Monday, August 08, 2005
Waiting...
So far almost no official results of the Venezuelan local elections have been announced. Extra-officially Primero Justicia claims to have done well in Eastern Caracas (no surprise there) and the small pro-Chavez party (Patria Para Todos) claims to have won two mayors offices in the state of Carabobo. The delay in announcing the winners stems from these being local races and the results are to be tabulated and reported locally, not from the central offices in Caracas.
The number of people who voted has also not been announced yet. But the voting appeared light and in line with previous local elections where around 25% of the people voted. Despite the Venezuelan opposition rumor mill claiming there would be massive fraud to show more people voting than actually did it sure doesn't look that way now. But no surprise with the opposition assertions just turning out to be propaganda and lies either.
Anyways, to close this post which essentially has no information I thought I'd give a quote from yesterday's Ultimas Noticias that was good. It was from Jorge Rodriguez, the head of Venezuela's electoral board, the CNE:
"In a democracy, you count the people who vote, not the people who don't vote."
UPDATE Maybe they should get their money back on the Smartmatic voting machines. Its 11:30 a.m. on the day after and still no results have been given. At this rate they don't need automated voting - everyone could use paper ballots and they could all be hand counted quicker than this. This is a pretty lame performance by the CNE.
UPDATE II Finally the CNE is coughing up some information. The abstention rate overall was 69.18% - ie about 31% of potential voters voted. Nothing to be proud of but pretty predictable for "dog catcher" elections. Also, it appears the pro-Chavez candidate is Amazonas won - the only really meaningful result of the day. Awaiting more information.
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The number of people who voted has also not been announced yet. But the voting appeared light and in line with previous local elections where around 25% of the people voted. Despite the Venezuelan opposition rumor mill claiming there would be massive fraud to show more people voting than actually did it sure doesn't look that way now. But no surprise with the opposition assertions just turning out to be propaganda and lies either.
Anyways, to close this post which essentially has no information I thought I'd give a quote from yesterday's Ultimas Noticias that was good. It was from Jorge Rodriguez, the head of Venezuela's electoral board, the CNE:
"In a democracy, you count the people who vote, not the people who don't vote."
UPDATE Maybe they should get their money back on the Smartmatic voting machines. Its 11:30 a.m. on the day after and still no results have been given. At this rate they don't need automated voting - everyone could use paper ballots and they could all be hand counted quicker than this. This is a pretty lame performance by the CNE.
UPDATE II Finally the CNE is coughing up some information. The abstention rate overall was 69.18% - ie about 31% of potential voters voted. Nothing to be proud of but pretty predictable for "dog catcher" elections. Also, it appears the pro-Chavez candidate is Amazonas won - the only really meaningful result of the day. Awaiting more information.
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