www.komps.xp.pl

fertieg58 · Informatyk

Chávez retorted with a mean-spirited tangent about the
journalistic integrity of?Radio France?and asked
Flores whether she knew the Venezuelan constitution. It was a
peculiar question, given that the section of the constitution
devoted to political rights states that the law guarantees the
principle of proportional representation; the section dealing with
the legislative branch states: "The National Assembly shall consist
of Deputies elected in each of the federal entities by universal,
direct,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], personalized and secret ballot with?proportional
representation. (emphasis added). Of course, in Venezuela
today no one but a fool would cite constitutional authority against
presidential fiat in the hopes of redressing a grievance. Referring
to the constitution as an actual moral standard or limit on the
power of government will become possible only in a post-Chávez
Venezuela.
Because the PSUV deliberately modified the electoral terrain to
its advantage, the MUD’s national majority in the elections was
unlikely to ever translate into a majority of seats in the National
Assembly. The opposition therefore officially won―at the time of
this writing―65 out of the 165 available seats,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], which amounts to
39.3 percent, while Chávez’ party has won 98 seats, which amounts
to 59.3 percent (the remaining two seats went to the small,
non-aligned party Patria Para Todos).?The PSUV thus
retains a simple majority in the National Assembly,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], but it lost its
qualified majority (upwards of 109 seats), which means the party
can no longer, by itself, reform the Constitution or
enact?Leyes Orgánicas?(major legislation
concerning constitutional rights, the organization of public
powers, and overarching legal frameworks), nor can it designate
government ministers or remove judges from the?Tribunal
Supremo. In addition, the PSUV will no longer be able to pass
Enabling Laws (requiring at least 99 votes), which have in the past
been used to give?el comandante presidente?the
authority to legislate by decree (on one
occasion, for as long as a year and a half).
It was precisely to mitigate, and as much as possible nullify,
the effects of such a reversal that the Chavista-controlled
National Assembly passed the Organic Law of Electoral Processes in
2009, by means of which it had been able to redraw legislative
circuits to its advantage. This electoral reform put the PSUV in a
position to win more representatives per state in states where it
was unlikely to win a majority of the vote. This was gerrymandering
at its ideological best, and it is the reason why, despite losing
the national vote, Chávez’ party still “won” the National
Assembly.
Antonio Sosa is a writer living in Caracas,
Venezuela
A?few
examples?of this electoral reform?operating
on a state level?illustrate the severity of the PSUV’s
deceit. In the Capital District, for instance, the MUD won 47.8
percent of the total vote and the PSUV won 47.7, yet this somehow
left the MUD with three seats and the PSUV with seven. In the state
of Carabobo, the MUD won 53.6 percent of the vote but only four
seats, while the PSUV, with 43 percent, won six seats. And in the
state of Merida, the MUD won 50 percent of the vote and two seats,
and the PSUV won 48.7 percent and four seats. Looking at these
three cases in particular, one might feel tempted to joke that the
MUD appears to have been punished in seats for winning, while the
PSUV seems to have been rewarded in seats for losing.
Although Chávez’ PSUV remains by far the country’s most popular
party, it now faces the unsettling reality of no longer
representing a majority of Venezuelans. The coalition known as
La Unidad Democrática, which has coalesced all
major parties and movements seeking an alternative to
Chavismo, now represents that majority. Chávez knows this
and is having a difficult time hiding the fact that he knows this.
In addition, the scandalous disparity between votes and seats
revealed Chávez’ “victorious” PSUV to be a group of petty,
gerrymandering thugs.
3415 S. Sepulveda Blvd.
Suite 400
Los Angeles, CA 90034
(310) 391-2245
The most compelling argument of Chavista apologists has
always been the idea that, whatever else might be said, Hugo
Chávez’s movement represents the voice of an overwhelming majority
of Venezuelans. Or perhaps it would be truer to say that this
argument used?to be compelling. Allied under the
banner of a coalition called the?Mesa de
la?Unidad Democrática?(MUD), the Venezuelan
opposition, in conjunction with a small non-aligned party, has
finally refuted this long overstated rationalization for
Chavista tyranny by winning a slight majority of the
national vote on Sunday’s legislative elections.

