Venezuela opposition's victory larger than it seems - 12/04/2007 - MiamiHerald.com#recent_comm#recent_comm#recent_comm

Venezuela opposition's victory larger than it seems - 12/04/2007 - MiamiHerald.com#recent_comm#recent_comm#recent_comm

My comments:
I agree that the margin was larger. The CNE (Electoral Arbiter) and Chavez claimed that the results were irreversible with 88% of the vote. with a 1.4% pts. margin. If you do a quick calculation, Chavez could still win with 56%+ of the remaining vote (he won in 8 states by at least that amount). I have a hard time believing that Chavez would accept (even under pressure) unless they demonstrated to him that he could not win mathematically. The real difference is probably between 4-6%. Also, polls show that the vast majority of those who abstain are against Chavez -- however, they were either encouraged not to vote becaused the system was rigged, or scared by Government, as it happened with the Maisanta list. For example, I was the only one of who voted in my whole family -- who is against Chavez, but did not think it was worth going to vote. Yesterday was the first day in a long path to restablish democracy in Venezuela. We need to be grateful to the student movements who may go down in history as the main factor in saving our democracy, however, we cannot let down our guard. As Baduel said, Chavez can push most of these reforms through the special powers he has for the next 6 months.