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Gen. Ripper posted:
If only 25% of the population is allowed to vote the PSUV will take the whole thing. What's the news on the state of exception deal?
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Dec 2, 2015 14:47
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As far as I know, the state of exception was extended for an additional 60 days in Tachira, Zulia, and Apure. They had the states of exception extended in that order. The only state I can't remember seeing news on is Amazonas, although it's possible that I simply missed the announcement or that the original 60 day state of exception has not expired there yet. The entire purpose of the state of exception and the closing of the border with Colombia was to deal a fatal blow to the economic war by stopping goods from flowing out of the country. While I've read articles that suggest that some goods (such as gasoline) have seen an increase in stock in the affected areas, it was evident way before the move was taken that the country's economic problems were far too complex to warrant such a simple and heavy-handed response.
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Dec 2, 2015 16:03
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I live in Maracaibo and the only thing closing the border "fixed" was the long lines at gas stations.
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Dec 2, 2015 19:12
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Chuck Boone posted:What they decide to do in that (virtually certain) situation is what's keeping people up at night. This is what Maduro said two days ago at a rally in Caracas: What's the big deal? The opposition is threatening to take to the streets if they lose, as they've done violently in the past. Besides if the opposition does stuff like privatizing social services, dissolving the communes, handing the country's oil wealth to exxon or any other neoliberal "reforms" there most certainly be protests.
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Dec 3, 2015 01:37
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From Caracas Chronicles: That's Ismael García from the MUD photoshopped into an ad for the fake MINUNIDAD party.
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Dec 3, 2015 07:56
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beer_war posted:From Caracas Chronicles: I'd love to hear Borneo Jimmy's take on this. He won't say anything of course, but I'd love to see him minimize it.
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Dec 3, 2015 08:25
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This is regular political propaganda, I don't see anything wrong! -CNE edit: Let's recap! MudUnidad is an opposition party. Chavism takes over MINUnidad, another party, and changes its color scheme and logo to be almost identical to those of MUD, plus changes its slogan to read "We are the opposition" and "Change now". One of MUD's candidates is Ismael Garcia, which is a well known politician. MIN picks a seemingly random dude with no political experience to be their candidate. His Name is Ismael Garcia. MIN releases ads saying "VOTE MIN, WE ARE THE OPPOSITION, DON'T VOTE MUD" (basically). Now there are posters of MUD's Ismael Garcia holding MIN's ballot in several places in Caracas. Is Bugs Bunny their campaign manager or something? This is crazy and cartoonish. Hugoon Chavez fucked around with this message at 10:15 on Dec 3, 2015 |
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Dec 3, 2015 10:08
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Hugoon Chavez posted:This is regular political propaganda, I don't see anything wrong! It also shows absolute contempt for Venezuelan voters.
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Dec 3, 2015 10:42
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I've been following the news in Venezuela really closely on a daily basis since February of last year, and I've noticed that Maduro seems to have gone the deep end over the last few weeks or so. It might be the case that he's been giving more speeches recently because of the election campaign, but it seems like nearly every day he says something even crazier than the day before. Some of the things he says make me think he's deranged. Aside from continuously saying that he will personally lead the fight from the streets if the PSUV loses the election (which, no matter what anyone says, is not an OK thing to say), his personal attacks against people he doesn't like have become more disjointed and vicious. The other day, Maduro called the mayor of the Sucre municipality "a parasite", and told a crowd that he spent 70% of his time in one of his mansions in Miami. As it turns out, Ocariz has been spending a lot of time in Miami, but not in a mansion. Ocariz said that he didn't own any property abroad, and that the reason he's been in Miami so often is because his twelve year old son is receiving treatment for leukemia in a hospital there. Earlier this week, Lorenzo Mendoza - the head of the Polar company - received some kind of recognition at a baseball event in Caracas. The crowd received him enthusiastically, clapping and cheering loudly when Mendoza walked onto the field. Here's a video of the event along with my translation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFPof7pvOTA quote:Announcer: We want to call forward Gustavo Hernandez, director of affairs for Pepsicola Venezuela, Carlos [unintelligible], director of marketing at Pepsicola Venezuela, and Veronica Armas, [manager] at Pepsicola Venezuela. Anyway, Maduro took exception to the fact that people might like Mendoza, and went on a bizarre rant on television where he suggested that Mendoza paid the crowd "millions" (of Bolivares, presumably) so that they would cheer for him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOxI_OhnxmM quote:Maduro: If pensions depended on Lorenzo Mendoza, there would be no pensions in the country. You’re a bandit and a devil! Even if you pay millions so that they’ll applaud you in Pepsi Home Run [the name of the event Mendoza attended], you’re a good-for-nothing, Lorenzo Mendoza! You’re a devil, and every devil gets their holy water. You’re a devil, man, a bourgeoisie who mistreats the people, and you’ve commanded this whole campaign to hide products from people. But there’s plenty of beer! There’s plenty of beer, Lorenzo Mendoza. Devil! I’m calling you a devil and that’s what you are. Keep paying [the media?] and for all the stupid things that you do. Maduro's theories are becoming more and more disjointed, and he's also referencing events that just seem disconnected from reality. In a speech yesterday, Maduro said that he personally ordered the arrest of a supermarket manager after calling the Minister of the Interior to arrange the arrest, because he'd received a tip: quote:The manager had received the order to make the people suffer. I called the Minister of the Interior and said: “Send a detachment from the SEBIN immediately and throw him in jail”. I think that even by the standards of the PSUV mythos, Maduro's most recent comments mark a big step into a territory of confused incoherence that we likely hadn't seen before. Chuck Boone fucked around with this message at 13:58 on Dec 3, 2015 |
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Dec 3, 2015 13:56
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The dude said a long time ago that Chavez had came to him as little bird and told him to lead the country, it's nothing new.
