Presidential elections were held in

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

on 3 December 2006 to elect a

president President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...

for a six-year term to begin on 10 January 2007. The contest was primarily between incumbent President

Hugo Chávez Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (; 28 July 1954 – 5 March 2013) was a Venezuelan politician who was president of Venezuela from 1999 until his death in 2013, except for a brief period in 2002. Chávez was also leader of the Fifth Republ ...

, and

Zulia Zulia State ( es, Estado Zulia, ; Wayuu: ''Mma’ipakat Suuria'') is one of the 23 states of Venezuela. The state capital is Maracaibo. As of the 2011 census, it has a population of 3,704,404, the largest population among Venezuela's states. I ...

Governor Manuel Rosales of the opposition party A New Era. After winning a recall referendum in 2004, President Chávez positioned himself for re-election in 2006 for a second full term. The opposition did not hold a primary, instead, the candidates reached a consensus into backing the governor of the largest state (Zulia), Manuel Rosales. Chávez benefited from a high popularity, and led most opinion polls throughout the campaign. He went to win re-election by the widest margin by percentage of the popular vote since the 1947 elections, and by the largest margin of votes cast in the history of Venezuela.

Candidates

There were fourteen candidates in total, making the ballot the largest in Venezuelan history. According to ''El Universal'', this was caused by division among adherents to grassroots '' Chavismo''. *Hugo Chávez, incumbent president, representing the Fifth Republic Movement *Manuel Rosales, governor of Zulia State, representing A New Era *Pedro Aranguren of ''Movimiento Conciencia de País'' *Carolina Contreras, independent *Venezuela Portuguesa Da Silva Isquierdo of ''Nuevo Orden Social'' *Ángel Irigoyen, of Let Us Break Chains (RC) *Isbelia León, of the Strength and Peace Institution *Luis Alfonso Reyes Castillo of Organización Juventud Organizada de Venezuela (Joven) *Homer Rodríguez, of For Love of Venezuela *Carmelo Romano Pérez, Liberal United People Movement *Yudith Salazar of Hijos de la Patria *Alejandro José Suárez Luzardo of the ''Partido Sentir Nacional'' *José Tineo, Venezuelan Third Millennium National Party *Eudes Vera Tovar, independent

Withdrawn candidates

* Jesús Caldera Infante the former president of FOGADE, representing the New Progressive Alliance. On 29 November, he withdrew his candidacy and backed Rosales. * Benjamín Rausseo a stand-up comedian, endorsed by the newly formed "PIEDRA" party. Three weeks before the election, in accordance with a campaign pledge he had made earlier (to stand down if not placed first or second in the opinion polls), he withdrew his candidacy without endorsing either Chávez or Rosales, telling his supporters to vote for either.

Primary election

Civil society Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere.Súmate'' recommended procedures for a

primary Primary or primaries may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels * Primary (band), from Australia * Primary (musician), hip hop musician and record producer from South Korea * Primary Music, Israeli record label Works ...

, to be held on 13 August 2006, to choose the opposition candidate for the December 2006 presidential elections. Súmate announced primaries for August 13th.
''El Universal'' (7 July 2006). Teodoro Petkoff, a Chávez critic, said that ''Súmate's'' procedure was

authoritarian Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political ''status quo'', and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic vot ...

, comparing it to the

Carmona Decree The Act Constituting the Government of Democratic Transition and National Unity ( es, Acta de Constitución del Gobierno de Transición Democrática y Unidad Nacional) – known colloquially as the "Carmona Decree" or ''El Carmonazo'' — was a doc ...

. Nine other candidates agreed to the terms for holding a primary, confirming their desire to allow the citizens to choose the opposition candidate. Another candidate condemned Petkoff's remarks against ''Súmate'', saying that Petkoff's statements did not help the country, and explaining that the conditions for holding a primary had been previously discussed between all of the candidates, including Petkoff. On 9 August, ''Súmate'' announced that the 13 August primary election would not be held, since the candidates had decided to back Manuel Rosales as the single opposition candidate. Machado said that the primary "initiative accomplished its goal and that ''Súmate'' would continue working to ensure clean elections and respect for citizens' rights".

