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

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.

Dark options

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

There was a fraud? You don't say!

Procrastination pays. I was seeking my words for an intellectually powerful analysis of the electoral results of last Sunday "vote". But lack of Internet (it came back last night, after 6 days out!) made postpone the enlightenment you guys deserved so richly.

Well, what do you know!? There is no need to discuss those "results" of "8+ millions votes" that nobody saw on the streets Sunday!

The constituent assembly electoral fraud

After finishing a series of posts to explain how we have reached the current situation I thought that it may be good to have targeted entries as we get ready for July 30.  Let's start with the constitutional assembly to be elected on July 30th, if the regime has its way.

Regardless of the legality and scope of that assembly the very electoral system to be used makes it totally unacceptable and forces the opposition to a confrontation. Here is an incomplete laundry list of all that is wrong with the constitutional assembly voting system:

A: the electoral body

*Not all votes are equal. If you vote in Baruta district (235.000 electors) you need at least thirteen of you to compensate for a single vote from, say, Buroz district (17.000 electors).   That is right, one vote of a Buroz denizen is equal to 13 votes of a Baruta denizen and they are both in the SAME state. No need even for an inter state comparison. Why? Because the election to the assembly is one representative per district, regardless of population.

Electoral mish-mash, or how to win when you lose an election

Today was a day rich in electoral content but woefully poor in electoral solutions.

From chavismo side, at another failed rally of forced supporters, Maduro went ahead and announced how the constitutional assembly will be elected. Well, half of it anyway. The part corresponding to the corporative members is still unclear but that is not a problem for chavismo since these members elected through "organizations" will go at least 80% for them, courtesy of all the political controls and apartheid like access of the non chavista population.

Update on French elections

Yesterday I went to vote at the Caracas French embassy. I smelled tear gases wafting around us.  On one side democracy, on the other democracy's assassins.

Me and Hillary

Around US election time I allow myself a post where I express my opinion. I am of those who think that foreigners should have a say in the US election since we will all pay the consequences of that vote. But of course, there goes another utopia. Also, I get a lot of flack from such posts, mostly from right wingers that understand any critical view of Republican candidates as pure and simple communism making Chavez too good for me, and... (more follows from puffed red faces that I can easily imagine from the comments).

Not for me at this point in life to be deterred by such comments, the more so that blogging has become an occasional hobby for me. So there I go.

Crucial elections everywhere, dramatic conclusions! Shame and pride for all!

Today we had dramatic elections in three areas of the world and curiously, I can put them together in a way that they relate to Venezuela! Not necessarily directly but bear with me.

2013 in review: the year we realized that the Venezuelan electorate is wretched and vile

To open this entry allow me to mention a fabulous article of Javier Brassesco in El Universal today. Venezuela celebrates on December 28th its equivalent of April's fool in the rest of the world. What Brassesco shows us today is that Caracas has felt at least 18 times for the false promises the regime made to improve the city. Since 1999 he enumerates 18 major instances that may have gotten as far as the first stone and pretty much nothing else since.  For good measure one of the 18 he mentions is pre-Chavez, but he also tells us that Chavez made sure that "Paseo Vargas" can never be fulfilled because it is now blocked by Soviet style buildings he disposed in its way because of Mision Vivienda, one of the greatest stains on urban design ever.

Getting ready for 2014 (3): there are two electoral problems

The knowledgeable reader may wonder how come I chose as a third forecast entry to talk about the electoral system since technically there are no elections before December 2015. Don't we have more pressing problems to solve like the economic crisis ahead, the leadership of the opposition, or more pragmatically, ways to resist for two years the dictatorship and force this one to go again to elections, even if rigged?

The French legislative elections

If you do not care about French politics or if good electoral maps leave you cold, you may skip this post altogether.

The 2012 French Vote: the Venezuelan representative

After voting for president a few weeks ago, last Saturday for the first time ever I was allowed to vote for a Representative to the French National Assembly.  And it was quite a tale of woe, worthy of a Venezuelan "telenovela".

The French vote: electoral maps wet dreams

Long time readers of this blog must recall my love of maps and charts, and the electoral ones best.  The French are truly the masters of the genre.  In a previous post I pointed out the ones from Liberation which I judged in the past easiest and best.  But this time around Le Monde came back swinging and bringing some real great stuff, not only to analyze the result of last Sunday but also to start looking at the implications for the legislative vote of June.  Oh dear...  if in Venezuela we could get something a quarter that good...  but then again, what for?, considering the elector motivations in this joint.....  So, for those of you nerdy enough to love such stuff, click on and enjoy.

