Great Moments in Profound Reflection

Quico says: As the Suitcase Full'o'Cash scandal metastasizes, and Carlos Kauffman (another of Juan Carlos Zapata's publicly identified Bolibourgeois Idols) starts memorizing the water stain patterns on his jail cell's ceiling, I'm again struck that Venezuela has become a net importer of scandals: what we find out about Maletagate we'll find out only because the FBI is on it. Our own oversight institutions long ago got out of the business of, y'know, investigating stuff.

Come to think of it, we almost never hear from Venezuela's oversight bodies these days. As it turns out, the terms of office of the "Citizen's Branch" agency heads (Prosecutor General, Comptroller General and Human Rights Ombudsman) are about to expire, giving the all-Chavista National Assembly a sterling opportunity to demonstrate the depth of its post referendum loss reflection.

Personally, I didn't expect much: if there's one thing chavismo has demonstrated over the years is that they're allergic to oversight. I couldn't imagine these guys appointing non-partisan figures to such sensitive positions.

The powerful Fiscalía, in particular, is just too juicy a prize to hand off to someone who might not follow orders: jeepers, the wrong people could end up in jail! So the choice of the unabashedly fanatical Luisa Ortega Diaz to replace the stomach-turningly supine Isaías Rodríguez as Prosecutor General was not a surprise.

The new Human Rights Ombuds(wo)man, Gabriela Ramírez, is an unknown quantity...to me, at any rate. All Google seems to know about her is she used to be a National Assembly member, was real concerned about that video game Mercenaries 2, and worked as the Sí referendum campaign's liaison with CNE. I don't suppose we should expect any sudden outbreaks of institutional autonomy on that front, but then the Defensoría is not a very powerful agency anyway.

What does surprise me is what they're doing with the Contraloría, an agency the 1999 constitution envisions as a GAO-style, non-partisan auditor: the front line in the fight against corruption.

Since 2000, the agency’s been in the hands of appalling partisan hack Clodosvaldo Russián, who has beaten out some stiff competition in the race to be remembered as Venezuela’s most useless Comptroller ever, concentrating his anemic investigative energies on digging into corruption allegations at opposition led state and local governments. This is a guy who thinks the real corruption problem in Venezuela is at the Chacao Mayor's Office, even as the Antonini Wilson demographic takes the looting of the res publica to the next level.

I honestly thought chavismo would put a more credible figure in the Contraloría at the end of Russián's term. Not out of any constitutionalist scruple, mind you, just for political reasons.

After all, disgust over corruption probably cost Chávez the referendum. Nothing disenchants NiNis and softcore chavistas more than the sense that the nation's wealth, their wealth, is being plundered by the well connected few. The revolution was supposed to be exactly about putting an end to that, wasn't it?

Think about it: how many of those 3 million + people who voted for Chávez in 2006 but didn't vote at all this year stayed home out of disgust over bolibourgeois corruption? Probably quite a few. And who is responsible for that, if not the Contralor?

Alas, not only is the National Assembly making a Sí campaign apparatchik Ombuds(wo)man, they've also decided to give Clodosvaldo Russián another term as Comptroller. (By my calculation, that'll make him 182 years old by the time he retires.)

The Assembly's message here is clear: "let us make two, three...many Antonini Wilsons!"

These appointments speak volumes about chavistas' staggering inability to process the message voters sent on Dec. 2nd. By now, their unconstitutionality is no longer news. But their political clumsiness surely is...

What would Mafalda say?

Katy says: Year's worth of Maybeline makeup... $1,000
Botox injections ... $600
Designer dress ... $1,000
Spiked Manolo Blahniks to wear for a summit ... $450
Collagen injections for your lips ... $3,000
Buses for your final campaign rally ... $50,000
Getting mired in a major campaign-finance scandal only three days after being sworn in ... Priceless

For turning out the vote, there is the Peronista machinery. For everything else, there's Chávez. Un-official sponsor of the Kirchners.

PS.- Friend and loyal reader Feathers has the back story on the characters involved in this grand scheme. Pura joyita!

¿Y dónde están las actas?

Quico says: Yesterday I interviewed Primero Justicia's representative to CNE, Juan Carlos Caldera, about the "mystery of the tallysheets" - where the copies of the actas are, and what the opposition has been doing with them. He said Primero Justicia had had witnesses at some 30% of voting tables, and the opposition at more than 80%, without giving me precise figures.

He said the actas are not yet all in one place, and that separate political parties are following different procedures for handling them. He reiterated nobody had found any inconsistencies with CNE results. He expressed a willingness to publish PJ's acta database, but was not totally committal about it.

There's much more detail if you listen to the interview audio (in Spanish - MP3 file - 3.6 mb).

Winning in Petare, shooting for Parapara

Katy says:

"All politics is local"
- Former US Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill.

Many things changed in the last election: chavistas stayed home or otherwise voted No; opposition people stayed home; the CNE declared an opposition win. Yet one of the few constants was the sharp disconnect between rural and urban Venezuela's voting patterns.

The victory of the No was concentrated in wealthier, mostly urban states such as Zulia, Miranda and Carabobo. Surprisingly, the No even won in places like Petare, thanks to the efforts of the student movement and local politicians who have been trekking those cerros for years now.

However, Chavez won in the rural Llanos and in places like Monagas and Bolívar, where the presence of the state looms larger than average. These results highlight how important local knowledge is in turning out the vote, and they also point to the obvious next step for the opposition.

Let's look at a concrete example. The state of Guárico overwhelmingly approved of the Constitutional Reform, 58% to 42%. However, neighboring Anzoátegui favored the No by 54% to 46%. Does this mean that somehow Guariqueños are more prone to communism than Anzoateguienses?

Hardly. The difference is probably due to the fact that the opposition retains some presence in Anzoátegui, whereas they are practically nonexistent in Guárico. In fact, most people in Guárico probably did not even find out there was an opposition in this election. Since Guárico has few elected officials that do not belong to chavismo, there is no student movement to speak of and Globovisión probably does not reach many homes in Calabozo, the government has a virtual monopoly on the state.

Even within Guárico the divide is clear. While in San Juan de los Morros, the capital, the "Si" option won by a hair (50.4% to 49.5%), the government won overwhelmingly in places such as Parapara, trouncing the opposition 70% to 30%.

The issues in rural Venezuela are different than in the cities. People in rural areas don't care much about high-brow concepts such as "freedom", "democracy" and "Cuba", but more about basic things like health care, education, land reform and patronage from the state.

Without a permanent presence in rural Venezuela, it's simply no contest for the government. People in Parapara don't watch Globovisión, and they haven't the foggiest idea who opposition politicians such as Manuel Rosales or Yon Goicoechea are.

In both rural and urban Venezuela, turning out the vote is crucial, and the most effective way of accomplishing that is by having local authorities on the ground. Local politicians make the difference. They know their neighbors, they can quickly scan voting centers, they can rally volunteers, and yes, they can establish patronage linkages - after all, this is Venezuela we're talking about.

