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| Why Chavez will need His Tanks. |
| 2004-02-29 |
| The Venezuelan people wanting to ask for a referendum against President Chávez approached a long table in which there were seven to ten volunteers representing both the opposition and the government. In addition, around the table there were members of the armed forces, let us call them neutral, and national and international observers. Quite a crowd. The person signing approached the table and was given the choice to fill in his/her name and identity card number in the empty form or, as it has always been done for the last 50 years of electoral events in Venezuela, supply this information to the volunteers in the table and, then sign his/her name and put his/her fingerprint next to it. Our beloved philologist Pedro Grases and his wife, both in their nineties, chose to have their names and ID numbers filled in by their daughter but they duly signed and placed their fingerprints. Many not so senior did as well, following the traditional way of doing this in Venezuela, a country that has already had a long tradition of voting. There was no rule against this type of procedure at the time of the event. This is perfectly well documented. The National Electoral Council did not prohibit the assistance of the volunteers at the table to fill in the basic personal data, since what was truly personal, was the signature and the fingerprint. . . . But, what has happened now? the National Electoral Council, in a 3 to 2 vote, with the vote of the three Chávez followers, has decided that all signatures which show a similar calligraphy in the process of filling in the personal data are subject to question. This means that all people who properly signed their own names but whose personal data were filled out at the collection center have their signatures in doubt. The National Electoral Council now orders all these people, about one million of them, to sign again! I have to emphasize the fact that this rule is being manufactured by the National Electoral Council AFTER the signature collection has been completed. In short, they are requesting one million Venezuelans to sign, for a third time to ask for a referendum to oust President Chávez from power. I, and millions of other Venezuelans, consider this unacceptable. To force Mr. Pedro Grases and his wife to sign again is intolerable. I mention this respected couple just as an example. But, all over Venezuela, millions are now being requested to prove that they are innocent, to prove, once more, that they did sign. The National Electoral Council pretends to reverse the burden of proof. In all democratic societies you are innocent until you are proven guilty. But in the Venezuela of Hugo Chávez, you have to prove again and again that you are who you say you are and that you did what you claim you did. Sounds like the DNC efforts on Florida to disenfranchise military absentee ballots - only on a massive scale. |
| Posted by:Super Hose |
| #1 and ex Prez Carter visited Chavez and sucked up to him just last year - another post presidential triumph for America's worse failure |
| Posted by: mhw 2004-2-29 5:35:56 PM |