The first communique

Some things are strange but overall it is what I had previewed so I guess I cannot complain.

The opposition so far won Zulia, Miranda, Nueva Esparta and the very symbolically charged Mayor at Large of Caracas. So already we are plus 2, and two big ones, compared to 2004.

Two states are still too close to call, dixit CNE, Tachira and Carabobo. I still think that they are going to go opposition, and Globovision agrees with me.

Chavismo won the rest and swept away the dissidence (that is the part I have a problem with though I can understand that the opposition did not want to vote for the freshly minted dissidence, a lesson full of sinister forebodings).

My two failures so far are Sucre and Merida, though Merida I had predicted leaning, not for. After all I wrote that Davila was a lousy candidate and that his victory would be due to mayoral victories in Merida's capital and El Vigia. I did think a lot about Merida and only in the last minute I reluctantly put it in the oppo column. Next time I should listen to my gut feeling more.

Too early to evaluate the results of course. If Tachira and Carabobo go oppo, the opposition can be happy and Venezuela is different. A good victory but Chavez can lick his wounds. Though a constitutional change will be now much more difficult if the trinity Zulia-Carabobo-Miranda go oppo in the end.

To really measure the worth of this result we need to wait for the town hall results. Winning Aragua, for example, is one thing, but if Maracay goes opposition it dims the luster of the victory a lot. We will see tomorrow. Now it has been a long day and I am off to bed. Not happy but not sad either. Let me remind the readers who are reading this late at night that the opposition made too many mistakes to think that in one simple election it could reverse all of them at once. It is a good step on the road of recovery. At least we got real fighters in the new positions, Capriles, Ocariz and Ledezma, right at Chavez door.

In other words, as it happened in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and now 2008, an election was held and nothing was solved; the fight for the next election starts tomorrow. But here is a good piece of news: we got rid of some dead wood and some lousy leaders whose future is now very bleak: Diosdado Cabello, Jesse Chacon, Aristobulo Isturiz, Claudio Fermin, the Lapi dynasty, Andres Velasquez and Rojas Suarez, William Davila, Galindez... True Chavez will recycle his debris, but he must be happy that they will not be a challenge for him now. Expect the complete downfall of Disodado soon....

-The end-