Our victory was a narrow one, one that can be quickly overturned. We must build on it by staging another one, and continue to prepare for more important battles down the road. Regional elections scheduled for October 2008 are the perfect way of building on that - we can't do worse than how we did in the last ones, and we have plenty of time to get organized, build coalitions and sustain our momentum.

Furthermore, political parties have suffered from not having a way of channeling the efforts their faithful have made into something else. After all, people join political parties (in theory, at least) because they want to participate in public policy and effect a change in the country. Parties that cannot deliver on these goods suffer after a while. They are channels for making a change, but if we keep relying on a mainly volunteer force that cannot make changes and where the volunteers cannot actually *work* in public life, parties will wither down and die, and with them democracy.

To me, regional elections are the way to go. If we want to get ready for further battles, we need to start casting our net a little more widely. Elected local politicians can help us accomplish this more easily. Everything else is a distraction.

All I want for Christmas is a Fujitsu FI-5900C

Quico says: Granted, it costs $20,000, but what a nice toy. Scanning 120 pages per minute, and boasting "Triple Ultrasonic Double Feed Detection with Intelligent MultiFeed Function" (not Double Ultrasonic Double Feed Detection, mind you, triple) this baby can make high quality scans of 33,000 documents of your choice in less than five hours. Once you've done that, putting the corresponding images online is a breeze.

Now, we all know the opposition political parties in Venezuela are strapped for cash...but is $20,000 really too much to ask for electoral transparency? How different would our outlook be, vis-a-vis the next election, if the oppo political parties could show us the actas they collected a week ago, if they demonstrated to us that their the results CNE has announced are backed up by their copies of the tallysheets and audit reports, instead of asking us to take their word for it?

As it stands, Sunday's referendum results seem likely to become yet another low level electoral cangrejo, an ongoing riddle of slightly out-of-whack numbers that nobody can verify because the handful of people with direct access to the underlying documentation treat it as though it belongs to them. From the point of view of the acta holders, it may be that letting this particular sleeping dog lie is the most politically expedient course of action right now. Certainly, revealing a final outcome that's closer than what has already been announced would be awkward for both CNE and the opposition political parties, for different reasons.

Problem is, political expediency shouldn't have anything to do with it. We have a right to see complete, accurate, documented results every time we vote. Simple as that.

Rumors of CNE's competence have been greatly exaggerated

Quico says: I hate to write this, but for transparency's sake, I'm forced to. It took the eagle eyed maths monsters who read this blog all of twenty minutes to realize something is seriously weird about CNE's second bulletin.

As amieres put it...

Lucena said that the second bulletin is for 94% of the actas (first bulletin was 86%). But she didn't announce enough new votes.

First bulleting ---> 8,857,797 valid votes
Second bulleting-> 8,899,721 valid votes

I would expect at least 500,000 more valid votes. But she announced only 42,000 more votes than the first bulletin.

According to amieres, they're saying they added 7% of actas, over 2300, but they account for just 42,000 votes...

That means an average of 18 votes per acta. Those same missing actas in 2006 had an average of 232 valid votes, after adjusting for the larger abstention. Furthermore, when I considered only the 2300 actas with the smallest turnout, the average was still 163 valid votes per acta.

Not for the first time, I'm left wondering what bizarre game CNE is playing.

Why can't anything ever be straightforward with these people?

Sigh...acta por acta is the only solution. UNT...speak!

CNE 2nd Bulletin: Now it's really, really official

Quico says: With 94% of tallies reporting:

Block A (Proposed by Chávez)
No = 50.65% (4,521,494 votes)
Sí = 49.34% (4,404,626 votes)

Block B (Proposed by the National Assembly)
No=51.01% (4,539,707 votes)
Sí=48,99% (4,360,014 votes)

Turnout=56.15%

CNE head Tibisay Lucena called this a "Final Result" and proclaimed the reform officially not approved. But 2,000 tallies accounting for some 200,000 votes (from remote voting centers, and from consulates) still haven't been counted. Location by location results should be published by Monday.

Now, time to fess up: I have a potty-brain for thinking the final results would be substantially worse for the Sí than the first bulletin suggested. I apologize to CNE, and congratulate them on a job well done.

Belarusian Tinned Stew, anyone?

Quico says: Hugo Chávez never met a dictator he didn't love, so he'll have been delighted to welcome Europe's last to Caracas last night. Maybe Chávez wants some tips on how to win his next referendum to abolish presidential term limits: when Lukashenko had his back in 2004, he stuffed ballots to the tune of 79.4% in favor of Sí (or, I guess, Так).

Lukashenko's priorities for the trip are, one suspects, rather different. Speaking to journalists in Minsk last week, he said there are "good" opportunities for delivering Belarusian goods to Venezuela.

"There is money in Venezuela. We should offer goods," Lukashenko said, adding that it was noted in his personal contacts with Chávez that Venezuela is ready to buy "almost anything Belarus offers for sale." (!!)

That list includes, apparently, Belarusian Tinned Stew. De-lish!

This trip is, quite literally, un guiso.

Once again

Quico says: The best English language account of what's been happening in Venezuela is in The Economist.

Der Untergang

Katy says: Try as I might, it's impossible to look away. President Chávez's reaction to his dramatic loss in Sunday's referendum keeps getting weirder and weirder.

I've been itching to move beyond Chávez and start talking more about the future, the opposition and its options. But he continues to monopolize all attention due, in large part, to his bizarre behavior. It's like watching someone have a very public nervous breakdown.

And while I fancy myself more of an amateur political analyst than shrink, his behavior reminds me so much of that great German movie, Der Untergang (The Downfall), about Hitler's last days. It's all recrimination, all crazy talk, all the time.

The weird thing is that, last Sunday, Chávez did not meet his Waterloo, merely his Stalingrad. Any rational politician would take stock and begin planning his comeback. I guess it's a sign of Chávez's enormous need for power that he feels any temporary setback is a definitive end.

Chávez, coge mínimo y no te arrechéis con el pueblo...

---

(Notice: despite all appearances, the following is not a parody, but my translation of a real press note.)

Chavez slams allies, saying it's their fault he will have to leave power in 2013

In a political rally held at Caracas' Poliedrito, President Hugo Chávez reiterated that he will remain in power until 2013, because some of the people present did not go to vote last Sunday. "As I stated December 2nd, I have been thinking the past few days and I have to leave the government in 2012. You did not approve the reform, so therefore I have to go."

"Shout all you want, the truth is the truth, the Sí lost in Miranda, lost in Caracas, and write this down, the Sí lost in Petare, in the barrios, people didn't vote, a good chunk of the people didn't vote, millions didn't vote, you can say whatever you want but you have no excuse, you have no consciousness, you have no resolve for the fatherland, you have no excuse, revolutionaries don't look for excuses."

He criticized that now people might be saying "that the reason is that I don't like such and such mayor or governor, those are the excuses of the weak, the cowards and the lazy ones, of those who have no conscience, no love for the fatherland, no revolutionary consciousness."