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Dec 3, 2015 14:02
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ComradeCosmobot posted:I'd love to hear Borneo Jimmy's take on this. He won't say anything of course, but I'd love to see him minimize it. Personally, I'm waiting to hear his thoughts the day after the opposition gains a majority in the assembly: "Guys, did you know that Venezuelans have to queue up for food and there's a critical shortage of medicine? It's outrageous. This sort of stuff never happened until yesterday when the opposition won the election."
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Dec 3, 2015 15:23
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Hugoon Chavez posted:The dude said a long time ago that Chavez had came to him as little bird and told him to lead the country, it's nothing new. I agree that Maduro's never been (for lack of a better term) a particularly sound-minded person, but there's some folksy charm to that bird story that is almost endearing. The story is nonsense, but on a good day I can see how someone might hear it and not think too much of it. I think the fact that a) he's been speaking a lot over these past few weeks, and b) he's aware that the PSUV is headed to a loss adds up to him stepping up his game more and more. To recap, these are things that Maduro has said out loud in front of television cameras over the last 36 hours or so:
I don't have the link handy, but Freddy Bernal (who's a fairly high profile PSUV official and National Assembly deputy) broke from the party line in an interview earlier this week and said that the PSUV would definitely have to revise some of its economic policies because they clearly haven't worked. Maduro's so far gone that the PSUV facade of unity is cracking. El Hefe posted:I live in Maracaibo and the only thing closing the border "fixed" was the long lines at gas stations. This makes sense for a few reasons, the first being that you can fill up a truck with gas for cents, drive 10 minutes and sell it at market prices in Colombia. I forget where I saw this, but someone involved in the gas smuggling said it was easier/more profitable to smuggle gas than it is to smuggle cocaine. There's a lot of assumptions that need to be true for the border closures to actually make a dent in the scarcity of basic necessities, one of them being that the National Guard/whoever controls the border crossings isn't actively involved in the smuggling. The fact that the closure hasn't really worked is evidence that these assumptions are not true. Chuck Boone fucked around with this message at 15:54 on Dec 3, 2015 |
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Dec 3, 2015 15:52
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Haha that article. Maduro: "I had that guy arrested in one of those famous supermarkets" well, which one? I think Maduro's carzyness is both the fact that being president is waaaaay over his head, and that he's trying really hard to channel Chavez, but obviously lacks the charisma and shrewdness that his predecesor had.
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Dec 3, 2015 16:10
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Labradoodle posted:Personally, I'm waiting to hear his thoughts the day after the opposition gains a majority in the assembly: Everyone knows the parasites waging the economic war will just pull the "Stop Destroying the Economy" lever as soon as the opposition wins the National Assembly!
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Dec 3, 2015 21:57
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But Maduro said that the exact next day after Chavism wins the elections everything would be fully stocked and the economy fixed! Who do I believeee ~~
Hugoon Chavez fucked around with this message at 10:49 on Dec 4, 2015 |
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Dec 4, 2015 09:59
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Was reading the BBC and came across this:quote:Poverty levels were halved between 2003 to 2011 and Venezuela's Gini co-efficient, which measures inequality, improved greatly. This seems right from what I've been reading. Poverty reduced dramatically in the 2000s, onl for them to raise sky high over the past few years due to inflation and economic collapse. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-34983467
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Dec 4, 2015 10:38
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Almost 50% of the population went poor in the last three years. Sounds about right, actually. I don't think I know a single person still in Venezuela that earns enough to live comfortably. edit: personally of course. I know OF people living just fine.
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Dec 4, 2015 12:18
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Labradoodle posted:Personally, I'm waiting to hear his thoughts the day after the opposition gains a majority in the assembly: I'm afraid it will be more along the lines of him praising Maduro's 'Anti-Terrorism Operation' after PSUV rigs the vote.
