Meaningless partial elections today in Venezuela

UPDATED WITH RESULTS

Today the CNE finally decided to clear up some of the backlog it has, electorally speaking.  See, the CNE only manages in priority the elections that interest Chavez.  Those that interest the natives are postponed anywhere between some day and sine die.  For a variety of reasons I think that these election result are going to be pretty much worthless but since I do cover elections in Venezuela I feel compelled to write a short note.

The current Venezuelan crisis for Dummies ®

With all that has been happening in Venezuela since September 26 the casual reader, as well as the informed reader, might have some trouble in figuring exactly what is going on.  Ever willing to help this blog will try to explain the core reasons and consequences of the current political crisis.  Yes, in case you have any doubts,  it is a political crisis that is taking place in Venezuela and the reaction of the regime in place is a not-so-slow motion coup d'état.

The basic reasons behind the regime actions

Regular readers and well informed people already know what is going on and why, but it never hurts to refresh memory and simplify the input.

Venezuelan elections in French

I could not resist and wrote for Agoravox  an article in French with table included.  The mood among the "gauchistes" is at pitch fork level!!!!

Carta abierta a Socorro Hernández, Rector Principal CNE

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 son bastiones de la oposición, y el otro (Barinas) es el estado natal del Presidente. Cosas de la matemática, dirás.

The truth about Chavez "victory"

Weill goes to the jugular after all the pantomimes of Chavez yesterday dodging questions, insulting journalists, explaining why he won, etc, etc....  The fact of the matter is that he did not show up Sunday night at his Miraflores Balcony to celebrate with "el pueblo".  First time ever he fails to do that.  There was no victory, there was no pueblo under the balcony....

Fue así como el PSUV le robó 5 diputados a la MUD en 3 entidades

En la tabla arriba puse los votos por lista del Distrito Capital, y los estados Miranda y Carabobo.  Estos representan 32 de las 165 sillas de diputados a elegir el domingo 26 pasado.

En esta tabla se indican los porcentajes de voto lista obtenidos por cada bando, se indican el numero de diputados obtenidos en cada entidad para cada bando y el porcentaje que representan.

Al final se suma todo y se calculan los porcentajes totales.  Así se puede ver clarísimo que con solamente 45,3% de los votos el PSUV  saco 59,4% de los diputados de estos tres circuitos, en efecto robándose 5 diputados a la alianza de la MUD.

Chavez in cadena

So he started his cadena. After all he did not show up yesterday and he certainly needs to do something to stem the bad press.  So he does a cadena where he explains arcane numbers without addressing the crux of the matter, that is, the gerrymandering that gave him the majority he has today.  But he certainly senses that this would not do in front of the foreign press, even if sympathetic.  So, as usual refusing to take questions from the press which he subjects to a prolonged sit-down while he perorates at will, he comes back to elemental fantasies such as challenging the opposition to call a recall election.  Like a stupid kid dare.

Stealing an election: Venezuela 2010

The abject lesson of yesterday's vote is how chavismo managed to steal shamelessly an election. From now on Chavez and his followers are just a bunch of cheats that use all the tricks in the books to steal a "legal" electoral majority at the expense of a democratic majority. If you do not agree with me, well read the world press in general which does not understand how an opposition which gets MORE than the regime's share of the vote, gets not much more than a third of the seats at stake.

Or wonder how come that for the first time that Chavez "won" an election he did not dare to go out to his Miraflores balcony to celebrate. The cheat knew he had been exposed and could not take the limelight.

I am going to give you an extremely simple example that can be seen in the Caracas Libertador district. Already on the CNE page you can read that in Caracas the united opposition got 484.844 votes and the chavista alliance 484.103. And yet of the 10 seats at stake the opposition gets 3 and chavismo gets 7. You simply cannot explain this in democratic terms. Such a flagrant manipulation of an electoral system leaves far, far behind other well known "manipulations" like the Gore defeat of 2000 or the recent troubles in the UK where the Tories were stopped from an outright majority, in a system which already is comfortable with the winner not reaching 50% of the vote.

Another example in cheating  is next door Miranda State where the opposition got 57% of the vote and yet got "only" 50% of the seats.