"Here, the Sí lost, you let the Sí lose, Miranda owes me one, people of Miranda and Caracas you owe me a debt, I have it written down in my planner, let's see if you pay your debt to me or if you don't."

"If the people get scared, are confused, forget it then, if the people allow themselves to be blackmailed, if the people let themselves be scammed, if we, the revolutionary leaders, lose sight of our goal and are not able to tame this colt that is the revolution, then all will be lost, write it down, I will be reminding you of this every day. I don't matter at all, what matters is the Venezuelan fatherland, the future of our children, the fatherland of our grandchildren."

"I have been warning you, we are confronting the United States empire, and if we get careless and don't do our job and let ourselves be confused, well, December 2nd is a sign of what will happen."

He affirmed that "our enemy, the empire, does not forgive" and he mentioned that if an option different from his were to win, there would be no community banks, "and what would await the people would be misery for a hundred years more, persecution, violence, racism and abuse."

Curiouser and curiouser...

Quico says: The struggle to get to the real results from Sunday's constitutional reform referendum took a turn for the weird last night, after reader amieres struck again. This time he managed to harvest the 2006 presidential election data from the CNE's "divulgación" website. He warns, however, that not every table at last year's election corresponds to a table in Sunday's referendum.

In total, we now have 3 databases: the 2006 results, the 2007 first bulletin results, and a handy combination of the two. You can go ahead and download them (all three are zipped excel files):

• 2006 Presidential Election Results database. (1.4 mb.)
• Database Underlying CNE's First Announcement of 2007 Results. (1.3 mb. - this is the one I released yesterday.)
• Combined 2006-2007 Results database. (2 mb.)

amieres set out to analyze this data immediately. His preliminary result?...be sure you're sitting down for this.

The 13.6% of voting tables that were not included in Sunday's CNE Results Announcement (primer boletín) are from places that, in 2006, voted more heavily for Chávez than the national trend.

CNE's final result will probably show a smaller margin of victory for the No side than the 1.4% announced on Sunday night.

On the basis of the 2006 results for the missing tables, amieres projects the final outcome will be achingly close.

A second reader, Edgar Brown, came to a similar conclusion using a different method. He notes that in the tables not included in Sunday night's primer boletín, Chávez won the 2006 presidential election by 67.8% to 32.2%. But in the tables that were included in CNE's primer boletín on Sunday night, Chávez won last year by 62.5% to 37.5%. He also concludes that this suggests a narrower victory for the No side than the primer boletín showed.

We beseech all statistically literate readers to have a crack at falsifying this work.

To reiterate, only an acta por acta count can settle these matters definitively. Apparently UNT is working feverishly on that gold standard tallysheet by tallysheet verification as we speak. Lets hope they publish their results soon.

All we can do with the information we have is speculate on an informed basis. At this point, the stories going around about a much more comfortable win for the No side than was reported on election night are difficult to reconcile with the data.

The shit hits the F.A.N.

Quico says: It's now an established talking point in the government's response to Sunday's referendum defeat: by "graciously" accepting he'd lost, Chávez put the lie to the opposition claim that he's some kind of crazy dictator. Like the democrat that he is, he "accepted the will of the people" and moved on...

Or did he?

This afternoon, Chávez turned up unannounced at the Military High Command's press conference and totally freaked out. Less than 72 hours after his "graceful" election night concession speech, the all too predictable Narcissistic Rage response began. He called the opposition's referendum win "a triumph made of shit," using the word "mierda" four times in two sentences on national TV. I mean, you know things have come to a head when Reuter's has to put the journalistic equivalent of a parental advisory at the start of its write up.

And I know everybody says Chávez doesn't drink but...well, you be the judge:



Ahhhh...profound reflection, thine homes are many.

Before this point, he'd hinted that the No side hadn't really won the referendum, but said he'd been graceful enough not to demand the complete tally count that might have nudged his side to victory. He skewered the journalist who reported he had "been pressured" by the Defense Minister to accept defeat, Hernán Lugo Galicia, calling his reporting (wait for it) shit. And then, the cherry on top: he vowed to come right back and propose pretty much the same constitutional reform to the voters all over again.

Even more than the expletives, that last part is the real insult to the Venezuelan people. The electorally suicidal decision to put the same, loser reform in front of the voters again speaks volumes about how shallow Chávez's commitment to democracy really is. Because "accepting the results" doesn't mean simply accepting the brute numerical fact that the other side has more votes than your side. It means accepting the political consequences that follow from the result.

On Sunday, the will of what Chávez used to call the Sovereign People was clear: keep your reforms out of our constitution. In any event, the constitutions article 345 explictly bars him from from putting the same proposal for constitutional reform to the people for a second time in the same term of office. A politician with a sounder grasp of reality might take the message, but the layers of abject sycophancy now insulating the president from the world around him have grown so thick, he's no longer able to make even minimally sensible decisions.

Chávez is treating his referendum defeat the way I might treat failing a driver's license test: it's embarrassing, sure, but no biggie. I just try again a few months later. Even if I failed the first test "fair and square", there's no question of giving up. After all, I need a driver's license.

The only difference is that, as far as Chávez can see, he wasn't the one who failed the exams, it was the voters who goofed. His message to them? "Wrong answer! Go back and vote better next time!" That's not respecting the will of the people, that's deepest, darkest contempt for the will of the people.

Seriously, the guy is loony tunes...

The database underlying CNE's First Bulletin, anyone?

Quico says: As soon as CNE published this website breaking down the Referendum Results by location, my more computer savvy readers realized it would be possible to harvest the data that went into it.

That allows you to reconstruct the database underlying CNE's election night results announcement. With that information in hand, flushing out any hanky panky with the numbers becomes easy, regardless of whether CNE gives out any more information or not.

Longtime reader amieres got there first, for which we all owe him a big thank you:

Click here to download the data underlying CNE's First Bulletin. [excel spreadsheet, 1.3 MB, zipped.]

The data show the first bulletin was based on a count of 86.42% of the machine tallies (29,072 out of 33,639), though it's nuts what we had to go through to get a precise number on that. The data is still incomplete (there is no field for null votes or for abstention, for instance) because, obviously, you can't harvest data CNE hasn't published. But at least now it's in easy-to-read, easy-to-compare and, crucially, easy-to-fill-in-the-blanks form.

The student movement made a big thing about having "all the tallysheets in hand." If they have them, it's straightforward (if time consuming) to fill in the gaps in this spreadsheet with the data from the 4567 actas that CNE did not include in its first bulletin.

That means we can have complete, official, table-by-table, audited results whether or not CNE deigns to announce them.

Enough speculation. Enough rumors. Enough quick counts and projections and guesstimates. Enough bullshit:

Acta por acta.

The rest is noise.

A Fat Man in a Palace

Lucia says: With all respect to the brave and energetic students, the moderate political opposition, and the tea-leaves-reading Baduel, the story of this referendum is Chávez.

The conventional wisdom is that Chávez is an immensely talented politician, with a common touch, loads of charisma, and a crafty talent for turning his anti-American agenda into votes.

