Of Ballots and Bullets: More from the Wonderful World of Venezuela's "Opposition"....
By: Jutta Schmitt
In the wake of the presidential recall
referendum and as soon as the preliminary results had been announced by
the National Electoral Council in the early morning hours of Monday,
16th of August, the four, private Venezuelan TV stations opened their
first post-election transmission round with heavy artillery fire,
directed at the very referendum outcome, the National Electoral Council
and the international observer groups including OAS and Carter Centre,
with the latter ones having testified to a free and transparent
election process and categorically having confirmed the official
referendum results as given by the National Electoral Council.
Besides the insults and diffamations
that have come firing incessantly from the four television stations,
the ammunition employed by Venezuela's private mass media consisted of
countless calls for civil rebellion
and insurrection against a "dictator" that had just been ratified by
59% of the Venezuelan population in free and transparent elections. T
he political "leadership" of Venezuela's rancid "opposition" has not
only torpedoed the truly unique and historical presidential recall
referendum -- the first ever celebrated in the entire hemisphere and
promoted in the first place by the same president, whose mandate was
submitted to recall or ratification -- but also assaulted the moods and
minds of their unfortunate supporters with the most formidable weapon
they possess: the cameras and microphones of RCTV, Venevisión,
Televen and Globovisión - the outstanding and uncontested spin
masters in Venezuela's and perhaps even the world's communications
spectrum.
The "opposition's" post-referendum
declarations predictably rejected each and every aspect of the
referendum process, claiming "fraud", after having accepted the rules
of the game prior to referendum day and in absence of another
unconstitutional perspective to effectively oust Chávez from
power. The fraud card the "opposition" has played ever since the first
official results were published, is part and parcel of their ongoing big lie strategy, spearheaded by the private media and happily endorsed by their international counterparts like CNN en Español.
In a series of acts that amount to political suicide (of a rotten corpse anyway), the leading figures of the "opposition", after publicly having assured they would only
accept referendum results when confirmed by the international observers
from OAS and Carter Centre, retracted from their position when, in
fact, these did confirm the results. The "opposition", who prior to the
referendum had participated in each and every audit of each and every
thinkable aspect of the referendum process, from the soft- and hardware
of the voting machines to the paper receipt and the data transmission,
then called for an additional, post-referendum audit,
which is taking place as theses lines are being written, and from which
the "opposition" retracted as soon as the National Electoral Council
agreed to conduct the audit! Once again, hundreds of international
observers, including OAS and Carter Centre, are watching as the audit
is being realized, the results of which may be published in the course
of Saturday, 21st.
In the meantime, we keep seeing the
leading figures of the "opposition" ranting on TV and revealing their
strategy, that neither will they accept the referendum outcome, nor and
under whatever circumstances acknowledge the authority of the
"discredited" National Electoral Council in the upcoming September elections for mayors and governors
....! In the face of a final, electoral defeat at the ballot, somebody
please hand these guys the silver bullet, so they may finally rest in
peace.
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