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The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela held presidential elections on 3 December 2006 , to choose a President for the six-year term to begin on 10 January 2007 . With 98.29% of the polling stations counted, incumbent president Hugo Chávez was re-elected with 62.87% of the votes.1 MAIN CANDIDATES
INTERNATIONAL OBSERVERS Accepted by Venezuelan Electoral Council
Declined by Venezuelan Electoral Council
PRIMARY ELECTION Civil society organization '' 2006 ). CAMPAIGN PLATFORMS Chávez Chávez's Campaign Manager Rafael Lacava said that the campaign was to be based on defending Venezuela's National Sovereignty and promoting world peace. According to ''Unión Radio'', Lacava added that a campaign theme was to be the "country's freedom to no longer be a North American colony".Unión Radio. Campaña de Chávez estará basada en la defensa de la soberanía. (21 August 2006) Retrieved 21 August 2006. According to the '' reports that Chávez said, "In this electoral process there are two candidates only, namely Hugo Chávez and George W. Bush ." Chávez: "10 million vote goal is hard to attain". ''El Universal'' (18 August 2006). Chávez promised that, if elected, he would personally convoke a midterm recall referendum in the year 2010 without the need for petition signatures as was the case with the 2004 Recall Referendum . This consult would allow the voters of Venezuela to remove him from his post. He has said that if he won that recall referendum, he would then call for a referendum to ask the people for Indefinite Re-election to be put into the Constitution .Government of Venezuela. Chávez anuncia que convocará su referéndum revocatorio de mandato. (1 September 2006) Retrieved 2 September 2006. On 26 November Chávez made his final rally in Caracas; it was called "The Red Tide takes Caracas". Reuters estimated that hundreds of thousands participated. Chavez vows to beat the "devil" Retrieved 27 November 2006 Chávez supporters packed several streets. Rosales Rosales said that the backbone of his government program was to be the social arena, saying it will be a "sound and well defined" program, including a "fair allocation of oil revenues by means of two axes – 2006 ). The latter being promoted as ''Mi Negra'' which is a Debit Card handed out to the poor with monthly deposits from 20% of oil industry profits. Nevertheless, a poll shows 59% of the Venezuelan people rejected the ''Mi Negra'' program, preferring stable jobs.''El Nacional'' [http://www.el-nacional.com/entrevistas/Detalle.asp?IdEntrevista=44&IdEntrevistado=33 59% de los venezolanos reprueban plan Mi Negra]Retrieved 2 June 2006 According to the '''' ( 9 August 2006 ). The Associated Press reports that Rosales accuses Chávez of "overspending on a military buildup" and pledged "to use Venezuela's oil wealth to help the poor and improve education and health care", ridiculing Chávez's "claims of a possible war with the U.S." and saying, "Venezuela's real war should be against rampant street crime."Sanchez, Fabiola. Rosales opposition choice to face Chavez. ''Associated Press'' ( 10 August 2006 ). Rosales held several large rallies around the country; the largest being "Las Avalanchas" in Caracas.Bloomberg. Mass Venezuela opposition rally (8 October 2006). Accessed 02 November 2006. Rallies were held in several states to try and get the Rosales campaign to be heard by as many people as possible. To close his election campaign, Manuel Rosales held a huge final rally in Caracas with an estimate by the Associated Press to be in the hundreds of thousands.''Associated Press'' [http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/11/25/chavez.protest.ap/index.html Anti-Chavez protesters march en masse in Caracas] Retrieved 27 November 2006 Debate Rosales demanded a public debate, saying Chávez should choose the TV channel where the debate would be broadcast. He also said "I am waiting for him (Chávez) to have a debate with me broadcast by all the TV channels to allow Venezuelans to know what is the project and the vision of the country he has and the project and vision we have". Chávez declared he would not debate Rosales because "the candidates from the opposition do not even have the condition to debate a schoolboy or girl in sixth grade from a Bolivarian school".''Prensa Latina.'' Debate centra campaña opositora