Chavistas Dominate Venezuelan Regional Elections
Preliminary results released at 12:30 am, Monday November 1, by Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE), have given gubernatorial and mayoral candidates allied to President Hugo Chávez Frías an overwhelming victory. According to the CNE, the Chavistas lead in 20 of 22 states, however, in some cases these results represent as little as 29.65% (Barinas) of the total votes. Some states have already counted as many as 87.69% (Vargas), yet many candidates remain so close that the outcome will not be clear until the last vote is counted. Unfortunately, according to National Electoral Directorate (JNE—an arm of the CNE) president Jorge Rodriguez, that will not be until the end of the week. With that caveat in mind, there are nonetheless some trends worth looking at.