Trouble without;
This is the single worst thing that could’ve happened: CNE has announced Maduro won the election by 7.51 million votes to 7.27 million for Capriles, but the opposition may well be sitting on clear evidence that this is not true. What comes next is a deep governability crisis.
Trouble within;
Maduro’s speech tonight was innocuous. He talked as if he had scored a huge win, instead justifying that a one vote win would have been enough.
But it isn’t and it wasn’t, for the simple fact that Chavismo’s party PSUV is divided, even more so now, as those that aspired to succeed Chávez likely think that Maduro was not the rightful successor to Hugo Chávez. And most of them think they are.
h/t marc in calgary, jwkozak91
I don’t think that a razor thin ‘victory’ is the worst possible result.
As massive victory for Chavez party would mean far more decline and hardship than this outcome which should be viewed as one step toward the usurpation of the ruling party by a party further to the right.
It’s a good – not great – sign.
Castro and penn must be pissed.
One million former Chavez voters switched their vote to Capriles. Have these people seen the light of the failure of socialism, or, did they not fear voting against Chávez’s successor?
Will there be a civil war if it is discovered that there were voting irregularities?
It could get interesting there again, and I’m sure Columbia is watching closely.
Unimportant who won the election – who gets to control the oil? Mid east cartel, Euro Cartel, Cino-Asian cartel US cartel?
The voting system they used sounds better than ours, perhaps the Liberal Party should be forced to buy it for their subsidiary – Elections Canada.
*snicker* Of course he won. What did you expect? Did you really think the Chavistas would have bothered with a by-election if they thought for one minute that they’d lose?
If anything, if they’d been on the ball the results should have been a lot more crooked than this. As it was, stuffing the boxes to 50.7 percent for Maduro was probably the best they could do with a few hours to go and all their exit polls saying they were going to be massacred.
It wasn’t a “by-election” … their guy died so they had to have a new presidential election, the chavistas didn’t have a choice in the matter, their bullshit constitution is actually quite clear on this requirement.
“a lot more crooked than this” the PSUV vote collapsed from an expected +60% of the vote to 50% in a few weeks.
There are no “exit polls” in Venezuela. They’re illegal there, and this is actually enforced.
“Scar-face Joe said ‘It’s too late to quit – pass the dynamite, ’cause the fuse is lit…”
— Riot in Cell Block #9
“Capriles just spoke and threw down the gauntlet He will not recognize the result unless some simple conditions are met, including actual counting of ballots.”
accuses the military of “moving ballot boxes” .. these would be the physical boxes with paper ballots.
http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.ca/2013/04/breaking-news-capriles-challenges.html
Venezuela might have to bring in austerity soon (that is, limiting their spending to what they take in), since they have few ways to finance their fiscal deficits.
This means that the ruling party may suffer a sharp drop in popularity when the beer taps run dry.
Its not if thier will be Civil war, but when.
Socialism’s endgame always.
It appears they’re not just moving them anymore.
http://imgur.com/a/aFXGr?gallery
Its interesting how our leftist lame stream media was calling the election a landslide for Maduro before people even shuffled into the voting booths.
The US elections were rife with voter fraud. I’d hate to think what they have been getting away with in Venezuela.
Well that didn’t last long.
There were several pictures of the military burning what appeared to be a small mountain of sealed voting boxes.