Haitian Elections: The Runaround

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DATELINE: SAMBODIA | I have given the Estado de S. Paulo daily a very hard time in the past over its “embedded reporting” from Haiti, where Brazil has military command of the United Nation’s MINUSTAH peacekeeping mission.

If I am going to live here, I want to have lots of good things to read.

Hence the Grandpa Simpson act:

“Here are a list of words I never want to hear on television again

Number one: horny …”

Even so, the ESP remains my general-interest daily of choice.

This firsthand report from Gustavo Chacra on the Haitian elections   — as reproduced on a government clipping site,  Portal ClippingMP — will show you why. The ESP also does excellent journalism when it wants to — which is reasonably often.

Gustavo tells the story of Sunday’s general elections by following the efforts of one Patrick Trenad to cast his vote.

I translate some excerpts.

At the doors of the voting centers, proud voters displayed their voter credentials.The problem was that the documents did not inform voters of their polling location .Haitians were supposed to search on the Internet or via cell phone.

Internet penetration: 11%

Cellular penetration:  35%.

Welcome to your Digital Democracy as brought to you by USAID.

Honduras: One For The Numbers Guy

Adding up the numbers from http://200.107.126.222/

I got the following posted yesterday on the blog of Luis Nassif, in (improving) Portuguese.

(Which in my view merits a Montecristo! Nassif is a man whose opinion I respect.)

The following proposition about the recent Honduran elections appears to be true, given the results now published by the Supreme Election Tribunal of Honduras and general (though generally unsourced) reports on the size of the Honduran electorate:

• Abstencionismo en elecciones generales fue de 65 a 70 por ciento

The TCE reported a total of about 1.53 million votes cast.

Reports (googled up, because no official numbers were available that I could find) on the size of the Honduran electorate vary from 4.3 million to 4.6 million.

Therefore, the abstention rate was as much as 67% and the participation rate as low as … you do the fourth-grade math.

Not a single major news outlet troubled itself to fact-check this basic numerical datum, contenting themselves with publishing the competing claims of Lobo (who reported 61% to 70% participation, citing the TCE as source) and Zelaya (who reported the 65% to 70% abstention rate).

If the numbers are reliable, they tend to support the thesis of Zelaya supporters, that their call for a boycott of the election was effective.

They also tend to suggest that Lobo is a liar.

Honduras: The Joy Division and the Army of Alarm

fear: abhorrence, agitation, angst, anxiety, aversion, awe, bête noire, chickenheartedness, cold feet, cold sweat, concern, consternation, cowardice, creeps, despair, discomposure, dismay, disquietude, distress, doubt, dread, faintheartedness, foreboding, fright, funk, horror, jitters, misgiving, nightmare, panic, phobia, presentiment, qualm, recreancy, reverence, revulsion, scare, suspicion, terror, timidity, trembling, tremor, trepidation, unease, uneasiness, worry (thesaurus.reference.com)

Globo (Brazil) reports: Honduran polling opens in atmsophere of  calm.

Globo (Brazil) also reports: Honduran polling opens in climate of fear.

On the same news portal, in the same thread, at the same time.

If you trace the conflicting characterizations back, you see that Globo is simply cribbing different news agencies, such as Reuters, AP, AFP and EFE.

These, in turn, are picking up on either the standard meme of the  situation (<election as fiesta>) or the standard meme of the opposition (<election as Kafkaesque farce>).

But not both.

The Estado de São Paulo, I thought, did a nice backgrounder on the issue that mentions both but endorses neither. Its headline:

Voting Begins in Honduras

Honduras: Electoral Burn Bag?

Honduras fraud?

I know nothing about Honduras but I am curious about the controversial elections being held there today. Honduras has been excluded from the OAS because of the coup, and most OAS member states are aligning either with the U.S., in recognizing the election, or Brazil, in refusing to recognize it.

Unasur is tending to reject the legitimacy of the poll a priori, while the U.S. ambassador tells local media that a fair election is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition of recognition. The very careful language of the diplomats suggests that the Folha de S. Paulo is right: The difference of opinion does not represent a sharp split between Obamism and Lulosity.

You would think there would be a citizen journalism angle in this scenario, with mainstream outlets censured or under siege. I have spent a few idle minutes taking a first quick look, and found Honduras Urgente on Blogsearch, authored by someone in Brazil.

Honduras Urgente says there are reports of a Honduran army truck, loaded with pre-completed ballots favoring a particular candidate, being burned by soldiers in order to foil an inspection by election observers from the National Endowment for Democracy (other election observers having refused to cover or validate the vote).

The Estado de S. Paulo confirms the crash and four fatalities.