It’s true he’s got the gift of blarney, massive self-confidence, and – sometimes -- a real way with words. But the real story behind Chávez’s success has always been the increase in oil revenues and the misiones they funded. Many, many Venezuelans – the entire crucial center, in fact – have supported Chávez despite his antics, despite his ideology and despite his narcissism.

That Chávez himself has never really understood this was crystal clear during the final days of the campaign. He could have spent those final days talking about the proposal to give the misiones constitutional status, he could have focused on buhonero pensions and shorter work hours, and on funding community councils. And most of all, he could have dialed down the crazy.

Instead, he let the crazy fly.

He looked befuddled in his concession speech because he didn’t, couldn’t, understand what had happened.

Katy nailed it: he’s become just a Fat Man in a Palace -- surrounded by Yes Men, disconnected from a shifting political dynamic. Not just drinking but inhaling his own Kool-Aid.

In the end, it's no surprise that man who imagines himself on par with Christ and Bolivar may have an especially hard time integrating reality.

What comes next? No one is predicting that the Chávez team will undertake a sober assessment of the unexpected defeat. Mostly, his people are too busy cringing in palace corners, hoping their heads get to stay on their shoulders a bit longer. Surely, Chávez won’t wait for the Venezuelan people to achieve the requisite maturity -- a barrage of far-reaching legislation is headed our way, as if the rebuke-by-vote never took place.

Heinz Dieterich blows a gasket

Quico says: For those of you who haven't had the pleasure, Heinz Dietrich is Chávez's favorite theorist. Or, maybe I should write "used to be", because I have a feeling when Chávez reads his referendum postmortem, well...

The piece is remarkable from start to finish. Parts of it look like he's lifted them straight off this blog, while others read like the guy keeps a stash of qualudes by his computer. His main point is that the referendum went badly due to bolivarianismo's "vertical system of leadership", which is a little bit like saying that the only problem with this table here is that it has four legs, and a top.

But definitely the best part is when he blames the defeat on...PSFs!

The political price the president has paid for [the vertical system of leadership] was the absence of information about reality, and the filling out of his cabinet and his Miraflores staff with opportunists from the New Political Class who are often not up to their jobs and guarantee his bureaucratic control of the process, but not closeness to the people. A further ring that filters his reality is inside Miraflores where, for instance, the inspectors he is able to send to investigate any problem, have to go through a bottleneck at the Ministry of the Presidency. Something similar happened with the analyses of the "situation room" at the palace where, moreover, control was handed off to a gaggle of young foreign "advisers" (French, Spanish) without political experience, but with very juicy salaries.

That situation with his courtesans was reproduced internationally, generating for him a circuit of individual intellectual sycophants fed with absurd cultural prizes worth $150,000 or $100,000 dollars, and collective ones, such as some leftwing web pages that suppress or marginalize all critical debate about the development of the progressive processes in Venezuela, Cuba and Bolivia.

Alas, Dieterich is too much of a "gentlemen" to name names here, but still, I'm dying to know...which intellectuals...which web pages?

Read his entire postmortem here.

It's not that we're questioning the result - it's that we want to know what the result is!

Quico says: First the good news: Sunday night's referendum proved that, when the chips are down, the Smartmatic voting system (electronic voting with an audited paper trail) makes it essentially impossible to fake the final outcome. You might think that, after years of deep suspicion from opposition folk certain that "a chavista elections council will never, ever announce Chávez lost", the No side's win would at last have put concerns about CNE's credibility to rest.

Really, this should be CNE's star turn... but it isn't, because the way they're handling the final results announcement is an ongoing fiasco.

First, lets just remind ourselves why our voting system makes it nearly impossible to cheat credibly:






One of the system's big selling points was supposed to be speed: doing the official tally electronically allows you to generate results pretty much immediately, as they come in.

On Sunday afternoon, CNE said it would announce results around 7:00 p.m. And they did indeed have enough tallies for a first announcement ready early that evening. But, it was past midnight before CNE head Tibisay Lucena came on the air to announce results, a delay that needlessly scared the hell out of everybody.

What on earth was that about?

Chávez gave us a good hint during his concession speech, saying he'd been faced with a dilemma that night and had been "considering his options." What options? Chávez isn't supposed to have any options at a time like that. CNE is meant to be an independent branch of government. Results come in; results are announced. If they show triple congruence, they're credible. If they don't, they aren't.

Rumors are rife that the first announcement was delayed because Chávez insisted on "negotiating the margin": he didn't want the world to think he'd lost by a lot. (Other conspiracy theories are way more alarming.) To massage the results in this way, he would've had to pressure CNE to manipulate which Tally Sheets were included in the first bulletin, (the election night announcement), gaming the sample to make the outcome look closer than it really was.

For now, those are just rumors. But we can't dismiss them because, bizarrely, CNE did not tell us what percentage of the voting centers their first bulletin covered. That, when you think about it, is totally crazy and weird. Isn't that the first thing usually announced in a situation like this, in Venezuela or anywhere else in the world? (You know what I'm talking about, right? "With X% of precincts reporting, results show...")

This morning, the plot thickened as CNE posted the geographic breakdown of results on its website. These are exquisitely detailed, but are they complete? Nope. As a cryptic footnote tells us, they "correspond to the percentage of Tally Sheets received at the time of the first election night bulletin." And what, pray tell, would that percentage be? That they don't say!

It's higher order opacity, this: it's not just that they're withholding information, it's that they're withholding information about how much information they're withholding.

The situation we have on our hands now is really quite bizarre. On the one hand, CNE is willing to tell us that at voting table number one at the Escuela Estadal Unitaria de Sabana Dulce voting center in Caño Delgadito parish of Papelón Municipality, in Portuguesa State, the Sí side cleaned our clocks by 155 votes to 16. On the other hand, they're not willing to tell us what percentage of the tally sheets they've added up! The disconnect between their willingness to disclose arcane detail and their reticence to disclose the heart of the matter is...interesting.

They also don't report the number of null votes. Or turnout details. Or the number of actas tallied per voting center. In fact, all of the data that were included in the "Ficha Técnica" in their 2006 presidential election results, are mysteriously missing this time.


In the end, CNE wasted a golden opportunity to shut up all their critics once and for all. At 7 p.m. on Sunday Night, Tibisay Lucena could perfectly well have gone on TV to say, "having counted X% of the tally sheets, here are the results..." Then we could've checked that announcement for triple congruence, and that would've been the end of that. The long, divisive, barren debate on CNE would've been over.

That's not how they chose to play it, though, and now, idiotically, they have to think up a way to climb out of the hole they've dugged themselves into. If the final tally shows a substantially larger margin of victory for the No vote than the one announced on Sunday night, Tibisay Lucena has to resign.

Did Chavez turn a defeat into a victory?

Quico and Katy say: A few days ago we posted our No victory scenario. We thought Chavez would work to turn defeat into some sort of publicity victory, something he could build on for the future by portraying himself as a victim or by bringing back the "conciliatory Chavez" that's been missing these past few years.

