Great day in the morning

I went to bed last night thinking that Chavez had pulled off what Raul Baduel had called a coup. I opened my email at 5am and found an email from Kate pointing to her post of her experiences at the Venezuelan Embassy in  DC yesterday. So I drowzily clicked over and read it. Then out of the corner of my room, I heard the CNBC newsreader announce that Chavez had lost the referendum. Huh?

I scrolled up from Kate’s post to her more recent one “Chavismo is no longer invincible” and just stared.

Well, that was a couple of hours of ago (that I really don’t remember well) now other links;

Manuel writes;

Democracy wins, autocracy losesChavez lost 3 million votes since last yearChavez lost 3 million votes since last yearI am exhausted, good night and thanks…

Chavez lost 3 million votes since last yearI am exhausted, good night and thanks…

Quico at Caracas Chronicles;

Quico says: Venezuela rejects authoriarianism. It’s a historic day. The myth of Chávez-the-invincible is no more.

Daniel says;

In spite of all the obscene governmental advantage, all the threats and blackmails, the Venezuelan people found the strength to say NO.

¡Gloria al Bravo Pueblo!

 

That’s “Glory to the brave people”, by the way.

Bloodthirsty Liberal quipped;

I wouldn’t be surprised if he did have the votes, but spoiled some of the ballots by using them as napkins.

From Wall Street Journal Online’s John Lyons, an attempt to explain the loss;

The defeat for Mr. Chávez, who is accustomed to trouncing opponents by 20 percentage points, shows how many of his own supporters have soured on his policies amid rising crime and persistent scarcities of basic goods.

High on the list of complaints is food shortages. Mr. Chávez’s decision to fix prices has resulted in acute scarcities of many staples. Last week, the government-owned luxury hotel, the Alba, was refusing to serve customers cafe con leche, a Venezuelan breakfast standard.

“In all my life, I never would have thought there would be no milk in Caracas,” said Luis Morillo, a 30-year-old bodyguard who was standing in line to vote in Caracas’s working-class Catia district, a traditional Chávez stronghold. Mr. Morillo said he planned to vote against the changes.

To be sure, Mr. Chávez retains a deep reservoir of support among Venezuela’s majority poor and working class. Riding a global oil boom, Mr. Chávez has boosted spending on health care, food subsidies and work programs. Government spending was rising at an annual rate of 70% in late 2006, although the rate has since slowed to about 40%.

That helps explain why Mr. Chávez can count on voters such as Marisol Herredia, a 38-year-old hairdresser. She said she was unnerved by how much power the constitutional changes would give Mr. Chávez, but she voted for it anyway, she said. The changes also guarantee her a fixed monthly salary and health insurance, benefits too good to pass up.

I guess the good news and the bad news are the same; Chavez will be President until 2012.

Category: Foreign Policy, Hugo Chavez