Something amazing may be happening in Venezuela. South America’s oldest Democracy is being stolen by a tyrant and the citizens are smart enough to realize that if your vote won’t matter, then don’t waste time voting. A Bleak Venezuelan Election is not getting Main Street Media coverage, but in sharp contrast to the massive turnout for the Hugo Chavez recall election last year, yesterday only 20% of the voters turned out to select 3,350 government positions.
First reports are in on today’s municipal elections in Venezuela. Hugo Chavez is “winning.” But turnout is so thin that the government has extended voting by two (update: now three) hours to try to make it a double-digit turnout. First reports say it’s running at about 8%. Updated, with the polls closed, the turnout is estimated at 20%. That’s an 80% abstention rate.
This is not the first time Venezuela’s polling hours have been extended. They were also extended during the recall referendum, but for very different reasons - because turnout was so high. Ironic. Obviously, public perceptions of fraud and retribution are so strong that very few people are willing to participate in the farce.
Bloggers here, here and here have warned that the fingerprint machines are recording voters’ choices, something that could lead to retribution for those whose choices do not win, and other setups that should lead to a rigged result. It’s a sad picture.
A major concern appears to be a profound distrust of electronic voting because a computer can be programmed to produce any result desired.
UPDATE: More than 12 hours have passed and there is still no word from the Hugo-Chavez-stacked election board that was nervously thrashing around on state TV trying to justify the turnout last night. The purpose of the electronic machines, nominally, was to ensure swiftness of results. I’ve seen swifter results in African elections. Something has broken down. Something is being hidden. They aren’t saying what.What is amazing is that the poor in Venezuela, the ‘chavistas’ who elected Hugo Chavez into power are the ones abstaining from voting. Could it be that the poor are not ignorant and understand that poverty within an imperfect Democracy is preferable to living under a tyrant? This is worth watching very closely.
The day after: a bitter taste for Chavez in Venezuela: But it gets better as apparently rumors fly that the opposition might have gotten way more seats than planned in spite of the abstention. If this is true, then abstention was really as much a chavista phenomenon than an opposition one and something really important happened yesterday. Could this be a defeated victory for Chavez? To be continued.Somewhere there may be a CIA intercept of a Hugo Chavez call to Fidel Castro where the old master explains to his student that you use the guns first, and then let the subjects have ballots.
