Sunday, December 16, 2012

Electoral note 1: abstention galore

As promised, no election day post, no continuous coverage in deep. But still, an occasional electoral note like this first one.

The news so far is a massive abstention at least in urban centers allegedly favorable to the opposition. There is also abstention in chavista areas but let's not forget that they have a "bring in the vote machinery" that should allow them to bring in more voters than the opposition. In other words, at noon we are in a 3+1 scenario for the opposition (see previous post).

So right now we have twitter filled with people begging oppo folks to go an vote. I do not know how many chavista twitterers of doom are there since I do not follow that garbage and no one has retwitted them.

Meanwhile, for a nice change I was not awoken at 4 AM by stupid fog horns. I have had a leisurely breakfast and I am ready for a leisurely lunch. I have not turn on TV, just phone calls from friends and a visit to the biggest bakery around to buy the papers have been enough to convince me that we are in trouble. In that bakery, at 9:30 AM, there was NO ONE with purple stained pinky, the voters badge. In spite of all the weird staring that I did.  That is, no employees or customers had yet voted.

I will go and vote, of course, but around 3 PM. That way I will see how many people have voted in my center. If we do not make it to 50%........  Lord Have Mercy upon us!

Let's not be surprised by this abstention. On one side a group was convinced to vote for what turns out to be a near corpse. That is electoral fraud. On the other side the oppo leadership keeps trying to pretend that all is fine and dandy when it is not (there is a devastating article against Capriles by Ibsen Martinez in Tal Cual yesterday). How can you expect people to get motivated to vote when leaders on BOTH sides are so full of B.S.? Well, we knew thy are full of it but now it is so pathetically obvious.......

8 comments:

  1. Anonymous6:27 PM

    Ibsen is right, Capriles wasn't meant to run for Miranda in the first place, why did the opposition called for primaries to later insult the will of the people they supposedly are trying to defend?

    Capriles should had rallied the country supporting all the MUD candidates and wait for this second chance to run for president. He made a big mistake, I hope Jaua doesn't win but if he does I won't feel pity.

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  2. Way the off topic, and likely even off-blog... but
    Chavista Twitterers of Doom would be a hell of a name for a band.

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  3. Might have been interesting for you to have that finger-stain, before you went into the bakery. Would have justified your bug-eyed stare of each and everyone who had no stain. :-) Thanks for making the effort to vote. Look forward to reading your update.

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  4. I for one think Capriles took the right decision. If he had been around cheering up, he would have been forgotten. He needed to hold office to be able to keep being a leader. Yes, he has to demonstrate that he is able to win Miranda, but that's the name of the game and I, for one, applaud the fact that he understood it and took a chance.

    As for Ibsen Martinez...it is quite easy to be a salon intellectual and always criticize and shot at whatever is moving. Let us not forget that his writing was partly responsible for feeding the discontent that took Chávez to power.

    Ibsen is now feeding the monster inside the opposition so that Capriles is taken over by who knows...in the end, we will lose unity and a chance to get back to power.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Charly8:05 PM

      In the end? With the PSUV and the oppo politicians about worth zilch and the Son of Man on his deathbed, this country is ready to be taken over by a hard hitting dictator, not some sort of wobbling pussy like Chavez.

      Delete
    2. Agree 100% with you, Bruni. Capriles is a still-young politician who knows how best to utilize his resources. Currently, Venezuela does not have the luxury of democratic institutions. Therefore, having Capriles sidelined as oppo capo would have been a poor use of his political capital. There's also the issue of finances. But I'd never expect an intelectualoide like Ibsen to understand the practicalities behind politics.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous1:10 AM

      Also agree with Bruni, all decisions have risks

      moses

      Delete
  5. Anonymous1:08 AM

    There is cautious optimist in several twitter accounts:

    @nelsonbocaranda https://twitter.com/NelsonBocaranda
    @alfredoweil https://twitter.com/AlfredoWeil
    @puzkas https://twitter.com/puzkas

    One of the surprises deems to be Barinas, were the elder brother of President Chavez was the candidate to Governor...

    ReplyDelete

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