France: a more undecided result than what many may think.

And by writing the title I do not mean to say that Sarkozy has a chance to win the second round two weeks from today, but that the margin of victory for Hollande is far from certain and the result of the legislative elections in late May are quite up in the air, with a possible socialist landslide that will be absolutely meaningless.  In short, today's vote is far, very far, from yielding a government that will be able to tackle some of the badly needed reforms for France's welfare state to survive in some recognizable form.

And of course this post is also a wonderful excuse to look at the fabulous electoral maps that only the French seem able to do, and Liberation best of all for the past couple of decades.

The first map we are looking at is the general result  for France, AND its overseas territories.  At this point, barely 8 hours after polls have closed, the only ones missing are the embassies (the grey dot in the bottom).  For the record France still uses paper ballots and yet within an hour of polls closing the results were clear and everyone had acknowledged them.  Though in all fairness, before the Paris metro area results percolated.  Since then, the initial hysteria of Le Pen at 20% and Hollande beating Sarkozy by 4 points have receded.  Le Pen is at midnight still at a scary 18 points and Sarkozy is losing now by "only" 1.5 point. And Melenchon is less ridiculous than 4 hours ago.

Carta abierta a Socorro Hernández, la malandra del CNE

Muy querida Socorro Hernández, del directorio del CNE

Estoy siguiendo en directo el escrutinio de los votos en España. Todo manual. Una hora después del cierre de las urnas en España (y cerraron todas) cierran las de las islas Canarias. A penas cierran en las Canarias y ya el ministerio del interior, cuyo ministro es un socialista que coordina el acto electoral, nada de CNE por esos lares, da el primer parte con 13% escrutado con ya amplia ventaja al partido de oposición. Media hora más y ya los votos escrutados pasan del 20%. A las 9:35 PM, 1.5 horas después de cerrar en Madrid ya son 64% escrutados. ¡Ha! Se me olvidaba mencionar que a las 8 PM al cerrar las urnas, sin que cierren todavía las de Canarias, se autorizaba a publicar los sondeos de boca de urnas, a pesar de unos cuantos todavía estaban esperando dentro de los centros de votación su turno.

Local elections in Spain

No, this post is not about the socialist rout in Spain earlier today, it is about how elections , local elections at that, are reported on the web. If you look at El Pais, the reference paper of Spain, their web page gives you a few hours after polls closed something like 99% of the results, depending on the region.  Not only that, you get most of the local details, the assembly composition, etc, etc.  And even better, you have a tag so you can download .xml data and make your own calculations.  As a reminder, in Venezuela we are still waiting for the complete results of the 2007 referendum, and the embassy votes are still not published because, well, Chavez lost too much there and we are not supposed to know about that.  Go to the web page and play around even if you have no idea where in the world Spain is.  And then wonder about the CNE trying to convince us to accept that it needs to buy new electoral machines that will link your fingerprint with your vote, killing once and for all the vote secret in Venezuela if we let the CNE get away with this.

Peru, encrypted chavismo and reelection as a curse

I did sort of follow the Peruvian election, but now I regret that I did not follow it closely as it has turned out to be quite interesting, and significant for the future of our region.  But first, let's dismiss the Peruvian election before we get into the real good stuff-

The two electoral mistakes of the Venezuelan opposition

About a month ago I was asked by my very esteemed colleague Juan Nagel to write about a point I made in his comment section. With travel and all it took me that long to abide but I do hope that it will be as useful as it would have been then. The topic was electoral mistakes by the opposition since we disagreed in that for me boycotting the 2005 vote was not necessarily a mistake and certainly not the worst one.

I think that the Venezuelan opposition has made two fundamental electoral mistakes since Chavez arrived on the political scene in 1998. True, electoral mistakes are also political mistakes, but for the sake of the argument I will consider them as separate mistakes which consequences can be electoral and/or political.  For example, if you will, the strike of 2002 can be considered as a political mistake, the boycott of 2005 and electoral mistake and the lack of follow up to that electoral result a political mistake.  That is, if you think those were mistakes which is not a debate for this text.

When the truly defeated think they won

I am amazed at reading that Nancy Pelosi will try to remain as minority leader in the House Democrats group.  In other words, the GOP needs little bit more than to name its candidate for 2012, half of the election job already done for him/her.  In that article from the WaPo we actually read that the Pelosi camp is squarely putting the blame on Obama, making us wonder what the heck is going on within the democratic party, if they are now suicidal.