000 more votes nationwide than Chavez’ PSUV party. Thus, the opposition not only managed to block Chávez from obtaining a two-thirds majority, its minimum political goal, but also showed how rigged the system is when it obtained a majority of the votes, but only around 40% of the Assembly pending the undecided seats.

The results emphasized how rigged the system is, as the Venezuelan Constitution guarantees in Article 63 the right to proportional representation, but Chavismo, through its control of all powers changed rules and districts in order to insure it could retain control of the national Assembly. These changes were brought to the attention of the Venezuelan Supreme Court who either rejected the cases or has never ruled on them, showing once again, that the rule of law is seriously compromised in Venezuela. The results highlights that Chavez’ “legitimacy” is seriously questioned now, given this victory despite the loss in the popular vote.

The biggest loser in the election was not Chávez, but Henri Falcón, the Governor of Lara State who split from Chávez selling himself as an alternative to Chávez, but who failed to obtain a single seat in the Assembly.

There were some surprises at the regional level, such as the 12 to 1 victory in Zulia State, a victory for that state’s Governor Pablo Perez, as well as surprising victories in Anzoátegui, Sucre and Aragua state in what had been considered Chavismo strongholds. In Caracas’ Capital District, the opposition obtained more votes than Chavismo, but received only 3 out of ten Deputies. Acción Democrática, became the opposition’s largest party, obatining 1.8 million votes nationwide out of the 5.7 million obtained by the MUD parties.

Not having a two thirds majority implies that the Government will now have to sit and negotiate naming Supreme Court Justices, the General Prosecutor, the Comptroller, and the People’s Ombudsman or approve major structural changes in the country’s structures.

But the results do not guarantee that Chávez will stop the pace of his revolution. He has some of the Bills he needs in place to continue forward and he can increase parallel funds to promote his pet projects away from the supervision of the National Assembly. However, the opposition will have a strong and constant presence in the Assembly that will give it visibility going forward.

For Chávez, the results are a warning sign in the face of the 2012 Presidential election. If oil does not increase significantly in the next two years, problems will compound as oil production drops and the lack of investment continues to have important effects on infrastructure. Add crime, inflation and lower imports and the panorama is not easy for the Venezuelan President.

Thus, no spin can change the impact of the opposition victory. No participatory democracy like the Venezuelan one can have the results obtained last night. For once, Chavez’ tricks and treachery show dramatically what he is about and that alone is a huge victory for the opposition.

It is 1:56 AM and the Electoral Board, the CNE has just announced the first results, here is what they said (as much as I can remember) and my instant analysis. I am having problems with Cantv, hope the post goes thru, Mud is the opposition, Psuv is Chavez’ party:

66.45 % of the people voted

Amazonas 67.92% vote list one for PPT one for PSUV one for PPT

Aragua 66.8% Psuv 5 Mud 3

Anzoategui 67.92% Mud 5 Psuv 1

Barinas 66.4% Psuv 5 Mud 1

Bolivar 61.81% Psuv 6 Mud 2

Carabobo 66.28% Psuv 6 Mud 3

Cojedes 64.22% Psuv 3 Mud 1

Delta amacuro 68.13% Psuv 4

Distrito Capital 67.12 Psuv 7 Mud 3

Falcon 64% Psuv 4 Mud 2

Guarico 63.67% Psuv 3

Lara 68.69% Psuv 6 Mud 3

Merida Psuv 4 Mud 2

Miranda 67.45% Psuv 6 Mud 6

Monagas 63.89% Psuv 5 Mud 1

Nueva Esparta 64.92% Mud 3 Psuv 1

Portuguesa 64.5% Psuv 5 Mud 1

Sucre 58.37% Mud 3 Psuv 3

Tachira 70.44% Mud 5 Psuv 1

Trujillo 62.32% Psuv 4 Mud 1

Yaracuy 66.33% Psuv 4 Mud 1

Zulia 69.89% Mud 12 Psuv 3

Vargas 63.87% Psuv 3 Mud 1

I am dead more comments tomorrow

The total gives me 89 for Chavez’ Psuv to 61 for the opposition with four undecided. The opposition stops Chavismo from having 2/3 majority, no info on total votes, looks close based on number of Deputies.

Opposition is saying it got more votes than Chavez’ Psuv party, obtaining 52% of the vote and no more than a possible maximum of 40% of the Deputies. Chavez’ democratic legitimacy in Venezuelan is now in question.