Last night, our first reaction was that he'd nailed his concession speech. His sounded like a real democrat, soft-spoken if a bit winded. And while it's generally considered rude to give a concession speech that lasts more than a few minutes, this is Chavez we're talking about, so we just thank our lucky stars he didn't drone on for four hours.

But thinking back on it this morning, we realized how mad that speech made us. Is it just that the guy gets under our skin, or is there more to it than that?

And then it suddenly hit us: his tone conciliatory, but his message wasn't. He wasn't raving at the top of his lungs like he usually does, but what he had to say was no less aggressive for it.

The essence of Chavez's concession speech was: sod the lot of you, I'm gonna do it anyway. If what he used to call "the sovereign people" don't like his constitutional reforms, that's neither here nor there to him: sooner or later, one way or another, he'll get there.

He offered his supporters no explanations for why he failed at such a critical juncture. He shed no light about why he lost what was, in his own words, was "the most important election in our history", one meant to mark the revolution's future. He had no particular insights on what it says about his ideological agenda that a popular petrocrat could lose a referendum against a bunch of adolescents at a time when oil fetches more than $90 a barrel. He had no answers, only tunnel vision. If there was a message from the voters in there somewhere, he just plain missed it.

In this context, "reflecting" probably means finding somebody to blame. There was no indication yesterday that Chávez had the slightest clue as to where to begin reflecting on what had happened, or any intention to respect the underlying decision the voters have made.

The curious thing is that, by rejecting Chavez's proposals, the voters have now approved the 1999 constitution twice. In 1999 a chavista led majority voted to approve it; last night an opposition led majority voted to keep it intact.

The 99 Constitution seems to be the only thing most Venezuelans can rally around now.

Legally, Chavez never had the right to subvert it. Now, he doesn't have a political mandate to do so, either. But does he care? How long could it be until the next time he hits up the Central Bank for another "millardito" in "excess foreign reserves"? How many times will we have to reaffirm the Constitution before he realizes we're serious?

We also think Chávez made a critical mistake in not addressing the legions of followers standing outside the very palace where he was giving his speech. The photos you can find in both the New York Times and the BBC website speak volumes about the heartbreak of his devoted followers on hearing their beloved leader had lost an election for the first time.

Used to seeing him celebrate on the "Balcony of the People", the "people" were left wondering why they weren't invited to his speech this time around. When they needed solace, he left them hanging...not for the first time.

More and more, Chavez is looking like a fat man in a palace, unaware of and unconcerned with normal folk's problems, let alone their views. Try as he might to cover it up, his larger than life persona is well and truly punctured.

Stand tall & be proud!

Katy says: I didn't like Quico's idea for an opposition message. I had a particular problem with this interpretation:

"The point is to remind chavistas inside the institutions who signed up to the original project and didn't like the reform proposal (think Supreme Tribunal Chief Judge Luisa Estela Morales) that it wasn't 'the opposition' that won last night, it was their constitution."

I think the oppposition did win last night, and there's no shame in that. The days when being labelled "opposition" was the kiss of death are no more. We have proven that we've moved beyond the coup, the paro petrolero and the political gridlock that followed the Recall Referendum. We have proven we can win elections, that we can be organized and stay on message.

What we saw yesterday was a new opposition, one that believes in the vote and does not think of shortcuts. One that is bold in defending the vote while humble enough to recognize that chavismo is still - and will be for many years to come - a force to be reckoned with.

That new opposition has nothing to be ashamed of. What they should emphasize is that the country is trying to teach the President a lesson, and that it's up to the President - for the sake of reconciliation, progress and brotherhood - to listen.

Pandering to chaventionists (chavista abstentionists) and chavepentidos (chavista arrepentidos, like Luisa Estela Morales, who apparently voted No) by saying "the opposition didn't win, it was your Constitution who won" makes you sound weak. And why would you sound weak when you've had your greatest victory ever?

Administering victory means translating it into something bigger, something that can encompass both the people you already have and the people you almost have. Those millions of chaventionists that stayed home yesterday seem to have turned a corner with respect to the President. They're pissed at him, they feel disappointed, but not enough for them to feel like they could go and vote against them.

They're there for the pickin'. It's time to woo them with our charm, our offers, our plans for the country. And anybody who has ever played the singles game will tell you - you can't woo someone by being weak.

The opposition should stand tall and be proud, but continue talking to chaventionists and chavepentidos about what we have in common, about the country we all dream of. Which is more or less what they've been doing so far.

Baduel aside, I think the messages so far have been pretty darn close to perfect.

If I could set the oppo's political line...

Quico says: ...here's what you would be hearing again and again from our side in the next few weeks:

In 1999, the Bolivarian movement led by President Hugo Chávez Frías [like that, using both his last names, to denote respect] proposed a new constitution to the nation, and the the sovereign people adopted it as the fundamental law of the land. Last night, Venezuelans reaffirmed their commitment to that constitution.

In 1999, the Bolivarian movement led by President Hugo Chávez Frías proposed that the government should always be democratic, participatory, elected, decentralized, alternating, responsible, pluralist and open to recall. The sovereign people accepted that proposal and enshrined it in its constitution. Last night, Venezuelans reaffirmed their commitment to the principle that the government must always be democratic, participatory, elected, decentralized, alternating, responsible, pluralist and open to recall.

In 1999, the Bolivarian movement led by President Hugo Chávez Frías proposed to the nation that presidents should serve six year terms and be eligible for re election only once. The nation accepted that proposal and enshrined it into its constitution. Last night, Venezuelans reaffirmed their commitment to the principle of no indefinite re election.

In 1999, the Bolivarian movement led by President Hugo Chávez Frías proposed to the nation that some rights, like the right to information and the right to due process, should be seen as so fundamental that they cannot be abridged, even in the midst of an emergency. The sovereign people accepted that proposal and enshrined it into its constitution. Last night, Venezuelans reaffirmed their commitment to the right to information and the right to due process, at all times and under all circumstances.

In 1999, the Bolivarian movement led by President Hugo Chávez Frías proposed to the nation that the Armed Forces be essentially professional, without political militancy, and at the service of the nation rather than any political partiality. The nation accepted that proposal and enshrined it into its constitution. Last night, Venezuelans reaffirmed their commitment to the principle of politically impartial Armed Forces.

In 1999, the Bolivarian movement led by President Hugo Chávez Frías proposed to the nation that the Central Bank should be autonomous, and the sovereign people accepted that proposal and enshrined it into its constitution. Last night, Venezuelans reaffirmed their commitment to the autonomy of their Central Bank.

In 1999, the Bolivarian movement led by President Hugo Chávez Frías proposed to the people of Venezuela that they should reserve the right to call a Constituent Assembly by collecting the signatures of 15% of registered voters. The nation accepted that proposal and enshrined it into its constitution. Last night, Venezuelans reaffirmed their commitment to the idea that 15% of electors should be able to call a Constituent Assembly.