Campaign

Chávez

Chávez's

campaign manager {{Political campaigning A campaign manager, campaign chairman, or campaign director is a paid or volunteer individual whose role is to coordinate a political campaign's operations such as fundraising, advertising, polling, getting out the vo ...

Rafael Lacava Rafael may refer to: * Rafael (given name) or Raphael, a name of Hebrew origin * Rafael, California * Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, Israeli manufacturer of weapons and military technology * Hurricane Rafael, a 2012 hurricane Fiction * ' ...

said that the campaign was to be based on defending Venezuela's national sovereignty and promoting world peace. According to ''Unión Radio'', Lacava added that a campaign theme was to be the "country's freedom to no longer be a North American colony". According to the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. new ...

, Chávez launched his campaign "with warnings that Washington is trying to undermine December's presidential vote and destabilize Venezuela", saying "I am the candidate of the revolution and without a doubt I am the candidate of the national majority", dismissing other candidates as "tools of the U.S. government".Barbour, Scott
Venezuela's Chavez launches campaign for re-election.
''Associated Press'' (12 August 2006). '' El Universal'' reports that Chávez said, "In this electoral process there are two candidates only, namely Hugo Chávez and George W. Bush".Chávez: "10 million vote goal is hard to attain".
''El Universal'' (18 August 2006). Chávez promised that if elected he would personally convoke a midterm recall referendum in the year 2010 without the need for petition signatures as was the case with the 2004 recall referendum, and that he won that recall referendum, he would then call for a referendum to ask the people for

indefinite re-election Indefinite may refer to: * the opposite of definite in grammar ** indefinite article ** indefinite pronoun * Indefinite integral, another name for the antiderivative * Indefinite forms in algebra, see definite quadratic forms * an indefinite ma ...

to be put into the

constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When these pr ...

. On 26 November Chávez made his final rally in Caracas. Reuters estimated that hundreds of thousands participated. Chávez supporters packed several streets.

Rosales

Rosales said that the backbone of his government program was to be the social arena, saying it will be a "sound and well defined" program, including a "fair allocation of oil revenues by means of two axes–

minimum wage A minimum wage is the lowest remuneration that employers can legally pay their employees—the price floor below which employees may not sell their labor. Most countries had introduced minimum wage legislation by the end of the 20th century. B ...

for all unemployed and direct contribution to the underprivileged".Rosales's candidacy formally announced.
''El Universal'' (9 August 2006). The latter being promoted as ''Mi Negra'' which is a

debit card A debit card, also known as a check card or bank card is a payment card that can be used in place of cash to make purchases. The term '' plastic card'' includes the above and as an identity document. These are similar to a credit card, but ...

handed out to the poor with monthly deposits from 20% of oil industry profits. Nevertheless, a poll shows 59% of the Venezuelan people rejected the ''Mi Negra'' program, preferring stable jobs. According to the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...

'', Rosales stated that Chávez was vulnerable on his "massive foreign aid programs, government-approved takeovers of land and buildings, and the perception that crime is increasing". Rosales said, "We will distribute land to the peasants, but we will buy it in such a way as to respect the principle of private property, just as we will respect those of

human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

and

social justice Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals ...

". Rosales would halt oil giveaways, "including sales of discounted oil to Cuba, until Venezuela reduced its high poverty rate".Kraul, Chris.
Chavez's Foes Cancel Primary, Line Up Behind One Candidate
" ''

'' (9 August 2006). The Associated Press reports that Rosales accuses Chávez of "overspending on a military buildup" and pledged "to use Venezuela's oil wealth to help the poor and improve education and health care", ridiculing Chávez's "claims of a possible war with the U.S." and saying, "Venezuela's real war should be against rampant street crime".Sanchez, Fabiola.
Rosales Opposition Choice to Face Chavez
. ''Associated Press'' (10 August 2006). Rosales held several large rallies around the country; the largest being "Las Avalanchas" in Caracas. Rallies were held in several states to try to get the Rosales campaign to be heard by as many people as possible. To close his election campaign, Manuel Rosales held a huge final rally in Caracas with an estimate by the Associated Press to be in the hundreds of thousands.

