Posted on 09/26/2006 1:12:02 PM PDT by StJacques
In nine states Rosales surpasses the President Elvia Gomez Jose Vicente Carrasquero, manager of the campaign command of the opposition candidate, announced that next Wednesday Manuel Rosales will present his government plan in the matter of citizen security, while later he will expound upon ideas in matters of housing construction and about the treatment the military sector will have which, he put forth, will be strictly attached to that which the Constitution forsees. In a press conference, accompanied by the ex candidate for the presidency of the republic, Roberto Smith (Venezuela First Party), Carrasquero explained that, according to data shown by recent regional polls, Rosales has managed to surpass the serving Chief Executive in the electoral preference in the states of Zulia, Lara, Falcon, Tachira, Miranda, Carabobo, Apure, Delta Amacuro y Amazonas. "We are pleasantly surprised," he said, that the "numbers are near those of Chavez in [the state of] Vargas" and that a "technical tie" exists in [the states of] Bolivar and Guarico. In the concrete case of the state of Miranda, the spokesman stressed the rebound, especially in the municipality of Sucre (Petare). Asked about the effect which the fear of reprisals may have on the results and the trustworthiness of the surveys which put Rosales in first place, Carrasquero said that the technical aspects [of the polls] are maximized, so that those questioned do not fear to express their true intention of voting. He stressed that the rebound of Rosales is a product of the direct contacts which Manuel Rosales has carried out with more than 200,000 people in 39 cities (16 states), in a trip that has taken him more than 168 kilometers. He insisted upon the importance which the plan against crime has, since one must put the brakes on "the shame of this government which has been incapable of articulating an efficient plan" against the [criminal] underworld.
El Universal (Caracas)
Thanks again for getting us this information.
Excellent idea, all the blame America crowd could hob nob with Hugo and Jimmah while his "democratic" government guarantees their safety.
Elections in Venezuela are a joke. The only way Chugo will ever leave office is in a box after receiving hot lead therapy. He's a commie. Rule #1 for commie dictators is "Don't leave office voluntarily."
Thanks St J!
Obviously, how much Rosales is ahead in the 9 states and how far behind he is in the other states matters a great deal. Winning 9 states 51%-49% won't do much if Chavez wins/steals 99% of the vote in the remaining 13.
Umm, it wouldn't matter if he were 80pts ahead. Elections in Venezuela have been corrupted beyond recognition in Venezuela. They had problems before Chavez, but he basically ruined them.
It's amazing how much easier it is to win when your political appointees run every polling place and you can add fictitious names to the voter rolls anytime you want.
Hi Saint:
Although I need to focus exclusively on Mexico due to time-constraints, I welcome being on any ping list you have for our neighbor. Meanwhile, for the sigh column... a fight between PANistas & ObraGorians just ensued where Felipe was...
http://www.el-universal.com.mx/notas/377532.html
There is going to be an election in Venezuela? That's news to me. It would be even bigger news if it was actually fair and honest under current conditions.
I don't know if you're aware of this ping list index but if not, yours definitely warrant being included:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1608368/posts
Thank you for that info Shuttle Shucker. I have just FreepMailed cgk suggesting that he create a new "Foreign Affairs" category and that my two lists should be entitled the "Mexican Affairs" and "Latin American Left Watch" lists.
>>>BTW, any Venezuelan bloggers out there blogging about the election...in an honest fashion?<<<<
Try this one:
http://www.caracaschronicles.blogspot.com/
>>BTW, any Venezuelan bloggers out there blogging about the election...in an honest fashion?<<
...and another:
http://vcrisis.com/index.php?content=home
Would you like to be fingerprinted?
http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/
Finger printing the Venezuelan voter
There are some debates that I try to avoid as I deem them trapos rojos (decoys), thrown by chavismo (and some time opposition) to distract people from the real issues. Perhaps the most famous one is the CNE fraud machinery, something that chavismo loves to see opposition politicians discussing instead of discussing all of the Chavez administration shortcomings where they would have a field day. In this Chavez benefits from the tendency of some politicians to favor comfortable A.C. TV studios to campaign against Chavez in lieu of hitting the dirt roads and humble neighborhoods, just as Rosales is doing these days, to great success. Then again, there is a reason why Rosales has become the unity candidate of the opposition and one reason why the Ledezmas and AD and others are left in Caracas pondering whatever happened to them.
But on occasion I must visit these electoral issues anyway and today it is the finger printing machines.
First, in an acknowledged reference to the increasing power of blogging, the recent debate one the usefulness of fingerprinting machine is making it more to newspapers, even if credit is not fully awarded. Nothing surprising there, newspapers everywhere are afraid of the power of good blogging and Venezuela is becoming fast a region full of excellent bloggers. Not necessarily because we are a particularly bright sort, but because we have to deal with such wily adversaries and compensate for a rather deficient press in matters of in deep and long ranging investigations. In particular when there is a lot of numbers involved, such as PDVSA or electoral issues, journalists are not too happy preferring to devote themselves to more scandalous and front pages news such as the Anderson case, nearing its Nth star witness, and no where near completion.
