No results, just data

 The opposition held this week its parallel election called "consulta popular". Whatever its result their weigh will be limited because the regime has embarked in a new course which includes not only  elimination of a real opposition but even of normal elements of civil society it cannot control (1).  This is Cuba in waiting for you. You doubt me? Let's look at the "result" of Sunday 6.

You were the one who count the votes?
You got this.

With almost 70% of the vote the regime gets around 92% of the seats (the undecided in the graph next have mostly gone PSUV).

Nobody with a minimum of knowledge on electoral system, and how "elections" take place in Venezuela was surprised. The only ones surprised were the collection of pseudo-opposition parties who as "Mesa de Negociacion" were the caution used by the regime to change the electoral system and call for the illegal elections. That MdN did not expect to be so laminated. They "thought" that what had been agreed with the regime would improve the proportional representation. It made it worse, with close to zero minority representation! And note that the regime twisted some of the counting "electoral coalitions" post election to give them two more seats since not all major "leaders" were elected (2). That added more illegality but who's counting?

Not a victory

The first "results" have fallen but I did not follow. It was nice to spend an evening without worrying about elections results, for a change.  Instead we did the Christmas tree at home, with a live tree to be planted in the yard in January. After 3 years of grief, sickness and exile it was nice to set a small christmas decoration....

Not at a cross roads

The election that is held today in Venezuela is not bringing the country at a crossroads, it is the end of a long and painful involution. 

The 2020 election post: the vote funeral

For those still aware of the existence of this blog you may remember that I had a post or posts about Venezuelan elections since 2003. Sometimes with quite a good prediction success.  This time I can guarantee you that tomorrow the Maduro regime will get a landslide.

In fact, the only question is how far the regime will go into tweaking the results to make sure that the"opposition" gets a credible number of seats.....

The Pompeo storm

Today we had yet another example on how the failures of the opposition outmatch its successes.

Secretary of state Mike Pompeo had a private conversation on Venezuela that was leaked (I personally wonder whether he wanted that to be leaked). In that conversation he said two important things: that the Venezuelan opposition was very hard to organize into some form or real unity and that it was because there were at least 40 folks that wanted the US to annoint them as the next president of Venezuela. (1)

“Our conundrum, which is to keep the opposition united, has proven devilishly difficult”

“The moment Maduro leaves, everybody’s going to raise their hands and [say], ‘Take me, I’m the next president of Venezuela.’ It would be forty-plus people who believe they’re the rightful heir to Maduro.”

The eight day challenge: myths of snap elections

Yesterday the European Union, clearly in trouble in finding a single voice on how to deal with the current situation on Venezuela, emitted through some countries what was termed an "ultimatum" to Maduro. What I saw myself as a great tool form the EU generated a tweet storm of rejection that surprised me. Well, maybe not, the Venezuelan tweetosphere has become quite deleterious.  Perhaps that hysterical opposition expects the foreign legion to land tomorrow to free us?
So as a new public service I am going explain a few electoral details to understand the whys of the ultimatum details.

How does operate the European Union foreign policy

The results are in, the fraud is scandalous, again

So there are the official results so far:

Maduro 5,823,728
Falcon 1,820,522
Bertucci 925,042
Quijada 36,614

Participation, CNE RECOGNIZED, 46%

Participation from other sources range from a 32% for Reuters to a 17% for Meganalisis

Other data:
*the lowest electoral participation in a presidential election in 30 years, the lowest one was 56% in 2000. Note: as far as I know all previous presidential elections since 1958 have been above 56%. Venezuelan "democracy" at its worst showing.
*Falcon and Bertucci are not going to recognize the result, discovering suddenly that there was fraud.

Oh well....  Where should I start?

The electoral fraud day post

I used to have an election day post when there was some surprise to be expected, when I bothered in going around taking picture of voting centers, etc.  Now the international press covers all of that and my pen is not needed anymore.  And twitter does a good job covering everything, be it  from that German De Linke representative Simone Barrientos saying that the election today is wonderful, that people are voting with enthusiasm, to the pictures of empty voting stations.

