A weird standstill

Wednesday 3, December 2003

I supposed that both sides are still digesting the results of this past week end.

I did miss it yesterday, but the opposition had its formal announcement and it seems that the "solid" number of signatures will be 3.6 million. They are currently doing an external audit, suggested by the Electoral Board (CNE), before submitting the signatures.

I am working on some of the numbers available and I will try to post a table to illustrate the meaning of the numbers from a different angle. I hope to post it tonight and thus join the numbers game already played by Francisco and Miguel Octavio :-)

Meanwhile the government is till screaming "fraud"! As if in Latin America the opposition were ever able to put up a fraud... Sheesh!

Tal Cual has had a couple of editorials really great on that matter. I will try to translate part of them tonight or tomorrow. The fact of the matter is that the "fraud" accusation are not destined to the Venezuelan people, nor even to the OAS and the Carter center. In truth it is a form of pressure on the CNE to find a way to annul the signatures. Clearly, the numbers are terrible for Chavez and his only hope is to find a legal way to annul the signatures collected this week end. Perhaps by threatening the CNE he will browbeat them into submission to do his dirty work?

So today nothing much but the barking of dogs at a stand-still. Teh oppostion defended itself very briefly by just dismissing the charges levied against it. Teh government has started to bark loud but we do not know if a bite will come. What is more interesting is that not all the barks seem in tune. Is something going on within the chavista movement already? One sure sign of an internal realignment is that the chavista hair thin majority at the National Assembly has dropped until January further attempts at rewriting the law on the judicial power. Me thinks that this week they got more pressing issues in their plate.