11:00PM EST
Álvaro Uribe, former president of Colombia, retweets a photo of a letter dated October 4, 2012.
The letter says, “I write to you, sending you a Patriotic and Revolutionary message, following the instructions of our commander Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, to advice you of the payment of a Year’s End Bonus to be delivered on Friday, October 5, 2012, for the amount of thirty percent (30%) of the annual basic salary.
“With this incentive, the government expresses its confidence that on October 7 our commander will be re-elected.”
Comunidad:”prueba documentada de como Chávez intentó manipular y comprar votos. Q el mundo conozca esto.RT#chaoChávez twitter.com/ErikaSalamanca…
— Álvaro Uribe Vélez (@AlvaroUribeVel) October 7, 2012
10:32PM EST
CNE announcement:
Very lengthy preamble thanking the public and institutions.
With 90% of votes counted, Chavez 54.42% of votes, Capriles 44.97%
Drudge sums it up best,
10:27PM EST
Adding to the circus, Fidel Castro’s nice said she had the results in advance,
Nothing says democratic legitimacy like Fidel Castro’s niece saying she has the results in advance.
— Joshua Treviño (@jstrevino) October 8, 2012
Twitter hashtag: #ComiendoUñas #BitingNails
10:22PM EST Noticias 24 reports that media and journalists have left the CNE and headed to the presidential palace, Palacio de Miraflores.
10:14PM EST CNN Español also livestreaming. All await the CNE members to make their announcement. The NYTimes has a twitter list,
Follow our Twitter list of @nytimesworld journalists covering the presidential election in Venezuela: ow.ly/1OP85C
— New York Times World (@nytimesworld) October 8, 2012
9:40PM EST
Twitter is aflame with rumors.
The live feed announcer says the announcement of the official results should not take long, since all the officials and the international observers are already at the CNE (Consejo Nacional Electoral, the electoral board). You can watch the live newsfeed in Spanish at my prior post.
Charlie Martin‘s also blogging the results (h/t Instapundit – thanks for the link!)
9:15 EST:
Reuters Vz: Venezuela presidential vote looks set for close finish
(Note: Venezuelan election law prohibits any publication of results inside the country before an official announcement from the election board)
Henrique Capriles’s latest tweet is enticing: “Calm, sanity, patience! Today was an historic, grand day, a people who spoke! We know what happened and must wait. Viva Venezuela!”
Calma,cordura,paciencia!Hoy fue una jornada histórica,grandiosa,un pueblo que habló!Sabemos lo que pasó y debemos esperar!Que viva Vzla!
— Henrique Capriles R. (@hcapriles) October 8, 2012
Daniel Duquenal is live-blogging, and Miguel Octavio covered the polls. Both believe Capriles will win.
Le Monde says there were 19 million voters.
Exit Poll Shows Capriles in the Lead, Chavez Says He’ll Respect Results. Michael Totten,
WE’LL SEE ABOUT THAT: The Varianzas polling agency says Hugo Chavez lost the election in Venezuela today. And Chavez says he’ll respect the result once the ballots are counted. But don’t pop any champagne corks just yet. The ballots haven’t been counted. We don’t know for sure if they’ll even be counted at all.
They’ll have to count something. I’ll keep blogging until the election board makes an official announcement.
Linked by Mcnorman. Thank you!
And let this be a lesson to American voters.
Stalin put it best – “You know, comrades, that I think in regard to this: I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this — who will count the votes, and how.”
Remember the Soros project to get proto-Communists elected as secretaries of state in key states?
!Un paso importantisimo hacia la victoria final! – Afortunadamente Chavez ha vencido, mil gracias a Dios. !Abajo el imperialismo yanqui en America Latina! !Arriba con Chavez, Morales, Daniel Ortega, Fidel y el presidente del Ecuador!