So, how should we read the day?

We are already May 21

I was not planning on writing today. But three tweets sort of forced me to do so.  They are telling, among so many tweets these days, that we are turning a page, that Maduro with his beyond expected victory tomorrow is in fact is merely closing a cycle.

I shall not vote: the ethical thing to do

Again, not that it matters to most readers or to the regime. But I thought that I should give a reasoned account on why I am not voting.

The simple reason is that the system is so screwed up that voting or not makes no difference.  It is not that I am still registered in San Felipe though now forced to live in Caracas and too lazy to drive. Even if I were back in San Felipe I would not vote.

The ruin of Falcon Crest

What legacy will Henri Falcon's stunt leave us?  His ulterior motives at this point are of little interest. Many a speculation swirls, from him being Raul Castro choice to do the transition government, to him being an overambitious military a la Chavez.

Rather, let's look why his candidature was fraud since day one, and thus why his campaign is so flawed that even his victory will not be recognized. Next, as concise a summary as possible for those late in the game. (1)

First, his bid was born outside of the opposition electoral alliance MUD. His argument that there was no time to run a primary falls short. He could have sent an ultimatum to the MUD as to whether they decided to run and name a candidate or he would run anyway. Instead he registered discretely almost at the end of the registration period.

The end is near

And it cannot be otherwise.

Prendre les gens pour des cons

The title is a French expressions that loosely mean "thinking that I/they am/are idiots" but way stronger.  Sorry, but tonight I cannot find the English words to qualify the campaigns of Maduro and Falcon, both campaigns abusing of the misery of the people and thinking that we shall not notice.  In all truth, I suppose, neither one is managing to rouse passions, so they need to resort to outright distribution of whatever is at hand so at least some people will attend their rallies. Two tweets from today.

First Maduro having his henchmen throwing food at people.

The red ants.
At @NicolasMaduro campaign rallies to make people attend there are free distribution of food.
I'll leave it to you for conclusions. https://t.co/HtMj9ZJoSq

— daniel duquenal (@danielduquenal) May 12, 2018

And then the Falcon campaign, poorer by far but surprisingly (?) better funded than expected.  He had his own henchmen throwing banknotes at people like confetti. In truth the banknotes thrown are not worth much more than confetti, each one worth, say, 1/6.000 of a fully fledged good greenback.  Yes, that is right, the 100 banknote is forth less than 1/60th of a penny.  No wonder people gathered them but there was less enthusiasm than for the food air throwing of food.  What we are seeing flying are at best 100-200 hundred dollars.

And if you thought that @NicolasMaduro was bad enough throwing food at people to boost attendance at his campaign rallies there is @HenriFalconLara throwing banknotes. The ones that have zero value left, those of 50 and 100 when 1USD is 700.000
Chavista/exchavista same shit . https://t.co/hnNm3Yp04Z

— daniel duquenal (@danielduquenal) May 12, 2018

Both only bring in me utter contempt for them, both chavista thinking so lowly of their followers. Juts herded cattle for them, just good enough to play the pantomime of an election. Well, one is an ex-chavista but the brain damage was done in him.

What shall I do next Sunday to keep busy?  Huuummm......

Voting nowhere fast

I guess I need to write about the electoral campaign. Years ago this blog was flooded with entries on candidates, polls, statistics and predictions more accurate than wrong. But now the voting system is utterly rigged and for all that we know the percentile difference between Maduro and Falcon is already a given. Maduro will win by AT LEAST 15%. The only question is whether he will dare to have a higher percentile than Chavez top in 2006. My guess is that he will not resist the temptation.

Speaking of entries on candidates.  It is a sad spectacle to see how burned Falcon is. Oh!, not a surprise at all, but really, the guy has been found out and yet he persists in pretending that he is fooling us, that his defeat will be because of the opposition abstention, etc, etc, but never any self awareness that actually people cannot vote for him. Period.

