The reasons behind chavismo nervous breakdown
Wednesday 11, February 2004

Things did not look any tenser this morning except that the march for Saturday has been officially convoked. Since it has been a slow day at work, some news from Tal Cual decided me to cull a few numbers here and there and post this table below.

To be able to understand the table you must know first that:

1) signatures were collected in "planillas" or forms that could contain up to 10 signatures. Some forms will have 10 signatures, some less, some less than 10 valid depending on how many files were filled and how many were properly filled.

2) the Electoral Board (CNE) verifies first if the forms are duly documented and then proceeds to validate the signatures of the form. A prescreening of sorts to eliminate possible forgeries.

3) the forms that show some problem are brought to a second review to determine the source of the problem before deciding whether the signatures in that form are valid. Of course, the idea is to verify that the form has not been fabricated, but when in doubt the will of the person signing is what should matter at the end. Thus a "reparacion" process would take place at a later date for the forms that were messed up by the signature collectors but still represent the will of the signatory.

Needless to say that chavismo within the CNE has used any artifice it could come up with to discard signatures, forms and what not. The table below illustrates the relative success, or failure, of chavismo. The calculations were made considering:

*) I have assumed that an average of 7 valid signatures for every valid form. That is a rather high 30% rejection rate.

*) I have assumed that the re-verified forms will have an average of 5 valid signatures. Which is an even higher rejection rate of 50%

The results:



There are a few things that can be interpreted from this table.

First, the opposition has the signatures, no matter what tricks chavismo has been able to sneak into the CNE. And even though it barely makes it above the magical number (with a very harsh 30 to 50% rejection rate I gave according to the case), it has deep reserves to compensate any challenge once the 700 thousand get the screening they deserve.

Second, there are more problems with the forms collected by chavismo. Obviously the work of Sumate paid off in organizing the signature drive. No wonder chavismo is so resentful of Sumate and tries to make it an agency of the CIA and who knows what else. We can see yet another example of chavismo incompetence.

Translation of all of this: the CNE controlled by the pro Chavez camp, but under close scrutiny by the opposition and the Carter Center, OAS, etc., has been unable to annul enough signatures. What it will probably try to do is to validate less than the 2.4 million necessary, say 2 million and give a 5 days chance for the opposition to "correct" the 700 thousand in question. Think about it for a second:

- 700 000 people must be notified fast.

-they must come to Caracas

-they 5 days to fix it up. If the CNE expedits 1 person per minute it will take just for 100 000 people 1666 hours, or 69 days, of 24 hour days.

I surely hope that we will not come to that and that another version will be the one to occur: the CNE will give just enough signatures and Chavez will contest. The Recall Election will be delayed by a few more weeks but finally will be granted. Remember that the objective of Chavez is to have the recall election, if he cannot avoid it, after August 20 when it will let the vice president that he will name to finish the two years remaining to the term, instead of a new president likely from the opposition.

And there are still some people that think that Chavez is a democrat.