Less than 30% of the population has Internet access and the rural-urban border is very hard to break in Venezuela.

Juan,

I think the key thing is to challenge chavismo to have an open debate under conditions anyone but a hard-core asine chavista would not accept, i.e. conditions many humble poor supporter of Hugo considers fine (and I know them). We know Hugo et alia don't want any debate but THAT IS NOT THE POINT. What Vargas Llosa did for a few days just in a land that is not his and for which he has less interests than us was very effective, Hugo lost face with many. Venezuelans don't get it: is not about Hugo and his hardcore guys, it is about all those ninis and decent poor who still support Hugo.
We should do that unless we consider we are not really capable of debating either.
We should challenge time after time for those debates and show to the general public that that is the norm in other countries and say that Hugo is a bloody chicken.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNvQo5ETm6c&feature=related

Here you see the christian democrat (Angela Merkel), Westerwelle (FDP, liberal in European sense), SPD, Grünen and die Linke with Gysi.

Risking to gallenize it: I do think it is a pity Venezuelans do not have very good examples around. I wish they could see the kind of debates people follow in Germany, the Benelux or Scandinavia...heck, in the UK for that matter.
Nothing perfect, but there is a more developed culture of debating.
You can see a conservative chancellor discussing next to the social democrat leader next to a liberal, next to an ecologist next to a communist.

Are you Venezuelan?
What revolution are you talking about?
So: can Venezuelans of all political colours go to your blog and expose their ideas and debate?
Somehow I never see links from chavista blogs to non-chavista blogs and sites, but I do see links the other way around. Isn't that telling?

I DON'T OPPOSE IT, but first: I am not talking about me. I am saying so far there is like a fourth of Venezuelans who are living off the others' free money and they will sternly oppose it and in fact lots of their services and industries (imports etc) would collapse very fast if the system were to be implemented in any other than a very slow process.

This system sucks and needs to be replaced, but it can't overnight. There are just too many middle to upper-middle class Venezuelans who are NOT willing to sacrifice anything. They must, but we cannot force that right away.

Las tenía en la garganta, thanks to a relative who asked me to help there. I had gone to Venezuela to sign for the Firmazo (so I am in La Lista).

I have got the details of other times from friends and relatives: Salas did not send enough people to pick up the actas in many places (caimanera) and witnesses went away after a while and after so many threats.
San Diego's screening went smoothly as Scarone was organizing things there (he is the mayor).
Still: in San Diego the local police had no weapons last time (the government had taken them away for some days), there were threats in the centrers close to the slums.
In 2006 a small public health centre in San Diego was burnt down by chavistas on the night of the election, so was the municipality's big Pesebre.

In the wee hours after the local election in 2008 people went to the cne centre in Valencia to demand the recognition of
Salas and chavistas almost fired on them. Only at the last moment did the military intervened. People I know were there.

It can be scarier than many think in the capital...and that is in areas where we have relatively speaking more people as in Valencia and neighbouring areas. I don't know how it is in, say, wee towns around Tocuyo or Parapara.

I have done what I can in Europe as well, but here we are privileged, the worst we got was that the embassy called the police. Still, the police took OUR side, not least because the embassy guys are really cavemen. I remember I asked the police: and why did the embassy ask for so many of you? Do they think these people (60% women) are going to attack them? They smiled and said: well, we can protect YOU from them.

Well, even in Europe it can sometimes get a little bit nasty, although nothing big:

http://www.noticias24.com/actualidad/noticia/82255/roces-entre-oficialistas-y-opositores-se-presentaron-en-las-marchas-de-bruselas-y-colombia-video/comment-page-2/

We need more people and better organization for the rural and poor areas in Venezuela.

Torres,

Right now most people living in Santa Fe, caurimare and places like that are living on more than 2USD a day. And even though I know of some exceptions, the vast majority of them are not earning those 200USD by exporting technology or producing really something in Venezuela, but buy sucking from the petro-tit before the others do it.

Although your proposal would be in principle fairer than what we have now, it simply does not include any project for generating wealth. So you will be basically redistributing the wealth we have. The problem, though, is that 1) Venezuela is NOT rich and 2) those who are living off others will oppose the idea by all means.
So a more complex solution is needed: redistribution has to be accompanied and actually preceeded by some extra wealth generation.

Eso es lo que creo yo.

Yes. I suppose he has to focus on cleaning up the places where he left finger prints.

There is enough to figure it out. Just look at the paper trails of Hugo's daddy not working (and he was allowed to try time after time), just look at the chavista governor who tore to pieces his paper trail because it did not work first time (something for which oppos were detained), just look at how the paper trail did not work for Aristóbulo...and then there are the inconcistencies in many places that the cne did not reply.

There are other hints. Any politician in the world can say his party is the most popular and all, but if one says most registered voters in place X actually SIGNED A PETITION in support of the president and that is a lie, said politician is a criminal.

So, yes, I can say there was fraud, but we don't know the degree of fraud.
By the way, in Germany and the Netherlands they just showed how unreliable electronic systems are (and we know our paper trail is rubbish) and even if there was no proven fraud they are going back to paper.

End of topic.
John, where is it you are doing "postdoc research"?