The Devil's Excrement

As you may have noticed, I have been traveling the last few days. But my friends keep me informed by sending all sorts of information which I read and file, but was not thinking of posting. Then yesterday I got the note on the second challenge to the April 14th. vote and thought I would mention it.

The opposition is challenging the results in 5,720 tables or boxes, which comprise 21,562 tallies. Each table challenged includes some form of irregularity which is documented in the challenge. The opposition is requesting that the vote be redone in all these, which comprises of 2.3 million votes.
Separately, the fingerprint analysis shows a large number of inconsistencies. But the most significant one is that 20% of he voters had no fingerprint on file, including over four hundred thousand new voters, all of which were supposed to have their prints on file.

This challenge to the election votes is separate from the first one, which was based on irregularities associated with violations of the electoral laws,such as assisted voting, propaganda and abuses, not with the details of the voting process and the results. Both include recusing those magistrates that have expressed an opinion on the case or are related to Government officials.

Above, a picture of where I am today.

Ever since the CNE said that Nicolás had won the election, things have not been going very well for him. From widespread pot banging the first four days, to bickering within Chavismo, to Diosdado undermining him and his own party members criticizing him, it is tough to be Nicolás Maduro these days. But if one thought there was one area where Nicolás could handle things well, it was on the diplomatic front. After all, he was Chavez’ Foreign Minister for almost seven years, where following Hugo’s orders alone was probably a difficult thing to do. And except for trying to stage coups in Paraguay and Guatemala, Nicolás was mostly discreet, like a diplomat should be.

But his bad streak is prompting him to losing his cool and making outrageous statements. The first one was to accuse former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe of trying to assassinate him, throwing in Roger Noriega and Otto Reich into the pot. A laughable charge and a dangerous one, as Uribe is still respected in Colombia and Santos may get impatient with his new counterpart in Venezuela. But Nicolas likes to imitate Chávez, except that it doesn’t work very well with Nicolas.

But where Maduro really lost his cool was in his response to Peru’s Foreign Minister Rafael Roncagliolo statements. Maduro called back Venezuela’s Ambassador to Peru and said: “You may be Peru’s Foreign Minister, but you can not give opinions about Venezuela. I do not accept that lack of respect towards the political process that Venezuela is living. I don’t accept it…But to involve yourself with Venezuela’s problems to give us advice, please, don’t. You made a mistake Peruvian Foreign Minister, you have made the mistake of your life”

By now you may be wondering what it is that Rocagliolo said that caused such outrage. Well that is the amazing part, not much. What he said was:

“Peru is promoting that Unasur pronounce itself in asking for dialogue and tolerance in Venezuela…the second element of the Unasur declaration consists in asking that there be in Venezuela a climate of dialogue and tolerance, request that we maintain, request that I reiterate. It seems fundamental to us for both Venezuelans and the region that such a climate of dialogue, tolerance and mutual respect can be established.”.

Imagine, calling for tolerance and dialogue!

But Maduro losing his cool has backfired, as Peruvian politicians from all sectors have backed their Foreign Minister. Not only that, but it has given relevance to the trip by Leopoldo Lopez and Deputy Eduardo Gomez Cigalas around the region, explaining the treatment of opposition Deputies in the Assembly, as well as the refusal by the Venezuelan Electoral Board to do a complete audit as promised to Unasur countries so that they would accept Maduro’s victory in the April 14th. election.And now in Argentina, a Deputy is requesting that Venezuela be suspended from Mercosur for the non-democratic actions of the Maduro Government, while in Peru, the Vice-President of Foreign Affairs of Congress said that in Venezuela there is no President and what there is a an orangutan, a reference to the military gorillas that ruled that country, as well as seeing little birds and talking to Chávez:

The curious thing about this whole affair is that Peru’s Foreign Minister Roncagliolo is currently the spokesman for Unasur on these affairs and by losing his cool, Maduro may be helping the opposition in promoting that Unasur pressure the Venezuelan Government for a full audit and recount of the recent Presidential election.

As expected the partisan ladies of the Electoral Board announced tonight that there will be no complete audit of the 46% (which is not true either) of the votes, but a simple comparison of machines and votes. Capriles’ request for a complete audit centered on two things: The fingerprints and the notebooks, the CNE partisan ladies denied looking precisely at these aspects.

Funny that the notebooks are now discarded as evidence. The Venezuelan Supreme Court in this decision said clearly in 2012 that notebooks should not be destroyed because:

“cuadernos que representan la prueba fundamental de la legitimidad de los resultados obtenidos, además de ser el elemento más importante de cara a una revisión del proceso por parte de los candidatos”

“notebooks with represent the fundamental proof of the legitimacy of the results obtained, besides being the most important element in the face of a revision of the process on the part of the candidates”

which is precisely what Capriles’ Comando Simón Bolívar argued had to be compared and wanted to do.

In this video you can see the former Head of the CNE arguing the same line when the opposition candidates agreed to destroy the notebooks after the vote, in which Capriles almost doubled the next candidate:

Everything said by Lucena was manipulated. She said nothing about the duplicity of fingerprints test, for example. She said no proof of certain things happening, like witnesses being threatened, but videos were presented in which they are. She concentrated in the minor aspects of the request and not in the main argument of the request, the fingerprints and the notebooks. The main focus of the opposition in their request, double voting and usurping identities will not be able to be checked in this audit. She also lied saying this was contesting the election, this was not that, this was a legal request for an audit.

