Caracas Chronicles

As though on cue to make my point about its divisive, willfully provocative nature, the government that never ceases to attack its opponents of coupsterism pulls out all the stops to celebrate the anniversary of the violent 1992 coup attempt led of course by El Comandante.

Sad, really.

But the country will leave his extremism behind, and it will do so legally. Another reason to believe so is in today’s Tal Cual:

[Carter Center mission head] Francisco Diez explained carefully that the analysis of the verification process the Carter Center is performing consists in choosing a statistical sample of forms which they will process following the same steps and the same criteria, according to the norms and regulations, that CNE has been applying to them. Once those criteria have been applied and results obtained, the Carter Center will issue a projection that, theoretically, should resemble the results CNE hands down.

This sampling, analysis and projection work has been taking place more or less at the same time as the official process, which is why Diez said the results should come out “almost simultaneously.”

If you understand a bit about the way statistics work, you’ll understand that this is close to a fool-proof safeguard. CNE cannot cheat without getting caught and unmasked. And that’s only one of the reasons they will not cheat.

Francisco Diez also announced that the Carter Center will double the size of its mission, from 6 experts to 12.