In the wee hours

It is 11:20 a.m in Caracas, Venezuela and most of us are still in shock. Our president, the one we have fought so much to oust from office and see if we can regain some peace and prosperity because he can´t provide it, for anyone, has won the referendum vote according to the Consejo Nacional Electoral. For some of us voting meant waiting for long hours, under sun or rain. It meant a long battle for democracy would come to an end. The long lines in every poll station told us there would be no abstention. Even the Consejo Nacional Electoral, had something to say about this: They congratulated the "brave people of Venezuela" for their behaviour and composure and said never in Venezuela´s democratic history had there been such an outburst o on the streets to excersise their constitutional right. That is true. I never had to wait so long to cast a ballot. There was of course the fact that the people in charge did everything in their hands to make the process more painful and complicated. But the people stayed, patient and in peace, waiting to be called up to present all fingers to the funny contraption that would state that your fingerprint was yours and nobody else´s so you wouldn´t vote twice eventhough your pinky would be, three minutes later, smeared in a terribly purple ink that will come off mine by December if I am lucky. The lines remained in place pretty much until midnight and exit polls predicted the opposition would win. In the wee hours of the day, meaning 3 a.m, the president of the Consejo Nacional Electoral said the outcome was pretty much 60-40 against the opposition who had the same numbers, just the other way round. They of course cried: FRAUD. You can always say that crying FRAUD is unfair and all that, but consider this: no people from the opposition side were allowed to witness the final counting. 40 percent of the people registered to vote did not and we know of cases of people who having registered duly and on time, had simply dissapeared from the official lists. The Consejo Nacional delayed all procedures on purpose, the government owns something like 25 percent of the machinery involved in the process and nobody except them knew about results which were handed out at 3 am? Can it get any worse? Yes it can. The nightmare is just really beginning.