A Carolina Yanqui in King Hugo's Court: A Great Day for Venezuela

Yesterday´s primary resulted in an indisputable triumph for Venezuela´s opposition, with voter turnout greatly surpassing expectations and Henrique Capriles Radonski securing an unassailable mandate through his unexpectedly large margin of victory. With absentee ballots from Venezuelans living abroad yet to be tallied, Capriles won an impressive 62% of the more than 2.9 million ballots cast, receiving 1,806,860 votes. Pablo Pérez finished in second place with 867,601 while María Corina Machado received a disappointing 103,500. Diego Arria tallied 35,070.

In the lead up to the primary, opposition officials cautiously hoped for a turnout that would exceed two million. There are expected to be 17.9 million voters registered for the election in October. Of those, approximately seven million are estimated to be reliable supporters of the PSUV, Chávez´s party. Turnout for the last presidential election in Venezula was 74% (suspiciously high, some might say) while the last major poll, the constitutional referendum of 2009 drew 53% attendance. That means that to win in October a candidate will probably require at least six million votes. Chavistas will employ every tool at their disposal to get their supporters to the poll and will almost certainly use some dirty tricks to minimize the opposition´s ability to do so with their own.

With almost three million voters turning out yesterday, Henrique Capriles Radonski suddenly has real reason to hope. A huge number of people who do ultimately prefer him to Chávez did not vote yesterday. For some people it was because of inconvenience - they had other plans or did not wish to spend most of their day in line (more on that in a bit). For others it was because they did not have a strong preference between the opposition candidates, and prefered to wait until October to vote for whoever won. For others, it was a matter of fear. I spoke with many young people who are searching for employment who explained that they would not vote in the primary for fear that it would disqualify them from getting many jobs, including any with the government. Many people with public jobs were told or received hints that they too, should not vote. I met one woman yesterday who showed up to her polling station wearing a wig and baggy clothing to hide her identity. I spoke with another who had heard from a friend that she would be kicked out of her apartment building if she voted, but did so anyway. At some of the stations, especially in Chávez strongholds, men on mopeds drove past the lines with video cameras to record who had dared to support the opposition. The list goes on.

Anyway, it is safe to say that a large number of Venezuelans will vote for Capriles on October 7 who did not do so yesterday. It is impossible to say with any precision exactly how many, but several million more is entirely possible. Many will only do so if they think there is a real chance that he can win, which is certainly closer to coming to pass today than it did before. If Capriles can someho manage to persuade 10% of people who have voted for Chávez in the past, then he has a real chance to win a free and fair election.

Notice that I wrote ¨free and fair.¨ I don´t think that anyone expects the election to be completely free and fair. Stories abound of opposition supporters showing up to their polling stations only to find their name absent from the registry, often without reason. Chavistas, on the other hand, are rumored to be given multiple cédulas, national identity cards, that allow them to vote multiple times. One of my friends here explained to me how in 2009 she had voted to oppose the constitutional reform package proposed by Chávez, only for the voting machine to provide her a receipt of her vote indicating that she had voted in favor. Shenanigans like these come on top of the unfair media practices and other forms of misbehavior that the regime employs.

But thoughts such as these are for another day. Today is a time to celebrate the unity, bravery, and competence of the Venezuelan people and opposition yesterday.

Briefly, I thought people might be interested in the actual mechanics of how the primary was run yesterday. It was open to all registered voters, regardless of party. Each registered voter has their assigned polling station. Approximately 1/3 of the stations that will be open on October 7 were in use yesterday. Upon arriving at the station, each voter had to use their cédula to find their name in the registry printed and posted on the wall of the voting station. Next to their identity number appeared the number of the table at which they would vote within the station (one voting machine per table). Separate lines were formed for each table. Upon entry into the voting room each person made their vote electronically and received a receipt of their vote. If the receipt was accurate they then scanned it into the machine again, and the results were tabulated by the National Electoral Commission. Each voting station was monitored by members of the Mesa de Unidad Democrática (MUD) and some 104 international observers were also in the country (I saw one group of six during the course of the day). After voting each voter could dip their finger into a pool of purple ink if they do desired.

All in all the voting seemed to progress relatively smoothly. Just about every polling station opened when it was supposed to across the country, and of the 2.904 million votes cast, 2.827 were deemed to be valid. The only major problem, as is so often the case here, was the lines. It was not the length of the lines themselves that was the problem, but rather the speed at which they moved. I did not see any station that ever had more than 300-400 people waiting at any one time (separated into 2-6 lines, usually). But still people were forced to wait for up to four hours to cast their ballot. I accompanied two friends at two different stations while they voted. At one he was the 51st person in line to vote at Table 4 of the station. He managed to enter the station after a wait of 47 minutes and exited about 10 later. At the other my friend was the 44th person in line. She waited in line for 3 hours and 27 minutes.

One note of caution amidst the mostly celebratory tone of this wrapup. Almost every polling station I saw (and I probably saw 12-15) was crowded from around 8:30 until 4:30. Though lines did not form much before, much to my chagrin since I got up at 5:30 upon hearing that 4:00 was the norm for the general election. However, in Petare, which is the poorest section of Caracas and is a staunchly chavista neighborhood there were exactly three polling stations. When I got to one there at around 2:00 there were 11 people in line, though the MUD representative said there had been more during the morning. But when October 7 comes around it is neighborhoods like those were the chavista machine churns out votes and where the opposition really needs to at least make a dent.