Should I keep going?

That is why Chavez did not show his face last nice: he knows he got caught, he knows the world is unto him, with the FARC in Colombia, with his snake potion economy recipes, and now with outright electoral cheating to disguise the fact that now 52% of Venezuelans, in spite of all the threats, the cheating, the blackmail, the cheating, the insults, the cheating, did not vote for him.  And going....

Chavez last night got in fact the very worst result he could have gotten.  Had the opposition won he would have blamed every problem on them and get back a shot at 2012 re-election.  Had the opposition lost in votes and seats, well, the rest of the world would have forgotten that business and kept doing more "rewarding" business with Chavez.  But losing the popular vote and winning DRAMATICALLY the seat count is simply not acceptable in polite democratic society, and even less from a pseudo revolution which presents itself as the epitome of democracy, with the safest, best electoral system in the world.

Chavez cheating yesterday even managed to make the lousy victory of 2005 dignified in comparison.  Then he won 100% courtesy of the opposition mistakes.  A lousy victory but a legal one.  Last night his victory was deprived of any legitimacy, in addition of any legality when the new electoral law was passed in open violation of the constitution.  Think about the consequences.  For example, what serious country will negotiate with Chavez now that the opposition can claim with all reason that they will not honor future fulfillment of the contract unless they are consulted and also approve that contract?

And if you think that such a cheating victory will offer stability to chavismo, think twice.  For example, an amendment to the constitution can be called by a mere third of the National Assembly.  Amen of other type of referenda that the opposition is now able to call for, and get the votes for considering the outage that is already seeping everywhere.

The emperor has no clothes and the consequences are coming fast.

Venezuela has officially ceased today to be a democracy

And its constitution is dead.

In Bolivarian Venezuela the opposition gets MORE VOTES than the regime, probably 52% when all is said, and yet it is beaten at least 90 to 65 seats!!!!!!!!!!!!

The delay of the CNE and the cheating it allowed to ensure a majority for the regime will go into the annals of electoral infamy of the world.

Trouble ahead in Venezuela!!!!!!!!

The 2010 election day post

Going to bed. Exhausted. Worried sick about a country that is able to rob in such a shameful way the popular will. More analysis tomorrow but we need to wait for the CNE to fess up some more, not like in 2007. At least now the opposition mood is combative and chavismo is on the defensive, no matter how many seats they robbed us.

02:26

60 seats so far for the MUD with the possibility of some more. SO my pessimistic prediction of 69 seats was actually optimistic. We will need to wait some to see how off I was.

02:20

Parlatino
psuv 5.222.364 46.62%
MUD 5.054.114 45.10%

When will we have a first world election?

Well, it certainly will not happen under Chavez who certainly gets mileage from pretending that elections are risky, controversial and that he is there to make sure the poor get to vote.

Fine tuning VN&V 2010 predictions

OK, this is the last one.  I am not changing my predictions for next Sunday, I am just fine tuning them, and bringing down my optimistic scenario to a more realistic position.  Also, I am trying to give the final distribution, political party wise. (UPDATED)

The realistic scenario

Having completed my "variometer" I went back to my original predictions, introduced political party affiliation of candidates (for whatever worth they are inside the MUD) and built up this new half moon chart of what the next National Assembly could look like.  That is, I am ruthlessly following my numbers even if some of them should in my opinion be different.  Remember also that polls are not good and are confirming my negative calculations.

Realistic result, based on VN&V predictions, for September 2010

From this chart we can observe the following things (if it were to happen, of course!):

How the opposition won/lost on Sunday 26

Courtesy of another long time reader who appreciated that I published my negative thoughts before the vote, even if risking to discourage a few people, I got inspired to write up already the post-mortem of the opposition.

How the opposition won the 26-S vote

Daniel Duquenal will punch the "Unidos Para Venezuela" card (plus electoral survey )

In spite of all my pessimism I will go out and vote.  As such I do not share an iota with such people that do not want to go and vote because they consider the voting act a farce AND YET NEVER OFFER A CREDIBLE ALTERNATIVE PLAN.  And do not forget one thing: if we do not know how many votes our side did gain in the end, Chavez does know and that will painfully gnaw at him.