Idiots in NYC: or how Falcon sunk his presidencial run

Last post was hard to write, and the whirlwind of political news too hard to write about comprehensively. Thankfully procrastination does pay and today's picture from the UN plaza in NYC was worth the wait.  An epic photo-fail if ever.

From left to right, a kebab from hell:
Samuel Moncada, regime's ambassador to the UN and vice minister for foreign affairs;
Henri Falcon wanna-be Maduro successor; Felipe Mujica head of the near extinct weather vane MAS;
some hired help; and Pedro Pablo Fernandez, son of wanna-be foreign secretary to Falcon Eduardo Fernandez,
and probably aiming himself for some crumbs somewhere as no one in the MUD would be caught dead with him.

In this historic pose you can see how Henri Falcon sunk any chance he may have had to be elected president next May 20. By posing in front of the United Nations accompanied by the ambassador of Venezuela there, the much reviled and insufferable Samuel Moncada, Henri Falcon admits that his presidential candidature is wanted by the regime, and that he is in agreement with it.  That is, Henri Falcon and the scattered losers that support him are complicit with the regime in the fraudulent elections coming May 20.

PERIOD.

These people had the chutzpah to try to get a meeting with high members of the UN so as to force this one to send an observation team to validate the election of May 20.  That a serious observation requires at the very least 3 months of observation and more before for mere preparation is not computing with them.  Then again whoever low key UN member that received them ("the UN is under obligation to help Venezuela" was said by the traveling show)  had probably already read that.

There are some damage controls that are beyond reach.  A picture is indeed worth a thousand words.

Something shifted somewhere under someone's feet

Three things happened today that tells us something is brewing inside chavismo.

My important/favorite is defense minister Padrino announcing  that he is against armed colectivos.  You know, those colectivos which are nothing else but paramilitary thugs wearing red shirts and working for the regime. Chavismo version of storm troopers.

The reason was certainly the damaging video out of this weekend maneuvers that went viral and that I tweeted below (I am more active on Twitter than on Blog, the more so that it is easier now to make micro posts in Twitter)

A paramilitary group this week end in Caracas. It does not matter wether you underatand Spanish: the theatrics of violence, hate, intimidation and abuse are crystal clear.
Venezuela as the novel totalitarian state. https://t.co/XTLzRJqEsl

— daniel duquenal (@danielduquenal) February 26, 2018

Falcon Crest? Millennium Falcon? The Maltese one?

Good news guys, the inscription for presidential election is over, we know all the names. They are all chavistas.  Even if the propaganda network TeleSur says without blushing that the opposition has registered ITS candidate under the name of Henri Falcon.

La oposición tiene su candidato. #VenezuelaDecide pic.twitter.com/761XdvCFh6

— Patricia Villegas (@pvillegas_tlSUR) February 27, 2018

So many things wrong with that picture......

Dark options

I am writing this as I am listening to Górecki #3 "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs". You have been warned. (1)

And check one more for Maduro: the terrible state of Venezuelan opposition

I keep postponing writing on what to do about Venezuela, the more so now that international pressure is growing in earnest. But everyday here I get new evidence that Maduro's domination (not strength, that is another matter) is at least based on half his wiles and a good portion of the opposition willingness to play bull to its matador.

The unconstitutional assembly decided that those parties that did not field candidates in December elections were cancelled and had to prove again that they did exist and had following enough to deserve a voting ballot.  Not only this was a stupid (and illegal) reason, but it betrayed how upset the regime is when it "wins" by default. There is no pleasing these psychos....

Nothing like throwing in a little presidential election to distract folks

Today, without much a surprise besides the chutzpah temporary effect, the regime decided to call for presidential election by April 30.

I am not to go into the illegality of it all. At this point "legal" has probably been erased from the Venezuelan dictionary.  Just a comment: in Venezuela, like in the US, there is such a thing as fixed term mandate. That is, whoever is elected by April 30 (surprise, it will be Maduro!), cannot be sworn in until January 2019.

So why go into such a farce? That is what is interesting to discuss.