Hugo Chávez Tightens His Grip

Huge Chávez is "reinventing government" in Venezuela:

Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s president, on Monday awoke to hear the type of election result usually reserved for the most power-hungry of dictators: 100 per cent of the seats.

The unofficial result, from polls held on Sunday to select the composition of the single-chamber legislature, signals a victory of sorts for the militaristic, left-leaning ruler of the world’s fifth-largest oil exporter.

The results are rumored to be made official by former-President Jimmy Carter, whom some consider to be a better ex-President, in fact maybe the best ex-President, ever. Actually, not really, but it would be nice to remind people of what Mr. Carter said the last time Venezuela held and "election":

In 1998, Hugo Chavez was elected president of Venezuela. There was a subsequent referendum to approve a new constitution, and in 2000, another nationwide election for local, state and national offices, with Mr. Chavez prevailing by close to 60% in both presidential elections. Accuracy of results was accepted, but the opposition remained determined to remove him from office.

A military coup against Mr. Chavez was successful in April 2002, but an aroused Venezuelan public and condemnation of the coup by Latin American governments resulted in Mr. Chavez being restored to office after two days in custody. The next attempt to depose him was a series of nationwide strikes that shut down oil production and almost destroyed the nation's economy. The government survived, but the political confrontation continued.

In January 2003, I proposed that a provision in the new constitution be implemented, providing for a referendum on whether Mr. Chavez should leave office or complete his term. Both sides agreed to this proposal, and the Organization of American States joined our Center in monitoring the gathering of necessary petitions and observing a recall referendum. An organization known as Súmate served as the opposition's driving force in encouraging signatures to depose Mr. Chavez and providing technical advice for their campaign efforts.

The Aug. 15 vote was the culmination of this process, and extra care was taken to ensure secrecy and accuracy. An electronic system was developed by a Venezuelan-American consortium led by SmartMatic that permitted touch-screen voting, with each choice backed up by a paper ballot. International machines were tested in advance, and we observed the entire voting process without limitation or restraint.

During the voting day, opposition leaders claimed to have exit-poll data showing the government losing by 20 percentage points, and this erroneous information was distributed widely. Results from each of the 20,000 machines were certified by poll workers and party observers and transmitted to central election headquarters in Caracas. As in all previous elections, paper ballots were retained under military guard. As predicted by most opinion polls and confirmed by our quick count, Mr. Chavez prevailed by a 59% to 41% margin.

Subsequently an audit was conducted to assure compatibility between manual ballots and electronically transmitted data, but opposition leaders insisted that their exit polls were accurate and that all other data were fraudulent. We met the following morning with Súmate, and they reported their own quick count showing a 10% government victory. Since their only remaining question was the accuracy of the audit, we developed the procedure for a second audit. Súmate and election commission members (government and opposition) agreed with our proposal. The second audit revealed no significant disparities.

Jimmy Carter, very pround of the touch screens his Center provided, failed to comment on those opponents who were terrorized and thus were unable to get to the polling stations to play with this cool new toy.

Well, here is a multiple choice question for Mr. Carter:

With 100% representation in the legislature for Chavez's ruling party after this election, the political landscape in Venezuela can be described as:

a) a curious anomaly or, a coinkydink
b) popular wave of support against the United States by those feeling the desperate oppression of the evils of capitalism
c) a forced suppression on a large population by another megalomaniacal dictator, driving his power through the engine of state-controlled socialism in the vein of Stalin, Mao, Lenin, Ho Chi-Mihn, and Kim Il-Sung