In 1999, the Bolivarian movement led by President Hugo Chávez Frías proposed a decentralized system of government that gave real power to governors and mayors directly elected by the sovereign people, and the nation accepted that proposal and enshrined it into its constitution. Last night, Venezuelans reaffirmed their commitment to a decentralized system of government that gives real power over local and regional matters to the mayors and governors they themselves elect.

The Bolivarian Constitution of Venezuela has now been ratified by the sovereign will of the people not once, but twice. Obeying its norms is not optional. No Venezuelan has the right to violate any of its provisions. Every Venezuelan has the obligation, please note, the obligation to defend it.

The point is to stress the referendum's role in paving the road back to constitutional legality.

The point is to remind chavistas inside the institutions who signed up to the original project and didn't like the reform proposal (think Supreme Tribunal Chief Judge Luisa Estela Morales) that it wasn't "the opposition" that won last night, it was their constitution.

We must not allow a situation where the same abuses of power that were rejected by the majority last night are reintroduced through the back door, as part of Chavez's special powers to legislate by decree, or in any other way.

Acta por acta...

Quico says: The implications of Chávez's defeat last night will take a long time to work out but, for me, the first questions is...50.7% to 49.3%, really?

It's totally surreal that, having won, we should be worried about fraud. But this is Venezuela, the land of the possible, and the desperately close final results announced by CNE are not consistent with pre referendum polling trends.



The unexplained delay in announcing results we saw last night, alongside the rumors that the final margin had been "negotiated" behind the scenes, leaves real room for doubt. Could it be that the No's victory margin was more comfortable and Chávez insisted on a face saving CNE announcement as a condition before he would concede?

Fortunately, if this is so, we will know. Quite soon. The student movement (the real winners last night) made a huge effort to make sure no one left their polling stations without their Hot Audit tally sheets in hand. This made it impossible to steal the final outcome, and the nation owes them a huge debt of gratitude.

Having won is no grounds for complacency, though. At the risk of seeming ungracious, they have to complete the task they started. They need to scrutinize last night's results, check them against the hot audit tallies acta por acta, and tell us clearly if they were massaged. Because the viability of the long, tortuous path back to democracy we stepped onto last night hinges on it.

Hell No!...it's OFFICIAL!

Quico says: Venezuela rejects authoriarianism. It's a historic day. The myth of Chávez-the-invincible is no more.

NO 51%
SÍ 49%

Thanks to everyone for your support. The road back to something like a real democracy will be long, but at least we're on it now!

CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM DEFEATED

Quico says: Multiple sources inside CNE now confirm it. Chávez's constitutional reform proposal has been defeated at the polls. An official announcement is imminent.

Voting closes: Is the turnout high enough?

Quico says: It's 4:00 p.m. in Caracas. Voting has now closed in voting centers where people are not waiting to vote. The actual voting process was much faster today than it had been in past votes, largely because the CNE authorities took the fingerprint scanning machines offline. The result? Shorter lines, and the perception that turnout was low.

But was turnout really low, or did it just seem that way to us because we're used to gauging turnout by the length of the lines outside voting centers?

This is the key question now. Just to review: public opinion research suggests the "No" side should win only if turnout climbs above 60% (9.5 million votes).

The first official results bulletin should follow within 3 hours, by 7:00 p.m. Caracas time. This is the nerviest hour. The student movement and the No camp believe turnout is now above 60%. If so, the No side should win. But it's tight. It's very tight.

Whaddayamean "neck-and-neck"?!?

Quico says: For the record, that C21 poll released last night leaves the final chart of the most recent, most relevant polls looking like this:


The final Big Poll Chart (which includes every survey I could get my hands on) has gotten a bit unwieldy, just because it has so much data in it by now. If you click on it, though, you can download it, and then it's much easier to read:


Lets review the bidding here:

• The "No" has had an underlying lead among all poll respondents all along.
• It's now been three months since a survey not paid for by the government gave the Sí option a clear lead among likely voters.
• Out of the nine nationwide surveys carried out in November,
  
• Six give the No a clear lead
• Two say it's "too close to call"
  
• One gives the Sí a clear lead.
• The one November poll that gives Sí a clear lead is by a fly-by-night firm that may or may not be a Chávez sockpuppet.

Yet the standard line in the international press is still that "most polls show a neck-and-neck race."

I'm sorry, but I call bullshit. That's just factually wrong.

Consultores 21's Final Word

Katy & Quico say: Funny how there always seems to be "just one more poll".

Consultores 21 carried out 1500 in-home interviews between Nov. 26th and Nov. 30 in the country's nine largest cities (margin of error=2.6%) and compared the results with an earlier poll of 840 voters in those same nine cities (margin of error=3.5%). So this poll is not directly comparable to the previous C21 poll we reported, which was based on a nationwide (i.e., Urban+Rural) sample.

Once again, the momentum is all on one side:


It's not just that more people are planning to vote No than just a couple of weeks ago, it's that more people believe the No side will win. That conviction is important when it comes to turning out NiNis.

Nonetheless, the all-urban sample tends to overstate the No vote. Based on previous data about the Urban-Rural split, Consultores 21 corrects their results. They then go out on a limb and project a nationwide outcome: 55.7% for the "No" and 44.4% for the "Sí".


If anything, they conclude the gap between the "No" and the "Sí" has widened in the last few days, and that the trend points to the "No" to increasing its lead.

What's your guess?

Quico says: It's an election tradition at Caracas Chronicles by now. How do you think this vote will go? Put it in writing below. Your net handle's reputation is all that's at stake...

Things you never ever imagined you'd live to see chronicles...

Quico says: ...it's a screenshot from the next dimension, this:

What if voting fever breaks out in NiNi Village?

Quico says: It's a scenario that scares us slightly. We haven't really dared to consider it, even. Maybe we think we'll jinx it. So let me assure you that I'm knocking on wood vigorously as I suggest to you that the No could win by a lot. Ten points, say...even 15. It's not the most likely scenario, but it's not beyond the realm of possibility either. Some of the polling data suggests processes are underway that could make it happen. Why?

Yesterday I wrote about the psychodrama now playing out in NiNi homes throughout Venezuela. I think of NiNis as people who like Chávez a lot more than they like his ideology. This time around, many of them are genuinely conflicted. They don't like this reform at all, but can they really bring themselves to cast a vote against Chávez?

Until a couple of months ago, most were leaning towards just staying home on election day. That's why the early polls showed the No side winning among All Respondents but losing among Likely Voters. Now it seems like everybody and their cat wants to vote. What happened?

Here's one way to think about it. In part, NiNis base their decision about whether to vote or not on cues they get from their social environment: friends, neighbors, family.

There's safety in numbers. Nobody wants to be the only one to oppose Chávez, so if you don't know anyone else who is planning on voting No, chances are you won't turn out to vote on Sunday even if you really don't like the reform. But if you know just one person who is planning to vote No, the chances you'll vote are a bit higher. If you know two people, they're higher still...and so forth.

