Venezuelan Elections

Moonbat Chavez seems to have prevailed in the Venezuelan elections, the New York Times reports. With 78 percent of the votes counted on Sunday, Moonbat has 61 percent of the votes, to 38 percent the opposition candidate, Manuel Rosales (Governor of Zulia State). Governor Rosales' campaign, probably correctly, is crying foul. Soldiers kept polling places open beyond the legal times to allow Chavez supporters to vote, and the AP (via the Houston Chronicle) reports that Venezuelan officials stopped the broadcast of election coverage by the Spanish language international television network Telemundo.

AP describes some vintage Nutbar haranguing; the Great One thundering to his supporters from his palace balcony in a rainstorm: "Long life the Revolution ! . . .It's another defeat for the devil, who tries to dominate the world. . . . Down with imperialism. We need a new world." Anybody smell some sulfur ? Chavez's devil is Bush: many lefties here would agree with both that characterization, and the rest of his ranting.

The results are certainly no surprise. Chavez deployed the entire apparatus of the Venezuelan state to secure his re-election, and his government is flush with oil cash. There was no possibility of his defeat, even absent tampering. I suspect that Moonbat Chavez, behind the closed doors of his residence, is not particularly happy that the opposition managed 38 percent. No doubt a come-to-Jesus meeting with some election and police officials will be held and maybe the final figures tweaked a little.

This happy result fortifies Chavez's position, particularly for the years ahead when he will be forced to the necessity of more blatant tampering. "The institutions are controlled, our democracy is already very sick, we have a strongman who says he's going to be the eternal president" says Governor Rosales. Well, yes sir, he is. Did you really believe it was going to work out otherwise ?

"We have to do something," AP quotes a Rosales supporter named Dona Bavaro as saying. "My country is being stolen. This is the last chance we have. Communism is coming here" Ms. Bavaro adds. Well, that's true also, except that you didn't really have a chance to begin with. It's a little late in the game to be figuring this out. You'd have better spent your efforts on trying to subvert the army or the police, if you really wanted to stop Chavez. It's far too late in the game for ballots and elections -- has been since 2002 -- and all they do at this point is to legitimize the dictator's control. Absent a coup, foreign intervention or a lucky bullet, you've got yourselves a much younger Fidel. Miami real estate is about to enjoy a boom.