Holy cow! I just fired up ye olde web browser, to discover that Nicolás Maduro was still the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ... by a margin of 1.59%. He eked out a bare majority of 50.66% of the vote.
That’s not a good result. It may even be the second-worst possible result. (A narrow win by the opposition, under Henrique Capriles, would have been the worst possible result, albeit an extremely unlikely one.) Capriles as already fired a salvo: “We alert the country and the world of the intention to try and change the will expressed by the people.” (The tweet no longer seems to be up.)
The bad side is that the result will be challenged. Venezuela actually has a rather good voting system. The electronic machines record a paper ballot, which is saved, so manual recounts are possible. I get worried, however, when the president of the electoral commission declares a close result to be “irreversible.”
This second-worst result can be turned into the best possible result, however. All Capriles has to do is accept it and admit defeat.
Simply put, the Venezuelan economy is full of ticking time bombs. Why be in office as they start to go off? Let the Socialist Party take the responsibility for the mess they have caused.
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