Pre-mortem

Warning: major cynical and overly long text/rant follows.  Read at you own peril.

The Venezuela News and Views final 2010 vote prediction (well, maybe)

Well, it is time to make a final prediction, and I am afraid that most readers of this blog will not like it.  And I may add that never was I so keen to be proven wrong.

Seats to be taken by the two sides in the legislative elections of 2010, according to the 2008 votes, the 2010 estimated potential and the rosy scenario with at least a 6% swing from chavismo to the opposition

In the figure above in red we have the number of seats the PSUV and allies will take and in blue what the Opposition will take.

How did I reach this?

September 27

September morn
We danced until the night became a brand new day
Two lovers playing scenes from some romantic play
September morning still can make me feel that way

Thinking about what will happen the day after the 26-S vote I remembered that old song which was not very good but that somehow was successful enough to sit in a corner of my memory. Serendipity being what it is, it comes in handy to illustrate how the love affair of Venezuela with Chavez might crumbling. I do not know whether 26-S will be the final break up but one thing is certain, whatever the result is we will have crossed an inflection point, as important at least as the one we crossed on August 15 2004.

We must be winning 'cause zombies are emerging!

In perhaps the safest sign that the opposition truly thinks it is winning the current electoral contest we are seeing what was simply unthinkable 6 months ago: electoral ads for AD and COPEI!!!  The one below has been hitting TV this week when AD is celebrating its 69 anniversary (you cannot make things like that up!).  It comes with AD anthem included, an anthem I had not heard in, well, I better do not tell......

COPEI also has its ads, no music (AD has always been the one with the catchy jingles and solemn pomposity).  But in one Enrique Mendoza is starring.  I remember when he run for election in 2000 under his own vehicle pretending that he was not COPEI anymore.....  Now he is the camera  huger of COPEI ads.....

I am not too sure what to make of this except that the united opposition must believe in its victory strongly enough that even old parties like AD and COPEI have decided to run ads least the votes go all to PJ, UNT and other "upstarts".  As for the value of the ad, well, let's forget it; though I am sure it has a nostalgic appeal to those who are 40 or older, probably the target of AD this time around.  What matters here is the daring of putting up such an ad.  Heck!  It even includes faded red shirts!!!! (PS: imagine the conniption fit of Chavez if AD gets 15 seats!)

The next National Assembly?

After the series of posts on electoral analysis this is my prediction for the composition of the next National Assembly, as a summary of all of these posts.  NOTE: they were written in an early August perspective and today I would already change a few things but that will have to wait a few days for a new post on the matter.

The final assembly, maybe?  Situation August 2010.

The graph above was obtained with the following parameters:

The 2010 election predictions: Aragua and Carabobo

When I started this project I did not know if I was going to have enough time to finish it.  Thus originally I had planned to leave for the end Bolivar and the Llanos, the regions that I know less about, hoping that in case I lacked time the rest of the discussion would be enough to give a good idea of the September 26 election result.  But as I plodded my way through I realized that the election will be decided in the two states of Aragua and Carabobo, the industrial heartland of the country, and thus found the motivation to write it all and leave that discussion for the end.

With 18 seats these two states represent 11% of the representatives to be elected in the new assembly.  If everywhere else in the country results can be guessed more or less accurately, in these two states it is where we are more likely to find interesting and significant shifts.  That is, Zulia is for the opposition: that the PSUV gains 1 or 3 seats really does not affect much the overall picture.  Same story in the Llanos where the PSUV is going to win and where the opposition gains will not be enough to imperil a putative chavista majority.  But in Carabobo, through gerrymandering, the opposition is not certain at all to fulfill its potential and in Aragua, the chavista bastion will still be carried by the PSUV but will be quite damaged.  For the opposition to win the National Assembly it is a must that it resists the gerrymandering of Carabobo AND that it breaches the PSUV monopoly in Aragua, and for chavismo it is essential that the Aragua hegemony is preserved and that the opposition does not reach half of the Carabobo seats otherwise its majority will be too thin for comfort.