Election in Venezuela

This is indeed a very sad day here in Venezuela as El Presidente was re-elected president. Manuel Rosales had no chance whatsoever as El Presidente controlled all TV stations, waging an unfair propaganda campaign by appearing constantly on state TV, accusing the Manuel Rosales opposition of planning disruption if he won.

During the last two weeks not one channel ever showed any of Rosales propagandas, only El Presidente, there was barely room for regular commercials.

Since he first won office in 1998, El Presidente has increasingly dominated all branches of government and his allies now control congress, state offices and the judiciary. Current law prevents him from running again in 2012 but he has said he plans to seek constitutional reforms that would include an end to presidential term limits. Yesterday rumors had it that if defeated he would not give up power. As the pools opened the pooling stations where it was known to be Rosales followers the pooling was slowed down, causing mile long lines in the streets. I was actually amazed to see that the election was not counted electronically but by hand. As it was shown on TV you either saw one person open vote after vote then showing result to others while one person wrote it down. Some other pooling stations showed the person opening votes but never showing the result to others.

Hugo's campaign was full of lies, one of the gym workers here at the hotel believed and still believes that if El Presidente wins he will give her a farm, so do many poor Venezuelan’s they were told that if he wins they will be given land.

Last week was an intense week for everybody especially for the Rosales followers as many of them will leave the country if El Presidente wins as they will have no future in this country. The black market for money exchange was at an all time high as they all desperately try to get their money out of Venezuela. Foreign property owners are worried that El Presidente will take away their land because he takes it away from his own people and gives them nothing for it.

Grocery stores were busy and 4 days before election shelves were empty. Restaurants are limited as they didn’t get any deliveries this week. Everybody loaded up as there was fear of a strike.

Ever since we arrived in Venezuela we haven’t been able to find sugar in the stores. The only type sugar you can find is a mixture of sugar and aspartame. Sugar consumption is so high that Venezuela cannot provide it and would have to import it, which El Presidente refuses to do.

The unfortunate thing is El Presidente is in the power now to get his wish to turn this country into a dictatorship, indeed a very said day today in Venezuela.

On another note, we had a little fun with our neighbors yesterday as they currently are in Florida. I received an email from them hoping that all was well for us on election-day and telling us to use their provisions if we had to. These are the photos we sent them and telling them that we think we were OK and thanking them for offering their food.

Other than that, we are having a wonderful time and now that election is over and all went smoothly we’ll get through Christmas and then into the yard. Today we are starting to look for an apartment to move in through the haul out.