en Venezuela. ( 2006 ). Accessed 28 November 2006 . CAMPAIGN SLOGANS AND ADS Chávez Chávez launched his campaign with a 2006 , while leading the oath at the national campaign headquarters (Comando Miranda), Chávez acknowledged that 10 million votes would be hard to attain. "Comando Miranda juramentado como frente anti-imperialista". ''Venezolana de Televisión-Ministerio de Comunicación e Información'' (17 August 2006). Chávez: "10 million vote goal is hard to attain". ''El Universal'' (18 August 2006). The 10 Million votes slogan remained popular as symbolic of the desire of Chávez supporters to not just win, but win by a wide margin to prevent accusations from Rosales supporters that fraud was used to win the election. From 9 October , Chávez campaign used the slogans ''por amor'' (for love) and ''Chávez, victoria de Venezuela'' (Chávez, Venezuela's victory). They also used the slogan ''uh, ah, Chávez no se va'' (ooh, oh, Chávez won't go) from the 2004 Recall Referendum campaign.El Tiempo. El presidente Hugo Chávez es ahora amoroso y azul. (12 October 2006). Accessed 29 October 2006. The Guardian. The new-look Chávez: lover, people's poet, electioneer. (18 October 2006). Accessed 29 October 2006. A poll made by the firm ''Cifras Escenarios'' reported that 76.7% of Venezuelans liked the love message.Terra. El 76,7 por ciento de los venezolanos aprueba el 'mensaje de amor' de Hugo Chávez. (22 October 2006). Accessed 29 October 2006 The English translation of the message is as follows:
Rosales ''Atrévete con Manuel Rosales'' is the Rosales campaign slogan. ''Atrévete con Manual Rosales''. Accessed 25 August 2006 . ''¡Ni el imperio, ni el barbudo!'' (Neither the empire, nor the [Cuban bearded one!) is a slogan used by Rosales in launching his campaign, intended to "hit Chávez where the Venezuelan ''comandante'' is most vulnerable: his penchant for giving away billions of dollars to foreign countries, while nearly half of the Venezuelan people live in poverty" referring to subsidized oil deals to both Cuba and the United States. "We are not going to be the empire's defenders," Rosales said. "The empire must respect our sovereignty, and we must respect the empire," and "we cannot be looking at societies like Cuba as a model to be copied. We want modernity, transformation, development." OTHER CANDIDATES The ballot was the largest in Venezuelan history which, according to ''El Universal'', is explained by division among adherents to grassroots '' 2006 ).
ENDORSEMENTS Chávez Rosales Calling for abstention
PREDICTIONS Polls
(+) Results are political segmentation, not voter intention''Diaz, Sara'' (''El Universal'' 05 November 2006) La última palabra en las elecciones la tienen los indecisos Retrieved 25 November 2006 "Keller afirma que fue mal interpretado cuando explicó que el tamaño del mercado de Chávez es de 52% mientras que el de Rosales es de 48%: "No me refería a la intención de voto sino a la segmentación política" (++) This poll was attributed to the Universidad Complutense De Madrid . University's authorities clarified that they have not knowledge about this study. One of members of the CEPS happen to be a university faculty. (+++) Publisher does not mention polling company. International markets International markets largely saw a Chávez victory. Rafael de la Fuente of BNP Paribas stated "The market expects a Chávez victory, they don't even question it". Ricardo Amorim of WestLB Research "The vision I see is that of a 20 point victory... We would be surprised if he does not win". Patrick Esteruelas of Euroasia Group saw Chávez winning by 60 percent. Also arguing that a high turnout would benefit Chávez, Goldman Sachs dismissed the close polling arguing, "Chávez is the favorite to win the election due to vast control of logistical and financial state resources, and influence over key institutions". Sondeos reflejan que mercados foráneos dan por sentado triunfo de Chávez , ''El Universal''. Retrieved 21 November 2006 ELECTION DAY TIMELINE .]] Polling stations opened at 6:00 a.m. but newspaper ''El Universal'' reported that in some electoral centers, voters waited in line since 3:00 a.m.23 According to the National Electoral Council (CNE) director Humberto Castillo, the turnout in polling stations was massive, and the conditions were "normal" throughout the country.24 Polling Station were scheduled to close at 4:00 