No debate held

Rosales demanded a public debate, saying Chávez should choose the TV channel where the debate would be broadcast. He also said "I am waiting for him (Chávez) to have a debate with me broadcast by all the TV channels to allow Venezuelans to know what is the project and the vision of the country he has and the project and vision we have". Chávez declared he would not debate Rosales because "the candidates from the opposition do not even have the condition to debate a schoolboy or girl in sixth grade from a Bolivarian school".

Slogans and ads

Chávez

Chávez launched his campaign with a

slogan A slogan is a memorable motto or phrase used in a clan, political slogan, political, Advertising slogan, commercial, religious, and other context as a repetitive expression of an idea or purpose, with the goal of persuading members of the publi ...

of ''10 Millones de votos'' (10 million votes), On multiple occasions the campaign used the more combative "10 millones por el buche" (10 million votes down their throats)."Comando Miranda juramentado como frente anti-imperialista".
''Venezolana de Televisión-Ministerio de Comunicación e Información'' (17 August 2006). On 17 August 2006, while leading the oath at the national campaign headquarters (Commando Miranda), Chávez acknowledged that 10 million votes would be hard to attain. From 9 October, Chávez campaign used the slogans ''por amor'' (for love) and ''Chávez, victoria de Venezuela'' (Chávez, Venezuela's victory). They also used the slogan ''uh, ah, Chávez no se va'' (ooh, oh, Chávez won't go) from the 2004 recall referendum campaign. A poll conducted by ''Cifras Escenarios'' reported that 76.7% of Venezuelans liked the love message. The English translation of the message is as follows:

Rosales

''Atrévete con Manuel Rosales'' is the Rosales campaign slogan. ''¡Ni el imperio, ni el barbudo!'' (Neither the .S.empire, nor the ubanbearded one!) is a slogan used by Rosales in launching his campaign, intended to "hit Chávez where the Venezuelan ''comandante'' is most vulnerable: his penchant for giving away billions of dollars to foreign countries, while nearly half of the Venezuelan people live in poverty" referring to subsidized oil deals to both Cuba and the United States. "We are not going to be the empire's defenders," Rosales said. "The empire must respect our sovereignty, and we must respect the empire," and "we cannot be looking at societies like Cuba as a model to be copied. We want modernity, transformation, development."

Endorsements

Chávez

Rosales

Calls for abstention

* Democratic Action

Opinion polls

(*) Technical tie (+) Results are political segmentation, not voter intention (++) This poll was attributed to the

Universidad Complutense de Madrid The Complutense University of Madrid ( es, Universidad Complutense de Madrid; UCM, links=no, ''Universidad de Madrid'', ''Universidad Central de Madrid''; la, Universitas Complutensis Matritensis, links=no) is a public research university lo ...

. University's authorities clarified that they have not knowledge about this study. One of members of the CEPS happen to be a university faculty. (+++) Publisher does not mention polling company.

International markets

International markets largely saw a Chávez victory. Rafael de la Fuente of

BNP Paribas BNP Paribas is a French international banking group, founded in 2000 from the merger between Banque Nationale de Paris (BNP, "National Bank of Paris") and Paribas, formerly known as the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas. The full name of the grou ...

stated "The market expects a Chávez victory, they don't even question it". Ricardo Amorim of

WestLB WestLB AG (derived from ''Westdeutsche Landesbank'', i.e. "Western German state Bank") was a European commercial bank based in Düsseldorf, Germany which was mainly owned by the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Landesbanks are a group of pa ...