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Dec 4, 2015 16:59
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OPEC just abandoned any and all production limits, meaning that oil prices are going to continue their nosedive; they're currently at around $40 a barrel. This can't be good news for Venezuela.
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Dec 5, 2015 22:16
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One of Maduro's staunchest English-language defenders concedes that currency controls have been disastrous, election will be "close." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-ciccariellomaher/venezuelan-election-will-_b_8720592.html
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Dec 6, 2015 04:24
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According to one of the observers who went to Venezuela, they have been notified by the CNE that if they step into a voting circuit they will be commiting a "serious misconduct"
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Dec 6, 2015 04:25
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My family got together this weekend so we can all follow the election together. Tomorrow is going to be an interesting day. I think by around this time tomorrow we will find out (or will have found out) that the opposition has won a simple majority. I think it will be close to 50%+1. I think that the PSUV understands that it will lose, and that the wheels have been in motion for some time now to try to mitigate the defeat. A simply majority will give the opposition some power in the Assembly, but not enough to do any serious damage. Maduro backtracked on all of his "I will not hand over the revolution" nonsense earlier today and said that he would respect the results of the election. MothraAttack posted:One of Maduro's staunchest English-language defenders concedes that currency controls have been disastrous, election will be "close." Coming from Ciccariello-Maher, the article is a scathing rebuke of post-Chavez Venezuela. However, it's still Ciccariello-Maher, so he can't help but give us stuff like this: quote:Any victory for the Venezuelan opposition will be a serious blow to the Bolivarian Revolution that Hugo Chávez helped set into motion two decades ago. Government mismanagement aside, recent years have seen a Venezuela that is more equal, more socially just, and more democratic, not less.
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Dec 6, 2015 04:46
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I should have posted this article earlier, I find it hard to believe to be honest. I can't imagine an electoral system as hosed up as the one described in the article. http://www.elpais.com.uy/informacion/mirada-uruguaya-insolito-mundo-electoral.html
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Dec 6, 2015 04:58
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Don't worry, everyone, the observers have arrived:quote:A delegation of US solidarity activists arrived in Venezuela on Tuesday as part of an international effort to accompany the country’s December 6th parliamentary elections amidst a campaign by the US and other actors to discredit their legitimacy. http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/11744 Don't you feel safer already?
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Dec 6, 2015 09:45
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If you're looking to follow the elections today, there's a couple of places where you can watch live coverage of the proceedings.
There have been pretty long lines in Caracas so far today:    There have also been a few incidents of electoral law violation today. For example, electoral laws forbid any kind of campaigning on election day. A Twitter user took the picture below in Montalban, Caracas showing a group of men on motorcycles driving around a voting center in the area with PSUV flags:  A journalist with La Patilla (@RCamachoPatilla) said that he watched as a group of people set up a PSUV campaign tent near a voting center. He said that UNASUR observers witnessed the event:    There's also a really cool website that lets people report instances of electoral law violations through an app. You can track the reports through their website here. beer_war posted:Don't you feel safer already? Observer: "Uhhh.. yeah, yeah, everything looks good here, congratulations!" *gets on jet back to the USA, immediately goes to Costco to buy huge tubs of everything* Chuck Boone fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Dec 6, 2015 |
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Dec 6, 2015 16:11
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Chuck Boone posted:
I clicked through this and they casually mentioned how there were "at least 400 reports that had been submitted against Venezuela and the electoral process", which I guess is people complaining about being intimidated at a voting area or something. It's fantastic watching in a really hosed up way.
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Dec 6, 2015 16:37
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Ghost of Mussolini posted:I clicked through this and they casually mentioned how there were "at least 400 reports that had been submitted against Venezuela and the electoral process", which I guess is people complaining about being intimidated at a voting area or something. It's fantastic watching in a really hosed up way. A PSUV candidate was answering questions from the press and went on for like 4 minutes about how the PSUV was all about love and inclusion, as opposed to the opposition which is about spite and bitterness. He then got a question from a newspaper that has been critical of the PSUV and went on a rant about how it was shameful that the newspaper never published anything in favour of the government, how it was a disgrace, etc. and refused to answer the question. If you speak Spanish, watch VTV for a bit. It's absolutely insane.
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Dec 6, 2015 16:41
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When will early results start coming in?
