Vzla: Muddying the waters

Creating chaos to confuse the issue and the opposition is a page from the old communist strategy book.

Jorge Rodriguez, a pro-Chavez CNE Director comes on TV and says that the signatures that have criteria problems will also be included in the confirmation process. This would give a total of 1.109 million signatures for confirmation which would imply the number needed is less than 60%, but at the same time he says that there will be 2700 centers for two days rather than five days.... It is not clear how you would check the number confirmed is correct.

There are three unfair things about this process:

-Close to 40,000 forms were rejected on technicalities. These people have no recourse.

-The CNE refused to have the old process be like what this confirmation process is going to be, there would have been no mistake about the "planas" that way. The reason was that it would be "just" like a vote. Well, this is just like a vote anyway. Moreover, this was not included in the regulations

-It is not clear how anyone could "prove" that the people went or not to confirm.

Confusion, confusion, confusion. Who comes out on top when the smoke clears? Chavez.

Here's a brief history of the referendum.