The latest on Latin American affairs, U.S.-Latin American ties, U.S. Hispanics and immigration
posted by Andres Oppenheimer at 6:00 PM
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Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald columnist Andres Oppenheimer, author of five best-sellers on Latin American affairs and whose syndicated column appears in 55 major U.S. and Latin American newspapers, comments on the latest events in Latin America and U.S.- Latin American affairs. He is a member of The Miami Herald team that won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize. He also won the 1999 Maria Moors Cabot Award, the 2001 King of Spain prize, and the 2005 Emmy Suncoast award. He is the author of Castro's Final Hour; Bordering on Chaos, on Mexico's crisis; Cronicas de heroes y bandidos and Ojos vendados, and most recently of "Cuentos Chinos" (Plaza & Janes, Mexico.) A new Oppenheimer Report appears every Sunday and Thursday.
Email Andres at aoppenheimer@herald.com
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Un millón de electores viven en una casa
Gisela Rodríguez V.
El partido COPEI descubrió que en la quinta Margabel, ubicada en El Llanito, estado Miranda, viven 1.834.000 personas según los datos del Registro Electoral.
Todos estos ciudadanos "hacinados" en esta casa votan en Mérida, Táchira, Apure, Nueva Esparta, Yaracuy y otros estados.
El coordinador de Asuntos Electorales de COPEI, Enrique Naime, adelantó algunos datos del análisis técnico realizado por esta tolda política al Registro Electoral y el cual será dado a conocer este jueves.
Igualmente el estudio reveló que hay 1.734.489 jóvenes inscritos en el Registro Electoral sin dirección y cerca de 4 millones de personas con direcciones incompletas.
Un dato que consideran alarmante es que en el estado Monagas todos los extranjeros registrados carecen de domicilio.
El estudio preliminar realizado por los socialcristianos no ha tocado el tema de los fallecidos, ni los menores de edad. En una segunda fase de trabajo cruzarán los datos del RE con el Seguro Social y el Instituto Nacional de Estadística.
Naime, en compañía de los demás miembros del Comité Nacional dará a conocer el estudio y entregará el Registro Electoral con direcciones a los precandidatos presidenciales, la OEA; la Unión Europea, Súmate, Queremos Elegir, Grupo La Colina, Universidades y periodistas.
Fuente: Diario El Mundo.
6 de julio de 2006
Andres, the corruption, chaos, crime and violence in Latin America never ever ceases to amaze me. It's just the norm for the region. A society is only as good as its people and Spain dumped its criminals and other derelicts onto their colonies in the Americas thus accounting for all the problems there today.
ALWAYS available for debate by e-mail,
Paul Thorsen
PThorsen240@aol.com
So are they all named Gonzalez?
Andres, you left out the important part! ;D
It's telling that as a real epic battle over electoral fraud and vote counting goes on in our most important regional neighbor (Mexico), this blog has not mentioned the allegations. Instead we are drawn to these electoral roll administrative mistakes that end up being nothing, in a country where the months-away election will not even be close.
Readers would be better advised to check out what the NYTimes and LATimes are reporting out of places like Guanajuato, where despite massive irregularities and eleciton officials openly pro-PAN very few, if any, ballot boxes were recounted. Where they were allowed to be re-opened, AMLO receieved on average more than 4 votes per precinct.
In one Guadalajara District, the 8 ballot boxes that were opened, all showed massive 'mistakes' that gave AMLO thousands of votes.... AMLO needs just 2 votes per precinct to be the victor.
Sorry; I made a mistake in the link to the article. Here it is again: ; “ The Good Neighbor Strategy ”
Leftside: The claims made in the LA Times were baloney and not just baloney, but unprofessional. Publishing threats by obvious political operatives was pretty bad journaistic ethics, according to seasoned correspondents, an obvious effort to manipulate events and give a favored side a platform for churning trouble.
One correspondent sent me this email today:
That LA times story is crap. Then (the writer) ends it with the testimony of people gathered by the PRD! At least he was honest in mentioning that, but that’s where the honesty ended.