Research "The vision I see is that of a 20-point victory... We would be surprised if he does not win". Patrick Esteruelas of Eurasia Group saw Chávez winning by 60 percent. Also arguing that a high turnout would benefit Chávez,

Goldman Sachs Goldman Sachs () is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered at 200 West Street in Lower Manhattan, with regional headquarters in London, Warsaw, Bangalore, Ho ...

dismissed the close polling arguing, "Chávez is the favorite to win the election due to vast control of logistical and financial state resources, and influence over key institutions".

Conduct

Four organisations were given permission to send official election observers to monitor the elections:

Carter Center The Carter Center is a nongovernmental, not-for-profit organization founded in 1982 by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. He and his wife Rosalynn Carter partnered with Emory University just after his defeat in the 1980 United States presid ...

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...

Mercosur The Southern Common Market, commonly known by Spanish abbreviation Mercosur, and Portuguese Mercosul, is a South American trade bloc established by the Treaty of Asunción in 1991 and Protocol of Ouro Preto in 1994. Its full members are Arge ...

and

Organization of American States The Organization of American States (OAS; es, Organización de los Estados Americanos, pt, Organização dos Estados Americanos, french: Organisation des États américains; ''OEA'') is an international organization that was founded on 30 Apri ...

. A fifth organisation was refused permission:

Cortes Generales The Cortes Generales (; en, Spanish Parliament, lit=General Courts) are the bicameral legislative chambers of Spain, consisting of the Congress of Deputies (the lower house), and the Senate (the upper house). The Congress of Deputies m ...

(

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

parliament). Polling stations opened at 6:00 a.m. but newspaper ''El Universal'' reported that in some electoral centers, voters waited in line since 3:00 a.m. According to the National Electoral Council (CNE) director Humberto Castillo, the turnout in polling stations was massive, and the conditions were "normal" throughout the country.

Polling station A polling place is where voters cast their ballots in elections. The phrase polling station is also used in American English and British English, although polling place is the building

were scheduled to close at 4:00 p.m. Around 5 p.m., CNE president Tibisay Lucena officially announced the end of the voting process, but gave orders to keep polling stations open if voters still remained in line. Rosales' campaign team denounced irregularities in the closing of some voting booths, saying that ''Plan República''—the armed forces sent to guard the electoral process—would not let some electoral centers be closed even though no voters remained in line. Rosales' spokesman also alerted about the reopening of already closed centers. CNE member Vicente Díaz later reaffirmed that all polling stations without voters in line must be closed, and that no booths under any circumstances could be reopened. The

concluded that the elections were "fair, transparent and without serious irregularities".Observing the 2006 Presidential Elections in Venezuela – Final Report of the Technical Mission
cartercenter.org Carter Center praised "the civic spirit of the elections" and hoped that "other

Latin American Latin Americans ( es, Latinoamericanos; pt, Latino-americanos; ) are the citizens of Latin American countries (or people with cultural, ancestral or national origins in Latin America). Latin American countries and their diasporas are multi-e ...

nations will follow Venezuela's example in the future". However, a study conducted by Ezequiel Zamora (former vicepresident of the CNE), Freddy Malpica (former rector of the Universidad Simón Bolívar), Guillermo Salas (USB professor), Jorge Tamayo (UCV professor), Ramiro Esparragoza (UCV professor), four statistics experts and three computer engineers concluded in January 2007 that the 2006 presidential elections presented "important statistical inconsistencies, despite the fact that the opposition candidate recognized the results". They argued that the elections results of many electoral centers showed a very regular statistical distribution of the votes in favor of Rosales in comparison with the dispersion of the votes for Chávez. This suggest that the regularities are the possible result of numerical ceilings embedded in the voting machines. Also there seems to be a regular statistical abstention of 25% in most electoral centers and no signs of dispersion. They have recommended further studies of the data in order to understand the deficiencies of the Venezuelan electoral system and in order to have a "minimum of transparency" in any future electoral process.

