Wednesday, October 27, 2004

Of tricks and more tricks Trick Number 1: Yesterday Governor of Yaracuy Lapi claimed one of the great achievements of the negotiations with the CNE, besides having the results be printed first (yeah!, yeah!), was the fact that the position of Coordinator for each voting center had been eliminated. Well, this achievement lasted less than twenty four hours with these statements from CNE alternate Director Carlos Castillo:   “Despite the need to giving backing to a significant portion of Venezuelans, there exist conditions that the CNE in an incomprehensible manner refuses to modify, as an example, that of the coordinators. Apparently, they were eliminated, but what it did was to change their name, these coordinators are all of the political commissars for officialdom”   Adding:   ”the CNE belongs to all Venezuelans, it can not continue being the executive arm of the policies of the official sector”   Trick Number 2:   The Venezuelan Supreme Court rejected the injunction against the Electoral Registry introduced by the Primero Justicia party. The reason was not illegality, but: “it should be an ordinary request and not an injunction’. Oh, I see when the law is right; you invoke procedural matters, because they know that the current registry is simply illegal. Oh Well! What else is new?   Trick Number Three:   The CNE generated the 118 random machine that will be audited in the upcoming regional elections, making us all wonder about how the number of audited machines tends to zero with time. 199 in the “hot” audit on August 15th. 150 in the ”live” audit August 18th. and now 118 in the “hot audit” on the 31st. We are talking none in the Presidential election in 2006!   Trick Number Four:   CNE Director Jorge Rodriguez meekly “insisted” that President Chavez “violated” the regulations for electoral advertising last Sunday “insisted” he should follow them.   “It is not possible for the President to violate the regulations like he did on Sunday’   Come on Jorge! Relax! You violate the law weekly, what is an electoral regulation for the almighty Chavez? You never stopped him before, you will not stop him now! Stop the grandstanding, he is your idol! 12:00:49 AM    comment []