Knowing how things work in Mexico, you can be pretty sure the angry witch who made the comments at the tail end of the story may have rejected the PAN’s roofing materials (truth of this is doubtful), but she probably accepted something else from the PRD in the good ‘ole PRI (where the PRD came from) style. It was pretty unprofessional and especially irresponsible for the Los Angeles Times to include the comments of a highly ignorant person controlled by a political party as threatening war. In my LA reporting days, we were forbidden to name street gangs by name when we put them on the air, and airing threats was unthinkable. Similar rule applied in other countries.
The LA Times has very low news standards in this, and they're counting on you as one of the gullible.
I really can't believe that (linked article) sort of middling soft thinking has reached the top ranks of our foreign policy establishment.
Maybe that's a bit harsh, but Naim says the biggest barrier to a free trade agreement with Brazil (magic bullet # 2 to defeating 'Chavezism') is US business interests, and not the strong role of the Lula Government in fighting the US approach. His "friendly neighbor" policy means kissing up to Brazil, who is currently welcoming Venezuela into their own chosen trade block - Mercosur. Kissing Lula's ass will gain the US nothing. Sure, the whole world wants the US to buy more of its basic goods, but many would argue it is Brazil that has led the 3rd world in rebellion since Doha...
From the start of his piece I thought he was going to outline how the US can compete with Chavez and Castro in reducing "poverty, inequality, exclusion, corruption and widespread frustration." But when he blames the "predatory élites" in Latin capitals, to let the Washington concensus and mal-used US power off the hook, I knew not to prepare for much.
In supporting his 1st magic bullet, to end the Cuban embargo, he implies it's just a mere irritant to Cuba but that its existence represents a (gasp) "blatant double-standard." He is right about one thing though, that lifting the embargo would provoke howls fromt the 'exiles.'
Maybe doing these 2 things would be productive steps for the US in some small way. But what no one in the establishment seems to understand is that the Washington model have already lost. People are searching for alternatives, but they are not choosing ours... unless you count 36% of Mexicans (Garcia in Peru is not exactly a Chicago school disciple).
I do not think that anyone in his right mind would say that there were no irregularities in the last Mexican election. As a matter of fact, I do not think anyone in his right mind would make such a statement about any electoral process including, or maybe I should say specially, the ones held in the United States.
Of course, when an election is very tight and a small number of votes can make the difference there is always doubt about the fairness of the ballot counting process.
In every election there are a number questionable ballots and irregularities that are open to interpretation. Further, in a very tight election it is reasonable to argue that the electoral officials may not be able to avoid being somewhat biased to the candidate of their preference and/or interests when deciding for or against tally complaints filed by the candidates.
We should know since the recounting of ballots in the 2000 Presidential election gave birth to a whole new legal volume on the interpretation of valid and voided ballots and raised serious doubts about the impartiality of electoral and government officials as well as supreme court justices. Further, the claims of fraud in the Ohio vote tally of the 2004 Presidential election are not only still fresh but in fact have been supported to a certain degree by the findings of the GAO report of September 2005.
We should not be surprised therefore that there are complaints about the results of the Mexican Presidential election. When the vote margin between two candidates is so small it doesn’t matter how many times you count the votes you will get a different final count every time; this, because the outcome of the election will eventually be decided by a subjective interpretation of which questionable votes are indeed valid and which are not. In this kind of situation the incumbent political force has the upper hand to win the election.
This might not be completely fair but the fact is that no electoral system is perfect and a tight election means that the country is evenly divided and therefore can not choose a clear winner. It also means that the electoral system needs to be improved to avoid similar situations in the future. At the end of the day, it all boils down to the fact that the country needs to elect a President and given the vote tally anyone of the two candidates would do.
What is coming out of Venezuela though, if proven true, is a completely different and certainly most disturbing story. We are not talking here of a reasonable electoral debate about the vote tally in a very tight election but indeed about a total disregard for Democracy and the rights of the Venezuelan people.
A proof that there is a crude and certainly moronic State sponsored scheme (I do not know of any other word that could better describe posting a fraudulent electoral roll on the internet) to deprive the people of Venezuela of their Democratic right to choose their leaders.
It would also give credibility to the claims by many Venezuelans of widespread electoral fraud in past elections and the government’s reluctance and red tape when it comes to making an audit of the electoral roll.
