Day 4, waiting for the results on the Chavez recall election petition drive

Monday 1, 10:20 PM

As usual in Venezuela, results promised at a given time have to be postponed because all results are not all in, because some centers are still not close, etc…

Of course, one reason is that unaccountably the government kept the secondary airports of Caracas closed until Wednesday AM!!!!!! One cannot understand such a childish attitude. The official excuse is that some opposition planes and helicopters would be dropping grenades on Caracas marches. Please! I kid you not. Even the airport of Higuerote is closed, an airport 2 hours drive from Caracas. But this ridiculous pettiness has only one objective: delay for as long as possible emission of final news that supposedly can only be made when all signature forms have reached Caracas.

Meanwhile the Vice president has talked again about the “mega-fraud” announced by Chavez Sunday. We are of course still waiting for the evidence as to how the opposition can fake 3 million signatures. Impressive. By the way, since when do opposition mount major electoral frauds in South America against governments that hold all power? Do they think that we are so stupid? Apparently they do.

So meanwhile I will narrate a little tale.

This afternoon I had a semi sick relative that was willing to sign but could only do so if there were no lines. Or the presence of forms guaranteed. Well, I went out to look for a site and I ran into “itinerantes”. The system has previewed that 15 % of the forms would be distributed to people that would go to hospitals, homes were people could not leave to go and sign, offices, etc… These “itinerantes” have to go around always accompanied by a witness, or even two, preferably the witness registered by the opposing side. Well, I convinced them to follow me to my relative’s home. That is I picked up the “itinerante” and the witness that happened to be the chavista witness, a young woman obviously from the “barrio”. But we had a good time. We had my sickly relative sign up, we did chat for a few minutes while we waited for the signature to happen, and when I took them back the chavista and myself shook hands and exchanged warmest greetings. And lo’and behold I dropped both of them at a local rallying point of Primero Justicia, a main political opponent to Chavez. I even joked that she was going to get lynched there and we all had a big laugh as she invited me to go inside saying that they were all fine and friends now.

This is the real Venezuelan people, not the grotesque pantomime that we get from the National Assembly, or the Vice Presidency.

Tomorrow morning I must leave on a business trip at 6 AM. I will not likely post until tomorrow afternoon late, and from San Felipe. Maybe once more tonight if some announcement is made before I turn off the light.

But I can leave in peace. All the threats from the administration are from people that are afraid of losing power, desperate at the realization that the people have abandoned them. Of course, that is when they might be the most dangerous. However, today the General Attorney concurred with the OAS and the Carter center. Isaias Rodriguez, a close ally of Chavez, has announced that he is indeed investigating pressures and irregularities committed during the collection process. But, and this is a big but, the overall the integrity of the collection process will not be challenged. In other words Rodriguez indirectly acknowledges that whatever the administration has come up so far to set up the opposition signatures will not be enough. Hard to believe but perhaps Mr. Rodriguez might have realized that his future might not be with Chavez after all. I am still not holding my breath.

A last note. I want to come back on the declaration of Cesar Gaviria, the OAS president. They were long as usual but quite clear: very diplomatically he told the Chavez administration that as far as he (the OAS?) was concerned the number of signatures to recall Chavez was in. Chavez had better come up with very good arguments to convince the OAS otherwise.