The evening following the elections, Chávez resurfaced. He held
an international press conference during which he tried to assuage
his followers’ disappointment and defend the results as a clear
victory for the Bolivarian revolution. He stressed the clear
majority the PSUV had accrued in the National Assembly. He also
mocked the opposition’s claim to victory based on a majority of the
national vote. “Well, keep on ‘winning’ like this!” he jeered,
repeating what he’d?written?on Twitter
that very morning. He also reminded Venezuelans of the local and
circuit-based nature of the elections, stressing the fact that
since he had not been competing, the results could not be
interpreted as a plebiscitary rejection of his government. In
claiming this, however, Chávez contradicted his election campaign
rhetoric. During the closing ceremony for his campaign, he reminded
his followers that a vote for his party’s candidates was
a?“vote
for Chávez.”??During the same event, Chávez also
asserted that a victory for his party would be a?“prelude
to what will happen here in December of 2012,”?when
presidential elections, in which he has promised to run, are
scheduled to take place.
Flores, for her part, simply reiterated the question, while
Chávez tautologically insisted that the elections were about
electoral circuits and not the nation as a whole. Of course, since
Chávez’ followers had?redrawn?these circuits,
his referring to them merely restated the premise behind Flores’
question: the circuit reorganization was the problem to
begin?with. In addition, though Chávez was technically right
to say that the elections had not been national in character, he
had unabashedly imbued them with a plebiscitary quality by
exhorting Venezuelans to think of him in deciding among
candidates.
Site comments/questions:
A few hours after midnight, and mere moments after the National
Electoral Council had announced the results by state (though not,
conveniently,?in toto), MUD spokesman Ramón Aveledo
gave a celebratory speech in which he?announced?that
the political forces opposing Hugo Chávez had?won
52 percent of the national vote?(see also?here,?here?and?here).
Former student leader Yon Goicoechea―who,?along
with thousands of other young Venezuelans, had been a volunteer
in the extensive logistical effort needed to mobilize voters,
monitor voting centers, and confirm the reliability of tallies
across the country―commented on Aveledo’s statement with a 2:30
a.m.?tweet?summarizing the
importance of the victory: “Ramon Guillermo Aveledo is correct. We
are the majority. 52% of the national vote. No to communism."
The PSUV, however, is planning to take full advantage of the
time it has left before the assumption of the new assembly on
January 5 of next year. The reelected PSUV deputy Iris
Varela?suggested?that
the current assembly (in which the PSUV holds 139 seats) is
considering whether to grant Chávez decree powers. She also stated
that the reigning assembly would speed up the process to appoint 31
new justices to the?Tribunal Supremo. The PSUV’s
campaign manager, Aristóbulo Istúriz, stated that the current
assembly will?“pass
the laws that need to be passed before its term ends.”?It
would be unsurprising if this outgoing assembly attempted to pass
legislation redefining a qualified majority to mean upwards of 97
seats.
At the press conference, Chávez also claimed that, in any case,
the majority still lay with his party, since the PSUV had received
5.4 million votes and the MUD five point three. During the question
portion of the event, however, Chávez met an unexpected challenge
to his version of events that highlighted the election’s most basic
contradiction. Andreina Flores, a Venezuelan reporter
for?Radio France Internationale, had the temerity and
common sense to?confront
Chávez about the salient incongruity between votes and seats.
Following Chávez’ version of events regarding the final vote tally
(5.4 million for the PSUV and 5.3 for the MUD), Flores inquired
why, if the opposition had obtained “almost the same number of
votes as the?Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela,
the opposition won 37 seats less than the PSUV.” (This difference
has since dwindled to 33 seats.) “I wonder,” Flores continued,
“whether this confirms the opposition’s thesis that the
redistribution of the [representational] weight of electoral
circuits was intentionally done to favor the PSUV. Or perhaps, even
worse, is a vote for the PSUV worth two?” Swiftly and palpably, the
emperor was revealed to have no clothes.
Editorial & Production Offices:
For these reasons, an unmistakable sense of chagrin suddenly
perched itself atop the head of our loquacious revolutionary, who
cannot now find the words with which to explain why, if the
opposition won a majority of the national vote―or, as per Chávez,
very close to a majority―it failed to win even half the seats in
the National Assembly. He simply cannot explain the existence of
these two majorities: the one, based on votes, is made up of
people; and the other, based on the manipulation of voting
districts, is made up of lawmakers. The self-serving sham that is
Chávez’s “democracia participativa y protagónica” has been
made perfectly obvious. Let those who have eyes see.
Media Inquiries and Reprint Permissions:
Although Chávez forcefully denied the existence of any such
majority, insisting that it was his?Partido Socialista
Unido de Venezuela?(PSUV) that had obtained the majority
of the national vote, his complete silence following the
announcement of the results was a telling statement in itself: No
blanket broadcast, no celebration from the?Balcón del
Pueblo, no speech of any kind during the small hours of that
fateful Monday. The silver-tongued demagogue, so vaunted for his
televised charisma and rhetorical prowess, remained unseen during
the immediate aftermath of what―judging by the disappointed
expressions of his red-clad followers―is the most significant
political reversal the Bolivarian revolution has yet
suffered.?
Chávez’ outburst of resentment against Flores, along with his
long-winded attempt to convince his followers that they
really?did?win the elections, are the telltale
signs of injured confidence and the result of a newly discovered
sense of vulnerability. Two Chavista intellectuals,
meanwhile, have already made their misgivings public. The German
political theorist,?Heinz Dieterich,
who wrote?Socialism of the XXI Century, published an
article in which he regrets Chávez’ inability to?“destroy
the opposition electoral bloc”?and asks himself, with
palpable unease, whether Chávez will be able win in the 2012
general elections. And the columnist?Cesar
Guevara?wrote?that?“the revolution was
defeated”?at the polls, insofar as the PSUV was not able
to win a qualified majority of the assembly (66.6 percent).
Commenting on the unfavorable portion of the national vo1te
obtained by the PSUV, Guevara described the election results as
constituting a “double defeat.”
(310) 367-6109
Another?electoral
disparity worth noting?is the fact that the nine states
that house 67 percent of the national voting population
(Anzoátegui, Aragua, Bolívar, Carabobo, Lara, Miranda, Táchira,
Zulia and the Capital District) get a mere 53 percent
representation in the National Assembly. The MUD, tellingly, won a
majority of the vote in six of these states.