How To Get Something Out Of A Baby's Throat

2D.

ended elections and the "NO" to the constitutional reform was victorious, which was quite surprising. Honestly, I do not expect it. But it happened in an entirely different way. In fact, these elections were totally different from the last two in which I participated (recall referendum and presidential elections). To begin with we find queue at the consulate at the time of voting, and as board members, although there had been a monstrous amount of voters, the thing had moved quite quickly. Something that happened in previous occasions: the first, government representatives were invented all possible tricks to make you desist to vote (4 hours in the queue is not easily forgotten), and during the presidential election, a brilliant bureaucrat decided we should start at the same time that Venezuela. None of that happened yesterday. Even we were surprised at such speed. It's great to see people from the consulate is making it work, not only with efficiency but with a very good deal to the public. The only regrettable thing is that my wife and I were barricaded with books, magazines, and our MP3 players, ready to wait for hours in the cold, only to discover that our efforts were in vain, fortunately!.

But let's turn the page, and the election passed, and according to data provided by the CNE the difference between "NO" and "YES" was less than 1% of the votes counted. To this is added that there was an abstention rate of 44.11% [1 ]. In other words, the victory of those who oppose this government was very small according to official figures. But I think it is more interesting compare the previous election to this, as does Lubri [ 2 ], who shows us how the votes taken by the opposition is only slightly higher than that obtained in 2006. According Luigino, this defeat was due to poor government communication strategy and the many lies that circulated about constitutional reform. In my opinion, this is a somewhat simplistic analysis, but I would compare the numbers as he does, let's start with 2006 data:

• Chavez gets 62% of the votes, that is, 7,309,080 people voted for him.
• All opposition candidates won the 36.65% of votes, which translates into support of 4,321,072 people.
• The abstention rate was 25.3%, ie 3,994,380 people voted no in a universe of 15,784,777 voters.

For this election, and assuming that the number of voters has not changed significantly in a year and the end result is maintained as the CNE said, we have:

• The "NO" on the Block A obtained 4,504,354 votes (50.70%), while for Block B were obtained 4,522,332 votes (51.05%).
• The "YES" got 4,379,392 votes (49.29%) in Block A, and 4,335,136 (48.94%) in Block B.
• Abstention was 44.11%, ie 6,962,665 voters.

These numbers show us two things: there were no great leaps of talanquera between government supporters that we are opposed to the government are more or less the same, and that 3 million fewer votes for the government. The latter is quite intriguing: if we assume the thesis of Luigino, of the nearly 7 million people who abstained from voting, 3 million previously voted for Chavez, what happened to them?, Why not support the government at this time and why not exercise your vote?. "Bad communication strategy?, I doubt it, when it approved the constitution, the time for reading and analysis were more or less the same as we had now, the government had less propaganda organs, the opposition was as much or more space than the government in the media. I do not think that this government was defeated due to a simple lack of communication or apathy on the part of voters, who always have spontaneously mobilized in favor of it. The poor data communications strategy can also be used to judge the opposition, since the number of people who supported this option did not improve significantly. In other words, poor communication, both by government and by the opposition is not the only thing that can explain these results.

Now if we make use of evil and conspiracy theories that drive the opposition, is that the number of votes in previous elections tricked and could not use that trick this time?, If so, why? . Is there any relationship with the military high command meeting that night [3 ]? . Is it true you rigged the numbers so that the defeat was not so big. If I know I'm looking for the fifth leg to the cat, but these results do not convince me. And when you're not convinced he does is ramble ...

But let's recap, the victory was closed, a great mass of the population could be identified with Chavez decided it was best to stay home and talanquera breaks were minimal. This brings the conclusion that:

1. No talanquera big jumps: few government supporters voted against the reform.
2. There were a number of people who chose not to give its opinion. Either against or in favor of the opposition. The obligatory question is why did they stay?.
3. people prefer to vote for a person, not a few ideas: why personalization of the campaign for the "YES" to the reform (a vote against the reform is a vote against Chavez). Perhaps people felt that voting for this reform was not a priority.
   

not want to sound a killjoy, but this is only a tiny step. Even the Chavez controls the National Assembly, NEC and many other public authorities. The economic problem is looming: there is talk of an imminent devaluation of the bolivar once established strong, does not resolve the detail of scarcity (yesterday I talked with my mother who told me that he could not milk powder), problems of insecurity are intact. With this victory we have not improved, we have simply avoided most things worse. There is still a long way to go. Elections

2d, Constitutional Reform , Policy ,

Venezuela Constitutional Reform , Venezuela