It could also mean that if the fraudulent roll has been used in past elections Chavez might not be a “Caudillo” after all, which was bad enough, but indeed a Dictator.
Let’s wait and see though. Until now we are talking about allegations.
Yes, we are talking about allegations in Venezuela. Accuasations if proven true, I admit, would be more serious than the apparent individualized cases of fraud and tally errors we're seeing in Mexico.
BUT, one has to think pretty lowly of the Venezuelan Government to beleieve they thought having 1.7 million people living at the same address on the rolls was the way to cheat the election. One would have to think they were insane to risk a sure victory with such a hair-brained idea... not to mention making the list publically available at the same time. That is why I (again) feel these allegations of stolen elections in Venezuela are hogwash. I mean independent polls haven't shown Chavez below 50% in ages.
But my point is that establishment opinion-makers like Oppenheimer don't really care much for getting the votes right (democracy), they care about the results. If the concern was really democracy and not the prevention of leftiss, then we would be reading more about the thousands of instances of actual fraud and mishaps in Mexico. Sure there are always mistakes, but when they have all turned up to have benefitted Calderon thus far, one can not blame PDRistas for wanting a recount. An administation and set of policy elites that puts democracy promotion at the front of every sentance should back this simple call.
I agree with leftside, believe it or not, that the electoral roll mistake in Venezuela is so far out there that it is indeed unbelievable.
Sometimes though the simplest explanation is the correct one; they just do not care.
I have the feeling we will soon find out.
As for the Mexican election, as long as candidates execise their rights under the law I think that is fair.
Leftside will have to concede though that we are not talking about widespread fraud in the Mexican election. It would also be moronic to rig an election so as to win for just a couple hundred votes.
That is not to say that given the tight tally there may very well be last minute officials trying to pull votes out their sleeves.
I think Mexico has a great election system in many ways but in implementation it was, at best, too ambitous. There simply should be a mechanism for a recount, especially in a country with a history such as Mexico. If nothing turns up it would prove the legitimacy of the IFE for years to come.
As evidence of irregularities have come rolling out Mexicans are making up their own mind about who broke rules, and where. Ads declared illegal aired for weeks, the Government told the TV networks what to (not) report on election night, powerful companies sent media messages, investors panicked, irregular tallies have overwhelmingly turned up to favor AMLO...
Is that a pattern of fraud or not, I don't know. But what should wake people up is that Calderon seems scared now. He is doing what he condemned AMLO of a few days ago. He is asking for the annulment of (pro-Obrador) votes in hundreds of areas... many because PAN election workers did not show up! Still Calderon's complaints cite just 500 districts with problems, versus AMLO's 50,000 (of 130,000).
The situation requires delicacy, something neither AMLO or Calderon are showing. Calderon is acting as if he's the President-elect before he's been declared anything. AMLO seems too confident for the evidence I've seen laid out as well. A recount would take a day and end it.
Maybe that's a bit harsh, but Naim says the biggest barrier to a free trade agreement with Brazil (magic bullet # 2 to defeating 'Chavezism') is US business interests, and not the strong role of the Lula Government in fighting the US approach. His "friendly neighbor" policy means kissing up to Brazil, who is currently welcoming Venezuela into their own chosen trade block - Mercosur. Kissing Lula's ass will gain the US nothing. Sure, the whole world wants the US to buy more of its basic goods, but many would argue it is Brazil that has led the 3rd world in rebellion since Doha...
Lula's approach is based on achieving some sort of numbers and consensus to succesfully challenge EU and US agricultural restrictions.
That and modification of the intellectual property regimen. It is hardly a radical position
On the supposed electoral fraud in Venezuela (from the Miami Herald):
The (Venezuelan Election) Council says it has already removed 400,000 voters from the rolls because of inconsistencies in the registry, and the registry is now in the midst of its second official audit in a year. The first, by the Costa Rica-based watchdog group CAPEL, affiliated to the Interamerican Institute of Human Rights, found only limited ''inconsistencies.'' The second is being performed by professors from government-run universities.
An unofficial survey by professors from private universities who refused to take part in the second audit also turned up flaws in the registry but nothing, they said, that would taint the overall results of an election.
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