December 16, 2005

Venezuela electoral results watch, Day 12 or how I stopped worrying and learned to love the CNE.

Venezuela has no final electoral results so far. This, despite the fact that the Venezuelan Ministry of Electoral Affairs, which is controled directly by the Vice-President's office, touts the Venezuelan Electoral system as being the safest, most transparent, fastest and fairest of them all worldwide. This, despite the fact that the Venezuelan M.E.A. (the artist formerly known as CNE) spent Millions of dollars on machines the SENIAT (another one of the new weapons of mass coercion the government has put in use against who oppose it) deemed too unsafe to be used as lottery terminals. This, despite the fact that by Sunday Dec. 4th at night the M.E.A. had supposedly tallied 75% of the vote. This, despite the fact that only one faction was disputing seats in the Assembly. This, despite the fact that the first round of Chilean elections had tallied a national final result by the evening of the very same day the election took place.

The Minister of Electoral Affairs, the Spa-loving, massage-receiving, objective-criticism-only-accepting 'straight arrow' Dr. Jorge Rodríguez, has made miryad public appearances these days. He has even given press conferences where he has attacked the EU/OAS observator mission report as biased, and has left possibilities open to accept "objective" criticism. He has yet to give final, final numbers.