I translate in haste, pra inglês ver.

primeiras informações acerca do acidente envolvendo um caminhão militar que transportava urnas com cédulas para as eleições presidenciais de domingo, dia 29, na tentativa de legitimar o golpe norte-americano/sionista em Honduras, dão conta que o caminhão foi incendiado por tropas do exército de Honduras diante da perspectiva inesperada de vistoria do referido caminhão por observadores internacionais de diversos países.

… preliminary reports about the accident involving a military truck that was transporting ballots for the Sunday election, being held in an attempt to legitimate the U.S./Zionist coup in Honduras, …

I am not sure what the Zionists allegedly have to do with it.

… are that the truck was burnt by soldiers in the face of the unexpected potential for an inspection by international elections observers.

AS CÉDULAS TRANSPORTADAS NO CAMINHÃO E DESTINADAS A CIDADES DO INTERIOR DO PAÍS ESTAVAM PREVIAMENTE MARCADAS COM O NOME DO CANDIDATO GOVERNISTA PORFIRIO LOBO.

THE BALLOTS BEING TRANSPORTED IN THE TRUCK TO CITIES IN THE INTERIOR OF THE COUNTRY WERE PREMARKED WITH THE NAME OF SITUATIONIST CANDIDATE PORFIRIO LOBO.

Honduras: Drugs and Thugs on the Slug Line

Amid a heavy crackdown on the press by the military, the Honduran daily El Libertador is managing to do independent journalism in support of the Zelaya-strict constitutionalist viewpoint.

Item: It is claimed that coup leader Roberto Micheletti is linked to the Colombian cocaine cartels in an official document prepared for the DEA by the Honduran military.

It is asked whether the DEA has been asked to verify this information. Good FOIA topic.

The document is produced in facsimile:

Excerpts from the report by Jean-Guy Allard.

El nombre del cabecilla golpista hondureño Roberto Micheletti aparece en una larga lista de narcotraficantes redactada, en una fecha no precisada, por un alto oficial del Ministerio de la Defensa y Seguridad Pública de Honduras que lo relaciona con el Cartel de Cali, la red colombiana de narcotráfico.

The name of Honduran coup leader Roberto Micheletti appears on a long list of narcotraffickers prepared, on an unspecified date, by a senior official of the Honduran Ministry of Defense that links him to the Cali drug trafficking cartel.

Lies, Damned Lies, and South American Opinion Polling? Or Was IBOPE Just Sloppy?

Datafolha polls shows ACM III, scion of Carlismo, in technical tie in first round of Salvador mayoral race. Idle bar bet: The zombie corpse of Carlismo will be exorcised once again. Click to zoom.

Ibope “rechaça” denúncia de manipulação: Rio mayoral candidate Fernando Gabeira of the Green Party accuses IBOPE — the Brazilian Nielsen & Co., you can think of it as — of throwing a bias on its polling results.

One for the Numbers Guy — the Wall $treet Journal blogger who often focuses on polling controversies like this in a way that poetry majors like me can understand. When not obsessing about baseball, that is.

This report, hastily translated by me — I am still housebound for another week with this busted flipper and have nothing better to do — is from O Globo:

RIO – Ibope president Carlos Augusto Montenegro responded in harsh terms to accusations by Rio mayoral candidate Fernando Gabeira (Green/PSDB/PPS), who raised suspicions that the polling institute might be manipulating polling results to favor candidates of the PMDB.

“Gabeira is a coward, he is acting without due care and in bad faith. He has attacked an institution with 70 years of credibility, without offering proof. He ought to recall that the PSDB, with which he has negotiated television time, has been IBOPE’s biggest national client for 20 years,” Montenegro shot back.

I have no reason to question the claim about “70 years of credibility,” but it would be interesting to test the claim with some historical research. Later, the executive will explain away an extensive history of skepticism about Ibope’s integrity with a flippant appeal to “sour grapes.” On an embarrassing engagement in Mexico in recent years, see

• Mexico: Brazil’s IBOPE Copes With Spot-Counting Flap

The Brazilian consortium hired to conduct a quick-count in Ecuador’s last presidential election failed to produce one, and its executives had to flee the country ahead of an election fraud probe. This was the same company used by the Brazilian election authority to produce its quick count, in fact. See also

• Lies, Gabbling Lies, and The Political Pollsters Reuters Relies On? Margins of Error in Equatorial Referenda

Brazil’s reputation for computerized bean-counting is not entirely spotless, then, but the issue requires more detailed study before generalizing.