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Dec 6, 2015 17:18
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MothraAttack posted:When will early results start coming in? Every voting center should be closed by 6:00 PM unless there are people still lined up to vote at that time. Normally, parliamentary elections don't see a huge voter turnout, which would help with getting the centers closed on time, but I'd say that given the high profile nature of these elections we'll probably see voting hours extended. I believe the Consejo Nacional Electoral has the ability to be able to announce the results by 8:30-9:00 PM. What we've seen in previous elections is that, for whatever reason, they'll wait until later in the evening to make the results official. I remember that the CNE didn't announce the results of the 2009 constitutional referendum until like 3:00 AM. The MUD said earlier this week that they will try to push for the CNE to make the announcement sooner rather than later. In short: the CNE will know the results of the election by 8:30-9:00 PM. Whether or not they announce them at that time is up to them, and they have a track record of waiting til later into the night.
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Dec 6, 2015 17:29
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The MUD has stated they have close to perfect witness coverage in voting centers this time around, so we should have a rough idea before the CNE officially announces the results (íf they choose to delay them as usual). Personally, my voting center looked as crowded as in every past presidential election. Historically, about 60%-70% percent of people vote in parliamentary elections, whereas the number rises to approximately 80% during presidentials. The latest polls had voter intention for today at approximately 70% (here's a breakdown in Spanish of all the polls https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anexo:Encuestas_de_las_elecciones_parlamentarias_de_Venezuela_de_2015). The real question today isn't whether the MUD will win the popular vote, but the margin of their victory. Later today, we will have a clear idea of how the rural areas are skewing and it is those that will give us a glimpse of the results. Due to gerrymandering, the rural vote is overrepresented; if the MUD manages to win some of these key areas, we would be looking at a landslide.
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Dec 6, 2015 18:30
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Labradoodle posted:The MUD has stated they have close to perfect witness coverage in voting centers this time around, so we should have a rough idea before the CNE officially announces the results (íf they choose to delay them as usual). Personally, my voting center looked as crowded as in every past presidential election. As an American, I envy this. I wish we regularly ticked 60% for presidentials.
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Dec 6, 2015 19:16
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The CNE just suspended the credentials of ex-presidents Pastrana and Quiroga while they were on air calling for the government to follow the letter of the law and not keep voting centers open illegally. They found out right in the middle of the MUD press conference and took it with a laugh, saying "We didn't know this press conference had such huge ratings". Some videos have come up during the afternoon of chavista governors getting heavily booed and yelled at by the crowds at their own voting centers. The polls will close in little over an hour and the latest counts had participation above 70%, nearing presidential levels.
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Dec 6, 2015 22:26
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How do you think Maduro will respond to his party's near-inevitable loss?
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Dec 6, 2015 22:37
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Phlegmish posted:How do you think Maduro will respond to his party's near-inevitable loss? "I told you the process was clean as proved by our 0.0000001 point loss"
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Dec 6, 2015 22:40
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Phlegmish posted:How do you think Maduro will respond to his party's near-inevitable loss? Declaring the election invalid, followed by declaring martial law. 
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Dec 6, 2015 22:40
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Phlegmish posted:How do you think Maduro will respond to his party's near-inevitable loss? In the past, they've taken away the power/budgets of elected opposition officials and created parallel bodies of governance. If the opposition obtains a simple majority their power would be limited and could be mostly neutralized through the Supreme Court (which hasn't ruled against the government in a single case during almost a decade). Anything beyond that takes us into uncharted territory, but I suspect their aim would be to neuter the assembly as much as possible.
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Dec 6, 2015 22:43
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Labradoodle posted:Some videos have come up during the afternoon of chavista governors getting heavily booed and yelled at by the crowds at their own voting centers. Governor Vilema Mora (Tachira): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy07UV9S7Z8 Governor Rangel Gomez (Bolivar): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwPcWUoHEW0 Governor Adan Chavez (Barinas): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w95UQRKQXHY
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Dec 6, 2015 22:56
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The CNE decided to keep the polls open illegally for an extra hour to give a leg up to their friends (polls are meant to close by 6PM if there's nobody waiting to vote outside anymore). Funnily enough, one of the Rectors of the CNE went on air on a government channel to declare this was completely illegal and he was promptly taken off the air.
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Dec 7, 2015 00:04
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There have also been lots of reports (all the ones I saw were from Caracas) that voting centers were empty at 6:00 PM, but the CNE workers refused to close them as per the law. Labradoodle, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't rector Rendon say that the decision to extend voting hours was not taken by consensus, and is therefore illegal?
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Dec 7, 2015 00:27
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Chuck Boone posted:There have also been lots of reports (all the ones I saw were from Caracas) that voting centers were empty at 6:00 PM, but the CNE workers refused to close them as per the law. Yep, he's the one that was taken off VTV after making the remark. I guess he didn't get the memo. UPDATE: Well, godamm. It seems these elections had a bigger turnout than the 2013 presidentials, that's unheard of. Labradoodle fucked around with this message at 00:43 on Dec 7, 2015 |
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Dec 7, 2015 00:33
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