Concerns over the Electoral Registry

Opposition candidates and political parties voiced concerns over possible inaccuracies of the national electoral registry. Previous elections had shown that there might be a great number of deceased people still on the records. A review process started in mid-2006 where the CNE asked all the public universities of Venezuela to conduct also an external review of the electoral registry. However, the review project presented by the

Central University of Venezuela The Central University of Venezuela (Spanish: ''Universidad Central de Venezuela''; UCV) is a public university of Venezuela located in Caracas. It is widely held to be the highest ranking institution in the country, and it also ranks 18th in ...

, Simón Bolívar University and the Andrés Bello Catholic University was rejected by the CNE. One of the proposed methods by these institutions was comparing census data with the electoral registry.Pereira, Javier. "Detectaron inconsistencias demográficas entre los votantes mayores de 45 años". '' El Nacional'' (25 June 2006) p. A-2. They nevertheless ran their audit in parallel and the representative of the three institutions José Miguel Bernardo concluded "In practice hese errorsdo not favor the government and their distribution is uniform."''Willpert, Gregory'' (''Venezuela Analysis'' 22 July 2006
Preliminary Results of Venezuela’s Voter Registry Audit Show No Intent for Fraud
Retrieved 5 November 2006 A second mathematician involved in the audit, Raúl Jiménez, concluded "One must be responsible. The electoral registry is a disaster and the CNE has done nothing to improve it, but there is nothing to indicate a political intention in the anomalies." The CNE performed the third audit with the aid of seven other public universities and with the Carter Center and two senators from the Belgian parliament observing the audit. The senators were Jacinta de Roeck, independent, and

Sfia Bouarfa Sfia Bouarfa ( ar, صفية بوعرفة) (born 14 October 1950 in Jerada, Morocco) is a Belgian politician and a member of the PS. Since 1995 she is a Member of the Parliament of the Brussels-Capital Region and a Member of the Parliament of ...

, from the French-speaking Socialist Party. In June 2006, a privately funded preliminary study by Genaro Mosquera, a

statistics Statistics (from German: '' Statistik'', "description of a state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a scientific, indust ...

professor at the Central University and member of the political party Democratic Action, claimed that in the last three years the registry grew 27% compare to a population growth of only 7.3% during those years and also a much larger growth than the regular increase of the registry of 12% every five years between 1948 and 2000. One of the flagship government Bolivarian Missions was Mission Identidad, where roughly 5 million citizens were awarded an ID card and the right to register and vote. Also, by comparing the official population numbers provided with by the Office of National Statistics with the CNE registry, there seems to be more register voters of 45 years of age and over than actual population. According to NGO ''Ojo Electoral'' (Electoral Eye) preliminary results of a comparison between the Electoral Registry and demographic projections of the National Institute of Statistics (INE) suggests that inconsistencies in the voter data base cannot modify the results of the election.

Other concerns

The opposition claimed there was unfair pressure by the government against governmental workers who might not want to support the president. They released a video that showed energy minister and head of

PDVSA Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA, ) (English: Petroleum of Venezuela) is the Venezuelan state-owned oil and natural gas company. It has activities in exploration, production, refining and exporting oil as well as exploration and productio ...

, Rafael Ramírez, telling state oil workers to back President Hugo Chávez or to leave their jobs. He also said PDVSA is red "from top to bottom"(''PDVSA es roja, rojita de arriba abajo''). He also said that PDVSA's "workers are with this revolution, and those who aren't should go somewhere else. Go to Miami." Opposition media outlets have been repeating the 14-minute video over and over again. President Chávez said he supported the PDVSA director and recommended him to make the same speech to oil workers 100 times a day. The CNE opened an investigation into Rafael Ramírez following the protests from the oppositionNacional y Política – eluniversal.com
/ref> and Ramírez was eventually fined.

