I’m astonished. However, I notice that Chavez said this was a photo finish and NOT that he was conceding. We’ll have to see if he just goes ahead and does this stuff anyway.
In hindsight it was pretty dumb to automate almost all of the voting machines. Harder to manipulate the votes. Guess they just don’t make crackpot dictators like they used to.
Chavez delayed the results and forced them to whittle down the margin of defeat. They even admitted as much in the announcement.
Then he took over the airwaves immediately. And gave a 1 HOUR CONCESSION SPEECH. Which is on quick review, a new world record.