The Venezuelan results: abstention, division and inefficiency

Let's start with inefficiency. The CNE, from its Olympus, has decided that it will not emit further communiques and the hoi poloi can go to the web page after 3 PM to check out the results. This is brilliant, no need to reply anymore to the questions of these damn pesky journalists that are unable to see the grandeur of the CNE officials (the three of them, since Sobella Mejias is reported missing in action). Unfortunately for us not favored by the graces of the gods, the CNE web page is overloaded and readers of this puny critical blog will have to wait for a little bit longer until I can write up something based somewhat on facts.

The abstention is the one to which all fingers point. It seems that chavismo never got the numbers of votes of August. But since the abstention was proposed by sectors of the opposition we will not be able to use this election as a marker on how genuine were the results of August. I am sure that the abstentionists (?) will be delighted to see that not only they mucked the horizon even further, but they improved Chavez holdings. They achieved zilch. Tal Cual editorial today was quite clear on that, showing a few pinkies, unpolluted from the electoral ink used to mark voters, pointing at each other. An "I told you so" from Teodoro Petkoff that will remain for the annals.

Just like on April 1999, chavismo is going to laugh all the way to the electoral bank.

Division is also addressed by Petkoff as another factor that not only de-motivated the electorate but contributed to a few losses by itself as all the vulnerable chavista governors had their work made it easy for them. My predictions of the table I emitted a few days ago are thus more than negatively confirmed. However the Tal Cual editorial also states that all the governors that had a good record, that fought hard against Chavez and that managed to avoid serious divisions either won or are waiting for the final count to make it after all (Yaracuy and Carabobo in particular). Gee, I could have written that editorial now that I think of it....

More later, but I am leaving you with the Weil editorial cartoon of Tal Cual who shows chavismo (U-A, Chavez no se va!) defeating the finger that dared to vote, without cheating. Right now I am not talking of outright fraud since the problem seems to be in the results that have not been added up, the CNE delaying publications of these results that could make a difference in some states. We'll see how things develop. There is certainly REP fraud already documented but that would have affected mostly town halls and state assembly seats, not governors which were felled by abstention and desunion.