p.m. Around 5 p.m., CNE president Tibisay Lucena officially announced the end of the voting process, but gave orders to keep polling stations open if voters still remained in line.25 Rosales' campaign team denounced irregularities in the closing of some voting booths, saying that ''Plan República''—the armed forces sent to guard the electoral process—would not let some electoral centers be closed even though no voters remained in line.26 Rosales' spokesman also alerted about the reopening of already closed centers.27 CNE member Vicente Díaz later reaffirmed that all polling stations without voters in line must be closed, and that no booths under any circumstances could be reopened.28 RESULTS The 29 January 2007 report from the CNE showed the following results: Reactions Shortly after the first set of partial results was broadcast on the night of the election, Hugo Chávez showed up in the ''Balcón del Pueblo'' ( Spanish for The People's Balcony) in the presidential palace to celebrate his victory and address his followers. Chávez announced that a new era has started in Bolivarian development, focused in the expansion of the Bolivarian Revolution .29 That same night, Manuel Rosales made a brief speech to the nation, recognizing that he had been defeated. But he insisted that the two Exit Poll studies his supporters had made, and the results of the audits, showed a narrower difference between him and Chávez than was reported by Lucena.30 Rosales said in his speech that he and his supporters "will be in streets to prove that the results by the National Electoral Council are not correct, that the gap is narrower that what presented."31 ELECTORAL AUDITS Even though a fair number of international observers were present, the CNE instituted an open and public series of audits of the vote results. Each one of the 11,118 automated polling places was equipped with multiple high-tech Touch-screen DRE Voting Machine s, one to a ''"mesa electoral"'', or voting "table". In total, 32,331 voting machines were in use country-wide. After the vote is cast, each machine prints out a Paper Ballot , or VVPAT , which is inspected by the voter and deposited in a ballot box belonging to the machine's table. The voting machines perform in a stand-alone fashion, disconnected from any network until the polls close.''Consejo Nacional Electoral'' Manual Operativo para Miembros, Secretaria o Secretario de Mesa Electoral Retrieved 28 November 2006 Voting session closure at each of the voting stations in a given polling center is determined either by the lack of further voters after the lines have emptied, or by the hour, at the discretion of the president of the voting table. Tally scrutinization After the polls close at any voting table, the following event are performed step by step.
Source CNE Random paper ballot audit Once the tally scrutinization is complete the staff proceeds to perform a random paper ballot audit of 54.31% of the machines. Each voting center can have anywhere from one to twelve voting machines, occasionally up to fifteen. The staff randomly selects the tables/machines by drawing a number out of a paper hat. The size of the draw is dependent on the number of tables/machines. Source CNE Source CNE The following procedure occurs step by step
Source CNE CONCERNS OVER THE ELECTORAL REGISTRY Opposition candidates and political parties have voiced concerns over the possible inaccuracies of the national electoral registry. Previous elections have shown that there might be a great number of deceased people still on the records. The , Simón Bolívar University and the Andrés Bello Catholic University was rejected by the CNE. One of the proposed methods by these institutions was comparing census data with the electoral registry.Pereira, Javier. "Detectaron inconsistencias demográficas entre los votantes mayores de 45 años". '' El Nacional '' ( 25 June 2006 ) p. A-2. They nevertheless ran their audit in parallel and the representative of the three institutions José Miguel Bernardo concluded "In practice errors do not favor the government and their distribution is uniform."''Willpert, Gregory'' (''Venezuela Analysis'' 22 July 2006) Preliminary Results of Venezuela’s Voter Registry Audit Show No Intent for Fraud Retrieved 5 November 2006 A second mathematician involved in the audit, Raúl Jiménez, concluded "One must be responsible. The electoral