Puerto Ayacucho -The final results of the vote on Venezuela's Constitutional Reforms are coming in at this moment.

The results of the vote upon which President Chávez conceded at 1:20 AM, Venezuelan time on 3 December, were based upon 87.4% of the votes reported from the automated voting system. However, there were outlying areas where voting took place manually. These took place primarily in the states of Amazonas and Delta Amacouro. Where automated voting took place in these two states, the people voted overwhelmingly for the Constitutional Reforms. However, the votes that were received from the manual system in these two states had not yet been counted. These are the manual votes that will finalize the total results. This afternoon, Tibisay Lucewna, President of Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE) gave what can be considered the second results bulletin, based on 94% of all votes counted. According to news reports (VTV and Globovision) these second bulletin results are:

Block A (Proposed by Chávez)
No = 50.65% (4,521,494 votes)
Sí = 49.34% (4,404,626 votes)

Block B (Proposed by the National Assembly)
No=51.01% (4,539,707 votes)
Sí=48,99% (4,360,014 votes)

Voter Turnout=56.15%

It is unlikely that the remaining 6% of votes from outlying areas will be sufficient to overturn the opposition's wafer-thin majority.

What does this mean? There are remaining votes from the manual system that still have not yet been counted. We expect that they will finally be tallied by the middle of next week. We also expect that when the final vote is tallied, the margin will be even more narrow than the results upon which President Chávez conceded.

First, let's be clear. It appears that President Chavez' concession on Monday in the small hours is binding. Therefore, we must the question, "Why did the president concede defeat before ALL votes were counted? Our reading of what some may consider a premature concession to the forces of the right was strategic. If President Chávez had not conceded approximately 5 minutes after the preliminary results were announced, this would have triggered the opposition plan to take to the streets, ignite the country in turmoil and render the country ungovernable.

A note to U.S. Readers: President Chavez' concession under these circumstances stands in stark contrast to the 2000 U.S. presidential election when the cohorts of George Herbert Walker Bush in the Supreme Court split 3-2 to resolve the "hanging chads" controversy and hand the presidency to his son, George Walker Bush. In effect, William Rehnquist (RIP), Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court became the arbiter of U.S. democracy.  

In addition, a one or two percent victory for the Venezuelan reform process would not have carried sufficient weight in the eyes of the international community. For these reasons, the president did what was best for Venezuela and at the same time lifted his profile as a true democrat and not an autocratic Dictador as is always profiled in the corporate media.

The fact is that 49% of those who voted in Venezuela approved of reforms designed to advance the Bolivarian Revolution into its next stage of the New Socialism of the 21st Century. This is nothing short of a victory. 4 years ago, such radical, constitutional reforms could not even have been imagined.

The "SI!" vote carried 15 of Venezuela's 24 states. The primary losses and abstention were seen in areas with the highest population density.

Axis of Logic will be analyzing in detail the reasons for abstention among Chavista voters and why some 600,000 light Chavez supporters actually voted against the Constitutional Reforms, many of which would have benefited them and their offspring in future generations.

Axis corresponents are picking up grassroot reaction to the results of the vote, the opposition hangover to a pyrrhic victory and the reasons why 2.8 million Chavistas did not vote. The opposition has already begun to react to President Chavez' concession which they consider to be the beginning of the end of his administration. Think April 12, 2002 - "Opposition in power after coup d'etat". Nuff said, Google it.

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