So picture yourself in NiNi Village. In this village, everyone feels some loyalty towards Chávez, but everyone dislikes the reform. Back in September, only a handful of the villagers were brave enough to say they would vote No tomorrow:


But then a funny thing happens: for some idiosyncratic reason (something he heard on the radio, say, or being hit on the head by a falling flower pot), just one non-voting NiNi changes his mind and tells his friends "you know what, this reform sucks: I'm going to go vote No."

Suddenly, somebody in NiNi Village knows two people who are planning to go vote no.

In fact, several people in NiNi Village now have "a couple of friends who are going to vote No." This lowers the psychological discomfort associated with voting against Chávez considerably, because suddenly "voting No is something people like me do." After all, your cousin Ernesto is going to do it, and that guy at the hardware store, too.
Others, of course, still plan to abstain...

But, by this point, the guy who is still planning to abstain is surrounded. You can just see that little yellow dot thinking, "sheesh, voting is the new rock'n'roll...seems like everyone I know is planning to vote No...Ernesto, Marilyn, that guy from the hardware store...Pepe from down the street..."

Remember, he already doesn't like the reform, so all he needs is "permission" from his social circle to act on a pre-existing desire. And, if he decides to vote, that means yet more of the people in his social circle are going to start feeling ok about voting. Eventually, NiNi village reaches a tipping point, where peer pressure starts to build in favor of voting No, not against it.


It's a self-reinforcing process...the more people there are who say they will vote, the more comfortable it is for others to join them.

Eventually, people who had been socially isolated in their intention to vote find themselves getting connected to the surge...

And helping turn yet others...

If this process goes on long enough, it's easy to see what will happen in the end:


(And, as you've probably guessed by now, you can describe what's happened within the no-longer-abstentionist comecandela opposition in a similar way.)

What's neat about this model is that the whole process can start just due to one chance event. That one guy's decision to turn go vote, in the second slide, is enough to set in motion a contagion effect that can shift the entire population's intentions. In that sense, Chávez's "voting No is voting against me" line is an attempt at prophylaxis against the contagion effect: a last ditch effort to raise NiNis' psychological discomfort with voting against him, even though more and more of their friends and relatives are getting over it.

Is there any evidence that voting fever is reaching pandemic proportions among NiNis? Polling results definitely suggest it. Self-reported willingness to vote has been rising in just about every poll for the last three months. In the last week of October, 50% of respondents were telling Hinterlaces they were "certain" to vote. This week, that number's up to 80%.

Another indication: people often form their perceptions about which side "is winning" by observing people in their social circle (this is the "of course there was fraud, everyone I know voted for Rosales and CNE says he lost!" syndrome). So consider this: in the middle of September, 37% of Hinterlaces poll respondents thought the No side was winning, 42% that the Sí was winning. By this week, 48% think the No is winning, 34% the Sí.

So while I wouldn't be so rash as to predict it, I do think there's a real possibility that NiNi Village is going to turn out in force. And if that's the case, the result will not be close.

Working through the scenarios III: the scent of sweet papaya

Katy says: The government’s campaign to approve the Constitutional reforms is over, and what an ugly spectacle it has been. Today’s rally was massive, no doubt inflated by tens of thousand of public servants forced to march – and don’t we all have stories of friends and relatives in that position. Yet Chavez’s speech offered very little about the Constitutional reform, and focused instead attacking and insulting all sorts of enemies, foreign and domestic.

It was a new low, even for Chavez’s standards. One of the most curious bits was his pledge to cut off oil deliveries to the US “on Monday” if the US decided not to recognize a “Sí” victory. It was sad to see so many of my countrymen applaud a madman’s promise to bankrupt our country if he doesn’t get the international recognition he craves, but perhaps they were applauding the real meaning behind his words.

After all, such an insane pledge can only mean that Chavez considers it highly unlikely the “Sí” will win. Perhaps he promises hell and fire because he knows, deep down, that this scenario won’t play out. Perhaps what they were applauding was the realization that their leader sees no hope and that, come Monday morning, they too will have turned a page.

The whole campaign has focused on all the things that make Chavez’s moderate supporters dislike him – fighting, threats of violence, real violence, an un-Venezuelan “you’re-either-with-me-or-against-me” attitude, intolerance, and condescension. In fact, the campaign is one of the reasons I find it hard to disbelieve the polls – the government has done everything in its power to alienate moderate chavista voters, so I just don’t see any reason for them to come out and continue to support Chavez. In fact, his recent spat with Uribe may have cost Chavez the critical “nationalized-Colombian-with-a-cédula” vote.

All of the sudden, Chavez’s few populist promises sound hollow. As the hairdresser in Simón Romero’s NYT piece yesterday said brilliantly, “if this government cannot get me milk or asphalt for our roads, how is it going to give my mother a pension?” Instead of talking roads, milk or pensions, Chavez has been talking about the King of Spain, the FARC, Alvaro Uribe and José María Aznar. Yawn.

In light of this, it's fitting that the last of Caracas Chronicles’ three scenario analyses is a No victory. Personally, I think it is the most likely. I can’t discard a “Sí” victory, whether clean or tricked, but the polls, the campaign and the mood indicates we may have turned a corner. The problem about corners is that you can’t always see what you’re turning on to.

My initial inclination is to believe that Chavez will take this loss serenely and without too much fuss. I have been hearing recently about how the government will go nuts if it loses, how it will simply have no political platform anymore and how they will unleash their violent hordes on unsuspecting squalid families. I don’t buy any of it.

Let’s remember that some of Chávez’s most impressive moments have come in defeats. Take, for example, February 4th 1992. The day Chavez leapt into the national consciousness with his unforgettable “Por ahora” was a day he was thoroughly and completely defeated. Yet he seized the opportunity and in two minutes of live TV, arguably changed the course of modern Venezuelan history.

The other time that comes to mind is when the signatures for the Recall Referendum were finally approved. Chavez by then was only beginning with the Misiones, and his poll numbers were bad. Yet when the signatures were finally approved, he delivered a memorable speech on live TV, acting like a statesman and welcoming the Recall Referendum, practically calling it his baby by saying he had been proposing it all along in the Constitution. I think that speech was the beginning of an important turning point that left behind two years of turmoil and continual erosion of his political capital.

Other defeats come to mind as well. After he was deposed for ordering the April 11th massacre, he was imprisoned in a way that made him an instant victim. All the sudden, April 11th became about him, not about the shootings. This idea persists to this day.

All in all, Chavez has proven to be wise in defeat. So this time around, my belief is that Chavez will take defeat in a smart way. He has lost many moderate voters because his rhetoric has radicalised to the point where they don’t know who he is anymore, and he will try do his best to reverse that trend. The problems in governance that have been the root cause of the underlying economic and social problems (scarcity, inflation, crime) require more attention from him and, most of all, will require looking for solutions outside the Hegelian-Gramscian box the President seems to be living in. Whether he still has the senses in him to accomplish this, I do not know.

