Results from the south of the world

While we still have to wait one day (or maybe one month) to know who will be the “leader of the free world”, we have the results of the elections from a few countries in the southern parts of the continent.

The photo shows low class neighbourhood in Merida (Venezuela). These poor neighbourhoods have mushroomed in the last decades in Venezuela, despite the potential wealth of the country, which is one of the largest oil producers in the world. These constructions, called “ranchitos”, are unfinished brick constructions built as needed, one on top of the other without a plan, giving these neighborhoods the appearance of a maze. They are usually lacking basic services (in some areas, water and electricity are just stolen from the public grid). The people living in these areas are typically supporters of the leftist Venezuelan president Chavez. For many years disenfranchised voters, they have become very politicized and are now a major electoral force which the opposition parties often fail to acknowledge.

As mentioned in the previous post, Venezuela yesterday had local elections, which went as expected. Thanks also to a previous campaign from the opposition leaders discrediting the electoral process, president Chavez party won the majority of the state governorships in Venezuela, including a few where the opposition was strong enough to win, if it wasn’t for the very low turnout in the middle class voters.

For the first time in its history, the left also won the presidential elections in Uruguay, showing that popular movements are on the rise in all South America. There were local elections also in Brasil, where the government party (the leftist Partido do Trabajadores) has instead lost a few crucial cities like San Paulo and Porto Alegre, maybe denoting the disaffection of the popular electorate for a president (Lula) who is seen by many as lagging behind in the social reforms that he promised when he was elected.

Coming back to the US elections, a fact that many people outside US doen not know is that differently from many other countries, in US you are not automatically registered as an elector when you are 18, but you should go to register yourself. This is in general pretty easy to do, but there are some US states in which people can be prevented to register under some special conditions (e.g. people convicted for felonies in Florida, etc...). The allegations of arbitrary removal of democrat voters from some key Florida counties in 2000 was one of the main disputes in the aftermath of the recounting debacle of the last elections. Well, Mayli just heard on the public radio a story about lawyers working for the Republican party that tomorrow will go at crucial polling stations to challenge the validity of the registration of the voters. The story was told by a lawyer volunteering for the Democratic party, which will go to the same stations to support the challenged voters to defend their right to vote. If this is true, then the legal challenges to the electoral results this time will start even before the votes will be counted! Somebody believes that irregular episodes of this form have in fact already started.

Update: it ia all over the news that US lover courts have indeed authorized Republican challengers in Ohio to contest the eligibility of voters in today’s elections.