On Sunday, a day after Ibope and the Datafolha polling firms differed over the gap between the polling numbers of his candidacy and that of Marcelo Crivella (PRB/PR/PSDC/PRTB), Gabeira added details to a charge he has been making since the beginning of the campaign. He said that Ibope uses its headquarters in Salvador as a front to receive payments from he PMDB, which orders internal polling for Rio. In exchange, Gabeira charged, Ibope uses margins of error to manipulate his performance, stimulating a runoff election between Crivella and Eduardo Paes (PMDB/PP/PTB/PSL). Ibope indicated a difference of 14 points between Crivella (24%) and Gabeira (10%), while the Datafolha poll showed only a 3 point difference between Crivella (18%) and Gabeira (15%). In both polls, Paes is ahead with 29%.

“ABIN Plans To Steal the Elections For Lula!”

Simulation of electronic democracy on the TSE Web site: Until recently, required Windows, but is now penguin-powered.

“We have no evidence that points to the existence of fraud involving the electronic voting machine.” –Gustavo Fruet (PSDB-São Paulo)

CPI dos Grampos põe em dúvida segurança das urnas: Members of the Brazilian opposition in a parliamentary commission of inquiry focusing on court-ordered wiretapping are using charges that ABIN bugged the Supreme Court for Lula to raise suspicions that ABIN may be tampering with the Brazilian voting machine for Lula.

The Estado de S. Paulo reports. The money quote:

“We have no evidence that points to the existence of fraud involving the electronic voting machine.” –Gustavo Fruet (PSDB-São Paulo)

If they did have evidence, this story might actually be news rather than a gabbling factoid based on at least three nested contrary-to-fact conditionals.

He who assumes makes an ass …

Some members of that wiretap commission had been overheard on wiretaps leaked to the press, discussing what sounded quite a bit like criminal behavior, such as having witnesses against them and their friends whacked out.

I will have to go and see what those very knowledgeable folks at Voto Seguro — a Brazilian e-voting security forum and advocacy group who know all there is to know about how to phreak various flavors of Diebold and other democratic beancounting devices — have to say about the credibility of this suspicion. (First comment on the topic in the forums is: “A spectacle of disinformation from all sides …”)

The opposition is about to get whomped in the national municipal elections, it looks like.

It may be interesting in engaging in the pseudologia of e-voting fraud to cast the result into the outer darkness of David Sasaki-style fear, uncertainty and doubt, like its brethren at ORVEX, the  Miami-based anti-Chavez cult of gibbering agitprop.

BRASÍLIA – O suposto envolvimento da Agência Brasileira de Inteligência (Abin) com escutas ilegais pode colocar sob suspeita as urnas eletrônicas utilizadas nas próximas eleições.

The supposed involvement of ABIN in illegal wiretaps may cast suspicion on the electronic voting machines used in the next elections.

Rio: “Vote Batgirl or Officer Friendly Here Will Blow Your Freaking Head Off,” Redux

Batgirl perp-walked: City council candidate allegedly raised campaign funds from a price hike on the armed black-market propane monopoly. Kewpie-doll T-shirt reads "braveheart," as far as I can make out. Can you make that out? Source: O Dia.

PF: milícia tentou matar moradores que não concordaram com propaganda em suas casas: O Dia (Rio de Janeiro) reports on today’s arrest of Batgirl, claiming that

“… the militia tried to kill residents who refused to display election propaganda [for Batgirl] on their homes …”

Ouch.

Additional detail: Six of those arrested in the federal sweep were active-duty state military police troopers, and 13 of the 22 arrest warrants were for active-duty cops.

The cops are criminals who mean to own City Hall.

I remember reading an interview with a Rio researcher who argued that cops running for political offices simply should not happen, and that this a major symptom of political malaise in the Cidade Maravilha and elsewhere in Brazil.

Possible cases in point of this peculiar variation on the concept of a “police state”: Marcelo Itagiba and Marina Maggessi of Rio de Janeiro.

Rio – Durante investigações sobre os crimes eleitorais, a Polícia Federal descobriu que milicianos da “Liga da Justiça” tentaram matar dois moradores que não quiseram ceder espaço para afixação de propaganda eleitoral em suas casas. Além deste, outros dois crimes foram identificados: pessoas que obrigadas a abandonar suas casas porque se mostravam contrárias aos candidatos impostos pela milícia e elevação do preço do gás, de R$ 21 para R$ 32 – cujos recursos a mais passaram a ser usados na campanha da vereadora Carminha Jerominho, filha do vereador Jerominho.

Curing investigations into electoral crimes, the Federal Police discovered that militiamen from the “Justice League” tried to kill residents who did not want their homes used for displaying campaign advertising. Another two crimes were identified: Persons were driven out of their homes for manifesting opposition to candidates imposed by the militias, and the price of cooking gas was raised from R$21 to R$32, with the difference being used to fund the campaign of Carminha Jerominho, daughter of city legislator Jerominho.