This El Universal expediente, based in part on the work of Bruni and Miguel, simply questions the suitability of the finger printing machines for the goal they were bought for. That is, it seems that the electronic investment that should be made to have a real time verification of the finger print of an elector has not been made. Thus one legitimately can wonder what is the real use of the finger print machines. Miguel wisely does not speculate much on it, but since it well known that I am unwise I am not afraid to thread that path.
Lets focus on the problem briefly.
The elector reaches its voting station. His finger print is lifted and sent electronically to Caracas. There it is compared to a data bank which is now above 10 million prints (recent ID delivering operations were combined with finger print collection which allow me to guess that, adding finger prints collected at elections, as much as 10 million finger prints already exist at the CNE, which by the way does not come clear on such numbers).
It is quite obvious that the process requires sometime and can be only carried away with super fast computing system of which there is no clear evidence that it exists in the bowels of the Caracas CNE. From bloggerss work, the time delay seem unacceptable to allow a free flowing election day, with the added risk that the system could come crashing at any time. When one looks at the expense bestowed on a system that offers no guarantees, one wonders which are the real reasons, when the traditional ink died finger seems to work as well as the finger printing machines at a fraction of the cost!
So, which could be the reasons?
Someone made a buck out of it. Jorge Rodriguez, a former obscure public servant who became the CNE head that forced through the finger printing system, lives now in regular splendor in Altamira, and crashes brand new Audi late at night. The reader may draw its own inferences.
The finger printing machines are really destined for some other usage. Two possibilities here.
By careful selection of the centers from which the finger print data is collected, chavismo can figure how the voting progresses. With the help of the Tascon (1) list the government can determine very easily how strongly the opposition electorate is making its presence felt at the ballot box, and how many chavistas are actually voting. This precious information, already available by mid morning, could spur some reaction from the government, ranging from ferrying in a haste chavistas that tend to stay home to preparing an actual electoral fraud by reprogramming some voting machines such as it is alleged to have happened at the Recall election of 2004, with now rather good evidence.
The other possible political usage of the finger printing machines is to scare away the opposition voter from the ballot, while forcing the chavista voter to participate if s/he wants to retain its misiones benefits. This is very simple to do once the perception of loss of the vote secret has permeated the population. It does not matter actually whether the finger printing machines can actually pierce the secret of the ballot, it is enough to have people think it can. And in the country of the Tascon list this notion is indeed very simple to put in peoples mind.
Thus it is clear to perceive where lies the real interest of the finger printing machines: psychological war against any opposition campaign effort. It is thus good strategy that Rosales has refused to get burdened by a sterile debate on finger printing which only can be won by the government. Instead, if Rosales manages a strong movement that has a chance to unseat Chavez, then the finger printing will become a non issue as people will not care to risk been pegged voting against Chavez since this one will not be around to harass them.
Very simple indeed, and yet another mark on how well Rosales is running his campaign so far, refusing to let Chavez set the agenda.
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1) the Tascon list is the list of the names of all people that have signed the Recall election petition and who have since been branded enemies of the regime. Many of these people have met all sorts of discrimination. With time the Tascon list has created a modern apartheid when to it was added the names of all the people that were receiving misiones benefits and thus rated as pro Chavez. This new Maisanta list is widely used in many government offices to decide who gets what. References on the right side of this page.
Please put me on the Ping LIst!! Chavez was parading around here in what I dearly hoped would be his Last Hurrah, since I knew he was being challenged and the election was not too long a ways off: We should figure out a way to try to involve ourselves in this election, sort of as anti-Jimmy Carters, with whose help the corrupt Chavez probably won last time. I get the very strong impression that Chavez has been too busy working on his fantasy role as the new reborn Fidel Castro, the oil-rich World Leader of the NonAligned Movement to give his own country his attention, and I sense large numbers of Venezuelans sense it also.
"Venezuelan Election: Chavez's Opponent Manuel Rosales Gains Ground in Race (Translation)"
If Rosales wasa threat, he'd already be room temperature.
Good! Thank you.
He's made an excellent start, at least in terms of an economic "holocaust":
The Truth About Venezuela (Shocking Video) ^ |
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Posted by Stultis On News/Activism ^ 08/07/2006 9:51:26 PM CDT · 34 replies · 1,994+ views YouTube ^ | 2005 | DNAX Productions Believe it or not there's more than thuggery, political murder, smashing of the presses, arming of narco-terrorists, and hobnobbing with Castro and the crazy mullahs in Tehran. Chavez, despite record oil revenues, is presiding over the Cubanization of Venezuela. Video uses simple before (1998) and after (2005) images. See Hugo's "Beautiful Revolution". |
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