registry is a disaster and the CNE has done nothing to improve it, but there is nothing to indicate a political intention in the anomalies." The CNE performed the third audit with the aid of seven other public universities and with the Carter Center and two senators from the Belgian parliament observing the audit. The senators were Jacinta De Roeck , independent, and Sfia Bouarfa , from the French-speaking Socialist Party .http://sfiabouarfa.typepad.com/mon_weblog/2006/08/mission_dobserv.html In June 2006, a privately funded preliminary study by Genaro Mosquera, a 2006 ). claimed that in the last three years the registry grew 27% compare to a population growth of only 7.3% during those years and also a much larger growth than the regular increasse of the registry of 12% every five years between 1948 and 2000 . On of the flagship government Bolivarian Missions was Mission Identidad , where roughly 5 million citizens were awarded an ID card and the right to register and vote. Mission Identidad Retrieved 11 November 2006 "La Misión IDENTIDAD, uno de los más recientes beneficios sociales, posibilitó cedular a 5 millones 76 mil personas, de ellos más de 600 mil venezolanos e inmigrantes extranjeros con muchos años en el país obtuvieron por primera vez su cédula de identidad, primera condición para convertirse de excluidos en ciudadanos, con derecho a participar en procesos electorales, y a existir como personas." Also, by comparing the official population numbers provided with by the Office of National Statistics with the CNE registry, there seems to be more register voters of 45 years of age and over than actual population. According to NGO ''Ojo Electoral'' (Electoral Eye) preliminary results of a comparison between the Electoral Registry and demographic projections of the National Institute of Statistics (INE) suggests that inconsistencies in the voter data base cannot modify the results of the election.El Universal. Ojo electoral avala Registro Electoral para elección presidencial. (19 August 2006) Retrieved 24 August 2006 Other concerns The opposition is denouncing unfair pressure by the government against those governmental workers who might not want to support the president. They released a video that showed energy minister and head of PDVSA , Rafael Ramírez , telling state oil workers to back President Hugo Chávez or to leave their jobs. He also said PDVSA is red "from top to bottom"(''PDVSA es roja, rojita de arriba abajo''). He also said that PDVSA's "workers are with this revolution, and those who aren't should go somewhere else. Go to Miami". Opposition media outlets have been repeating the 14-minute video over and over again. President Chávez said he supported the PDVSA director and recommended him to make the same speech to oil workers 100 times a day. Storm over Venezuela oil speech ''BBC'' (Retrieved 6 November 2006) The CNE opened an investigation into Rafael Ramírez following the protests from the oppositionhttp://www.eluniversal.com/2006/11/07/pol_ava_07A801197.shtml and Ramírez was eventually fined.32 CLAIM OF INCONSISTENCIES IN THE RESULTS A study conducted by Ezequiel Zamora (former vicepresident of the CNE), Freddy Malpica (former rector of the Universidad Simón Bolívar ), Guillermo Salas (USB professor), Jorge Tamayo (UCV professor), Ramiro Esparragoza (UCV professor), four statistics experts and three computer engineers concluded in January of 2007 that the 2006 Presidential elections presented "important statistical inconsistencies, despite the fact that the opposition candidate recognized the results". They argued that the elections results of many electoral centers showed a very regular statistical distribution of the votes in favor of Rosales in comparison with the dispersion of the votes for Chávez. This suggest that the regularities are the possible result of numerical ceilings embedded in the voting machines. Also there seems to be a regular statistical abstention of 25% in most electoral centers and no signs of dispersion. They have recommended further studies of the data in order to understand the deficiencies of the Venezuelan electoral system and in order to have a "minimun of transparency" in any future electoral process. "Frente Patriótico denuncia "topes" en votación de diciembre" ''El Nacional'' January 27, 2007, p. A-2. NOTES SEE ALSO
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