Holiday in Sambodia: Man Down in São Sebastião! “

Your correspondent badly strains an Achilles during a moment of sun-drenched tropical beach-induced enthusiasm in which the old corpus delecti wrote a check to Mother Nature it could not cash. The municipality of São Sebastião picked up the tab for the ER X-rays and the attractive bandage. If anyone asks, I got this injury battling sharks from my paraglider in order to save a bevy of Brazilian supermodels, okay?

Our ongoing beachological survey of the São Paulo North Shore this side of São Sebastião claims a casualty: My left Achilles tendon.

How? Please don’t ask!

Was I drunk? Slightly, yes.

The municipal elections are heating up — enough fireworks were let off at a night rally last evening for the PPS candidate to sink the entire U.S. Fourth Fleet — and the local papers made for an interesting read on that account.

Bolivia: “Antidemocratic, Pro-Business Forces Mobilize!”

"PARTLY CLOUDY: Bolivians will vote amid strikes, fear, uncertainty and doubt. Citizens interviewed in the street are concerned about the future. OAS and Mercosur anxious about outcome. Reyes Villa declares himself the third way. The world marvels at China." Further down: "Legal uncertainty frightens away foreign investors." La Razón (Santa Cruz) today with a classic David "Fear and Uncertainty Abound" Sasaki Memorial FUD-themed online edition. Click to zoom.

Free markets were supposed to lead to free societies. Instead, today’s supercharged global economy is eroding the power of the people in democracies around the globe. Welcome to a world where the bottom line trumps the common good and government takes a back seat to big business. –Robert Reich, “How Capitalism is Killing Democracy,” Foreign Policy, Sept.-Oct. 2007

Llama alcalde de Santa Cruz a militares a derrocar al presidente Evo Morales: “Santa Cruz mayor calls on Bolivian military to overthrow Morales.”

La Jornada (Mexico) reports on the claim that your taxpayer dollars are funding “antidemocratic” elements in a bid to disrupt the recall referendum on the mandates of federal and provincial executives in Bolivia this week.

The Wall Street Journal‘s John Lyon, meanwhile, is calling those same elements “pro-business.”

… the vote isn’t likely to break Bolivia’s political stalemate, which pits Mr. Morales’s vision of remaking the country along socialist lines and focusing resources on the indigenous majority against a pro-business opposition in several farming and gas-rich regions

The BBC Brasil editorializes to the exact same effect today, using almost exactly the same words: The vote is unlikely to break the political stalemate — even if Morales makes good on his boast that he will receive 70%-75% of the vote.

• Referendo não resolve polarização na Bolívia

I always find this claim fascinating: the notion that if you are opposed to a left-leaning or leftist candidate, you are automatically “pro-business” and “pro-free market.”

History does not really bear this analysis out.

The 1964-1985 military dictatorship in Brazil, for example, seems to have left extreme cartelization of various industries and a bent for central planning as its principal economic legacy. (And Third World poverty and illiteracy levels.)

The Globo network, for example — although it regularly claims its market dominance is the fruit of its relentless pursuit of the Globo Standard of Quality (which is just laughable, if you actually watch it, and its journalism programming especially) — gobbled up something like 75% of the advertising market here by sucking up to the generalissimos in various nauseating ways.

This was a “pro-business” development only if your business was being a member of the inbred Brazilian Medici clan that still controls Globo. It can hardly be said to have been good for the “free market” the citizen-consumer, and the entrepreneurial spirit in general.

Not unless you believe in the proposition that what is good for Globo is good for Brazil. You meet a lot of people down here who will actually tell you that Bob Reich has it the wrong way around: It’s democracy that’s bad for capitalism! Just look at Singapore, Dubai and, yes, even China! But see

• “What’s Bad For Globo Is Good For Brazil”

Lyon’s “reporting” on the (mind-blowingly fraudulent) 2006 Mexican elections was very much in the same Manichean vein, I recall: Calderón was the “pro-business” candidate. (His brother-in-law’s company was hired by the federal election authority to count the votes, without competitive bidding.) I remember listening to the W$J’s man in Mexico City on NPR at the time. The W$J’s Latin America desk gabbles and should be ignored, I have come to think.

La Paz, 8 de agosto. El ministro de Relaciones Exteriores de Bolivia, David Choquehuanca, denunció ante los embajadores acreditados en el país que grupos antidemocráticos realizan acciones violentas con la intención de sabotear y empañar el referendo autonómico del próximo domingo.

Bolivian foreign relations minister Choquehuanca informed the foreign diplomatic community that antidemocratic groups are carrying out acts of violence with the intention of sabotaging and undermining the referendum on Sunday.