Of course, Chavez being Chavez, he may interpret a loss as a sign that he wasn’t radical enough and push through his reforms using his enabling powers. After all, the legislature gave him a ton of power to implement many of the things being proposed in the reform – the “soft Constitution”, to use Quico’s term. The man is clearly unpredictable and this outcome is certainly not outside the realm of the possible.

As for the opposition, a victory would invigorate their legitimacy in the eyes of the public. Winners from a No victory would include, of course, Baduel and the students, but also the political parties, mainly UNT, PJ and Podemos. I don’t think they will interpret such a victory as some sign that we should now call for the government’s resignation or other radical measures. Let’s remember the President himself is still popular, and perhaps so is his government. The opposition should not overreach by transforming a No victory into a mandate for something else. They should immediately begin working toward the regional elections of 2008, toward building on the momentum they currently have. Parties should make an effort and incorporate into their ranks some of the fresh faces of this struggle. They need to open up to civil society.

Another winner would be the CNE, and Tibisay Lucena in particular. It would be really hard to continue to allege fraud if the CNE were to certify a victory for the opposition given what is at stake.

The main losers in the opposition - with all due respect to some of my friends - would end up being the abstentionists, the radicals and the old political parties, the little groups that jumped on the No bandwagon hours ago. A No victory would send the signal that their stubborn stance against the vote was not only misguided, it put the existence of the Republic itself in peril. I would hope that a No victory would prompt some serious soul-searching in them, just like they hope that a "Sí" victory would serve to teach us "enablers" a lesson.

Yet regardless of who wins and who loses, of the uncertainty of how the government will react, the main thing all of us should do if the No wins is enjoy it. Lord knows we’ve taken blows these past nine years, some of them even deserved! It’s taken a long time, but I believe people have begun to awaken to Chavez’s true nature, and the defeat of an electoral behemoth like the President would be a major achievement.

So if the No wins, please do me a favor and enjoy the sweet taste of dulce de lechoza. We would have earned it.

One more...

***CORRECTED VERSION***

Quico says: Did I say Consultores 21 was the last poll of the season? I lied. Hinterlaces has just put out one last poll. This one is based on 1,642 telephone interviews in cities done between November 26th and 29th (i.e., yesterday). Specifically, they polled the largest municipality in each of the 15 most populous states. Be aware that this all-urban polling does tend to overstate the No-vote...nonetheless:

["Certain to vote" results corrected.]


And then, the stunner: four out of five of respondents are now telling Schemel they're sure to vote. Surely, if turnout is that high, the Sí is toast...


Schemel closes by forecasting a No win by 7 to 16 points.

By the way, I am still updating the Big Poll Chart at the top of the right-hand column, but there are so many polls on it now it's a bit hard to read. For ease of use, I've made another, clearer chart of just the most recent, nationwide polls:


The chart kind of reminds me of that old Sesame Street song...

One of these things is not like the other things
one of these things just doesn't belong
can you guess which of these things is not like the other things
before I finish my song?

Turnout as NiNi psychodrama

Quico says: First, the bare fact, which is now verging on cliché: Sunday's referendum will hinge on turnout. Both the detailed polls that have come out recently bear that out.


My sense is that C21 is closer to the mark than Datanalisis here, simply because they make more of an effort to poll the "hidden 25%": rural voters. So if we can get more than, say, 65% turnout, I think the No will be very hard to beat.

So this one's in the bag, right? I mean, all the abstentionists are falling into line behind the No vote...CNR, AD, even Marta Colomina, for chrissakes. And turnout was 75% last December, so how could it possibly fall below that this time?

Not so fast. Though it's gaining in currency, that analysis badly distorts what the turnout challenge is really all about.

The challenge here is not about motivating the radical opposition. The AD/CNR crowd makes a lot of noise, but they're not a lot of people. According to Datanalisis, last week just 8% of opposition supporters were saying they definitely wouldn't vote, and the opposition in turn makes up just 23.7% of the electorate. So the Escarrá demographic works out to less than 2% of the voting population.

The real challenge is different: getting NiNis to vote.

NiNis make up 44% of the electorate, and as of last week, 40% of them couldn't say for sure whether they would vote or not. So the NiNi-who-may-or-may-not-vote demographic is 17% of the electorate: nearly 10 times more than the comecandela oppo.

The two groups have almost nothing in common. NiNis couldn't care less about electoral conditions or constitutional jurisprudence or what Antonio Ledezma thinks. They are poorer, and much less ideologically minded. A lot of them make a living in the informal sector, the rest in minimum wage work. In the past, they've reliably voted for Chávez, but not for ideological reasons: they don't like his stridency, they don't like the stuff about socialism, but they do like him.

In some ways, NiNi is really a misnomer: basically, they're chavistas. It's just that they're non-ideological chavistas. The whiff of oxymoron that phrase gives off is telling. Time was when it was perfectly OK to be a non-ideological chavista. But as Chávez has morphed more and more from radical populist to doctrinaire socialist, that space has disappeared. These days, Chávez has a new word for people who support him but dissent from the more extremist planks of his ideology: traitors.

So you start to get a sense for their predicament. They've always identified with Chávez. They feel he's done a lot for them. But they really have a bad feeling about this reform. They associate it precisely with the things they don't like about him: his aggressiveness, his sectarianism, his extremism, his threats. They liked it a lot better back when he used to court them with love letters. They don't want to be ungrateful, they don't want to feel like traitors, but more and more, the guy is starting to scare them. It's not that they've moved away from him, it's that he's moved away from them.

That's the psychodrama that will be playing out in hundreds of thousands of homes across Venezuela this weekend. Can I live with myself if I vote against mi comandante? Is that allowed? Does it make me a bad person? Is it possible to square a No vote with my identity, with my overall idea of who I am?

So I'm afraid the referendum's not a done deal after all. There's a real chance that non-ideological chavistas just won't turn out in big enough numbers. Because, as somebody put it to me the other day, "if Caracas has a bad season, you see caraquistas bitching about botched bunts and dropped pop-flys, you don't see them becoming Magallaneros."

But seriously, folks...

Quico says: Though it's arguably not so timely (serious policy analysis feels slightly out of place in the heady pre-election atmosphere), Jens Erik Gould's NYTimes piece on Chávez's transparency gap is brilliant.

The prodigal poll

Quico says: The final poll of the season is out, and it's a doosy.

Consultores 21 polled 2000 voters, nationwide, in their homes, between Nov. 17 and Nov. 25th. The headline figures? It's looking good, but, again, it will come down to turnout:


What's distinctive about this poll is not just the big sample, it's that they go to great lengths to sample "the lost 25%": voters in rural areas. This is important, because that demographic tends heavily in favor of the government:


No other polling company targets the rural vote, which could bias them in favor of the No side. But, even taking rural voters into account, Consultores 21 foresees a No win by a margin of 5 to 15 points.

It's all down to the turnout now. In last year's Presidential Election, 75% of registered voters turned out. If we get anywhere near that this year, the No will be very hard to beat.

For the record, here's how the final chart of credible, nationwide polls conducted in November looks: