Expatriates keep up fight for Chavez recall vote

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Wed, Dec. 03, 2003

SOUTH FLORIDA VENEZUELANS
Expatriates keep up fight for Chavez recall vote
Venezuelan expatriates vow to make their petition for President Hugo Chávez's recall count -- even without help from the Organization of American States.
BY RICHARD BRAND
[e-mail]

Barred by electoral authorities from petitioning to recall President Hugo Chávez, Venezuelans in South Florida collected thousands of signatures anyway and are promising a fight to get them recognized.
The petition drive -- conducted at gas stations and cafes in Weston, Miami, Naples and Doral over four days by a coalition of anti-Chávez groups -- has coincided with a much larger effort in Venezuela that has consumed that nation's politics.

Many Venezuelans here say they are eager to voice their contempt for the firebrand president, despite signs that their efforts to get their signatures counted will be futile.

The National Electoral Council has already said it would not count any petitions from abroad, citing a lack of resources to verify the names. Opposition leaders in Caracas say they have more than enough signatures to trigger a referendum. And while Venezuelans in Florida said they will appeal their case to the Organization of American States, OAS officials told The Herald on Tuesday that they would not intervene. (snip)

(snip) South Florida's Venezuelan leaders say they collected about 45,000 signatures in their own drive, although that number could not be independently verified. U.S. Census figures from 2002 count about 69,000 Venezuelans in Florida, including 30,000 in Miami-Dade County and 12,000 in Broward County.

Miami consul spokesman Antonio Padrinho said there are no more than 7,000 Venezuelans in Florida registered to participate in elections back home. (snip/...)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/americas/7400996.htm

One has to ask how many of these nimrods had to waddle away when the recent President Carlos Andres Perez was found guilty of mega corruption. Surely they don't believe ordinary Venezuelans would consider their votes valid.

[el_gato]

1. just a part of that miami mafia

[jmcgowanjm]

2. Hugo Chavez may be the most important man in the world.

The ideas of Hugo Chavez pose the greatest threat
to the continued colonial domination of Latin
America by American capital, and you have to
wonder how much longer he will be allowed to live.
xymphora

[Say_What]

4. They made that mistake with Che, I doubt that they'd make it again

but as Greg Palast's latest article, Cruisin' for a Bruisin' with Hugo, points out, what he's doing may be an invitation for a bullet but Hugo's attitude seems to be "take your best shot".

<clips>


...Well, Hugo, you KNOW why not. I remember the story of Ferdinand Marcos' proposal to the Shah of Iran some years back. The Philippines dictator suggested to the Iranian despot that Iran go around the US oil giants and ship directly to the Philippines for refining and sale. The Shah pointed to his personal jet which brought him to Manila. "Do you see the plane that brought me here? Do you know who paid for it? And what do you think would happen to that plane if I were to adopt your suggestion?"

....A proposal for a Latin OPEC is an invitation for a bullet. But that's Chavez' style. His assassins don't have to hunt him down; he looks for THEM. His attitude is, "take your best shot." And, as if to make the point, I'd noted he left the several bullet holes in the windows of the Presidential Palace from the last coup attempt (the one where he was held hostage under orders of a wannabe dictator, Pedro Carmona, chief of the nation's business confederation).

If creating a Latin OPEC is possible, Chavez is the man to pull it off. During Venezuela's recent turn at the Presidency of OPEC, Chavez successfully raised the world price of crude to $20 a barrel from $10.

This year Chavez successfully rebuilt Venezuela's oil company after a devastating management strike and campaign of widespread sabotage at PdVSA plants and pumps. It has to infuriate Bush's oil patch buddies that Chavez restored Venezuela's output from near zero to 2-1/2 million barrels a day while, after the same eight month period, Generalissimo Paul Bremer still can't pump enough oil out of Iraq to fill a Humvee.


http://www.gregpalast.com/


Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez speaks to his supporters at a rival rally outside the presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, Dec. 1, 2003, while his opposition celebrated the last day of a signature drive calling for a referendum on his rule. The sign behind reads 'The people continue.' (AP Photo/Marcelo Garcia, Miraflores Press)

[reknewcomer]

8. Chavez raised the world price of crude to $20 a barrel from $10

I'm sure the liberal voters in New England really want to pay twice as much to stay warm in the Winter. I know I don't. Why in the hell would we be bragging about doubling our cost to survive?

[htuttle]

3. They collected signatures in Miami...

...to overthrow the president of Venezuela?

I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

I'm sure not going to cry when most of Florida sinks below the rising ocean...

[Say_What]

5. How Many Signatures? On Watching a Train Wreck in Progress

Complete with footnotes to back his article up...

<clips>

By: Gregory Wilpert

Watching Venezuelan politics now is like watching a train wreck in progress, with two trains rushing towards each other and the date of the collision being the announcement of the CNE’s signature count, which should be sometime in the second week of January. All of a sudden the most important question in Venezuela’s political future has become, How many people signed the presidential recall referendum petition? Contradictory numbers abound, particularly from the opposition.

First, on Monday, the last day of the petition drive, opposition leader Henry Ramos Allup indicated that the opposition had collected four million signatures. Then, Tuesday morning, one of the major dailies, El Nacional, ran a headline saying that there were 3.8 million signatures. Later that day, Enrique Mendoza, representing the opposition coalition Democratic Coordinator said that the correct number is 3.6 million. Sumate, the NED and USAID<1> funded organization that organized a petition drive against the president last February and which provided logistical support to the petition drive this time, said that the figure is 3.4 million. Finally, opposition leader Henrique Salas Römer, who has been steering a somewhat independent line from the rest of the opposition, has said that the real figure is at 2.8 million.

Government supporters, of course, provided their own figure, based on figures collected by their petition observers, which said that the total number of votes was 1.95 million (adjusting it downwards from an earlier figure of 2.2 million). The figure to beat in all of this was 2.4 million signatures, which is 20% of the electorate.

There are two indicators which make me suspicious that the actual figure might be closer to the government’s number than the opposition’s. First, in the last night of the opposition’s petition drive, there was practically no media coverage of the opposition’s victory celebration. In the past, whenever there was any kind of opposition demonstration, the media would devote all of their programming to it (think of the post-election parties that take place all around the world after an election, which the media almost always cover, whether the party lost or won). This, at first, seemed an indication of the opposition’s possible demoralization or confusion over the actual numbers of the petition. At the same, time, Chavistas held a fairly large and enthusiastic victory celebration in front of the Miraflores Presidential Palace, which was organized only in the last minute.

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1072

[Say_What]

6. International Observers' Report

<clips>

By: Venezuelanalysis.com

This document was submitted to the National Electoral Council (CNE) by the deputy Doris Gutierrez (Honduras), judge Eric Halphen (France), Senator Luigi Marrino (Italy), and the journalist Irene Leon (Ecuador), in the name of 52 international observers.

We –a group of 52 intellectuals, parliamentarians, social leaders, communicators, and other people from 35 countries around the world- have come to Venezuela as observers of the opposition’s petition drive, which took place between November 28th and December 1st 2003. The petition drive was aimed at hastening process of recalling the President, Hugo Chavez Frias.

After observing the process in various states, we highlight the following points. First, we stress the importance of this kind of innovative and democratic practice for the development of participatory democracy in the region and worldwide. Second, we emphasize the political will of the government, which facilitated the process of signature collection, provided security guarantees, and respected and promoted the right of all citizens to political participation. By following the constitution, the government facilitated the creation of a democratic space, in which freedom of thought and the free expression of disagreements were possible.

We observed a peaceful environment at the collection tables, the materials provided by the National Electoral Council were clear, and the people who were collecting the signatures and the national observers had an adequate level of information about the process. Nevertheless, the following aspects of the process attracted our attention:

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1071

[AP]

7. In some ways I wish the US were more like Venezuela

In many ways, the battle between good and evil is right out in the open for everyone to see. Once you get beyond the media spin (which is probably relatively easy, since it's so blatant), it's clear what all the characters stand for.

In the US, we have a media that's every bit as bad, but so many people are confused about the real motivation of the people pulling that wool over your eyes.

Venezuelans are sort of luck that everything's out on the table. They also seem -- both sides -- to care way more about the outcome. What do we care about outcomes in the US?

OK, this is a really weakly stated argument. It just came over me suddenly that the US would be better off it we were dealing with "Crouching Facsism, Hidden Oligopoly" the same way it's happening in Venezuela.