The duplicity of fingerprint file/test, was promised before the election, was requested after the election, was part of the audit request and Lucena said absolutely nothing about it tonight.

As I said the first day after the election, there will not be an audit/recount, because the fraud would be shown.

Who fears the truth?

Note: This is post 6,000, never thought this would take up so much of my life. Ironic what it is about.

In this video, Roberto Picón, in charge of the technical challenge to the vote, explains what it is the Capriles command wants from the CNE to do the complete and real audit and cross correlation of all the information on April 14th. .

He says:

We don’t need the automated part, the ballots, the tallies, the tallies of the audit and the totals. Those are automatically produced. Thus, they will coincide with the CD, except for the variations in the tallies.

But we also need:

-Complete access to the voting notebooks.

Capriles wants to know who voted, if dead people voted, if people with the same name voted, we want to know if the same person signed that they voted or used the same fingerprint.

Capriles also wants to know the cases in which the fingerprint machine was activated by a fingerprint that did not match. Is this random or is this in particular poll stations?

Capriles wants to know what happens when the 1.5 million people who did not have fingerprints in the system voted. Was this randomly distributed or not? Did they go against Capriles?

Capriles wants to know if each fingerprint is compared to all the 15 million voters. Did people vote more than once? This comparison has to start now.

Capriles wants to know: When there is a match, what is the maximum tolerance of the system? If there is no match, the machine should shut down after 7 tries. When this happens, CNE has to liberate the machine. How many times did this happen? Was the password used systematically? Was this random, sequential?

Finally, Capriles wants it certified that this happened at the time of the vote and it was not altered afterwards. This can be done securely. There is a digital certificate for this.

We believe, said Picón, that people that should not have voted, voted and Capriles would have won without them. Thus, we are asking for all of this information.

That is what Caprilesis asking for in a “true” audit of April 14th. .

Its been an amazing week. Seeing Chavismo change to Madurism, the same s.. with a much higher dose of fascism in which threatening the other almost half (Or is it half ?) of Venezuela is fair game.

Like the sweet Minister of Housing who said he would personally fire anyone who supports Capriles, never mind human rights, never mind the Constitution, never mind a Bill that was issued by the now extinct Chavismo that says you can’t fire anyone: Here is sweet Richard in person and live:

And this is but one attempt within the Government to create a new Tascon List (The old one is still in use believe it or not) In Tachra, Nueva esparat and Apure, Government workers have been fired this week for voting for Capriles.

And in Barquisimeto, Victor Zambrano’s son happened to be among the close to 70 students jailed for protesting the need for a recount. These students were forced to wear hats with the name of Chavez’ PSUV part and forced to jump like frogs on the ground praising Maduro. Those that refused, suffered severe wounds to their buttocks and backs.

And here is sweet Minister of Prisons Iris Varela, another fascistoid personality, telling Capriles not to worry that she has reserved a jail cell for him and to please stop using drugs. Definitely a worthwhile reason to hold a press conference and to have the station of the other half of Venezuelans cover it live:

Then there is the Minister of Information Villegas, who not only keeps insisting that the opposition damaged Health centers, despite no evidence that this was so. And this nouveau-facsist Goebbelesque figure not only continues saying this, but keeps attacking Venezuela’s most reputable Human Rigths Organization, Provea, over the subject. Provea said it would accept the opportunity to respond, but Villegas will certainly not give them the chance. Sounds like recounts under Madurismo. (At least the People’s Ombudsman recognized that one center burned down last December)

And there are many similar reports, like fascist signs in hospitals that opposition “squalids” will “dissappear” and Governor Falcón is receiving death threats against him and his family.

And, of course, just in, Venezuela’s Parliament, composed oly of those that recognize Maduro’s win, will investigate Capriles’ role in creating violence in order to “charge him”

Sweet Madurismo all around.

Very few changes in the new Cabinet announced by Maduro tonight. Nelson Merentes moves to the Ministry of Finance, a post he held in 2001 and 2004. He was later President of the Venezuelan Central Bank. Giordani stays in Planning, so that Maduro went the conservative route, splitting the two Ministries. Jesse Chacón is back, as Minister for Electric Energy. He has held at least four Ministries, I lost count. He was also pollster for the Government recently, predicting a 9% Maduro win. Andres Izarra is Minister for Tourism, he is also back to a new Cabinet post. The Head of the intelligence agency SEBIN, becomes Minister of the Interior. The Minister of Health is removed and replaced by Isabel Iturria, the President of the Children’s Cardiological Hospital. And in the Ministry for Sports (picture above), the former Olympian and model Alejandra Benitez.

Maduro shows he either can’t change much or does not know how to. There is still no trained economist in the Cabinet. We thought there would be one. Merentes in Finance is probably good for the Government’s foreign exchange policy, as he is known to be more pragmatic, but bad for debt, as he is likely to restart issuing debt internationally.