Results

The 29 January 2007 report from the CNE showed the following results:

Electoral audits

Even though a fair number of international observers were present, the CNE instituted an open and public series of audits of the vote results. Each one of the 11,118 automated polling places was equipped with multiple high-tech touch-screen

DRE voting machine A DRE voting machine, or direct-recording electronic voting machine, records votes by means of a ballot display provided with mechanical or electro-optical components that can be activated by the voter. These are typically buttons or a touchs ...

s, one to a ''"mesa electoral,"'' or "voting table." In total, 32,331 voting machines were in use country-wide. After the vote is cast, each machine prints out a paper ballot, or

VVPAT Voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) or verified paper record (VPR) is a method of providing feedback to voters using a ballotless voting system. A VVPAT is intended as an independent verification system for voting machines designed to allo ...

, which is inspected by the voter and deposited in a ballot box belonging to the machine's table. The voting machines perform in a stand-alone fashion, disconnected from any network until the polls close.''Consejo Nacional Electoral'
Manual Operativo para Miembros, Secretaria o Secretario de Mesa Electoral
. Retrieved 28 November 2006 Voting session closure at each of the voting stations in a given polling center is determined either by the lack of further voters after the lines have emptied, or by the hour, at the discretion of the president of the voting table.

Tally scrutinization

After the polls close at any voting table, the following steps are carried out: *The

is ordered to close the voting session. *Tally scrutinization announced. *Each voting machine prints an original tally sheet, each has a voter total and the number of votes cast for each candidate cast in that particular machine/table. *Each voting machine is connected to the network and the results are sent to the vote counting center. *Nine extra tally sheets are printed and distributed to the staff and the six representatives of the candidates that received the most votes. *With the original tally sheet in hand the total number of votes cast is compared to the signed up sheet or electoral notebook. Finally, for those machines chosen for the audit (see below) the electoral ballots, or paper trails, are counted one by one to determine if they add up to the totals in the tally sheet. Any anomaly is mentioned in the tally sheet report, signed by the staff and auditors, and then sealed and given to the military for delivery to the CNE.

Random paper ballot audit

Once the tally scrutinization is complete the staff proceeds to perform a random paper ballot audit of 54.31% of the machines. Each voting center can have anywhere from one to twelve voting machines, occasionally up to fifteen. The staff randomly selects the tables/machines by drawing a number out of a paper hat. The size of the draw is dependent on the number of tables/machines. The following procedures occur step by step: * Polls closed * Tally scrutinization finishes * Random paper ballot audit announced * The machines are randomly selected drawing numbers out of a paper hat * The machine's serial number is recorded * The corresponding paper ballot box is selected and opened * The paper ballots results for each candidate are openly counted * With the original tally printed from the electronic results, both results are audited * Any anomaly (even if by one vote) is recorded in the audit report * The original audit report is signed by staff and observers, officially sealed and handed to the military for delivery to the CNE * Copies are handed over to the representatives of the two highest vote getters.

Reactions

Shortly after the first set of partial results was broadcast on the night of the election, Chávez appeared on the ''Balcón del Pueblo'' (''People's Balcony'') in the presidential palace to celebrate his victory and address his followers. Chávez announced that a new era has started in Bolivarian development, focused in the expansion of the Bolivarian Revolution. That same night, Manuel Rosales made a brief speech to the nation, recognizing that he had been defeated. But he insisted that the two

exit poll An election exit poll is a poll of voters taken immediately after they have exited the polling stations. A similar poll conducted before actual voters have voted is called an entrance poll. Pollsters – usually private companies working for ...

studies his supporters had made, and the results of the audits, showed a narrower difference between him and Chávez than was reported by Lucena. Rosales said in his speech that he and his supporters "will be in streets to prove that the results by the National Electoral Council are not correct, that the gap is narrower that what presented."

References

External links

Chávez campaign website

Rosales campaign website

Rausseo campaign website

Caldera Infante campaign website

Vera election manifesto
{{Chávez presidency

Presidential election A presidential election is the election of any head of state whose official title is President. Elections by country Albania The president of Albania is elected by the Assembly of Albania who are elected by the Albanian public. Chile The p ...

Presidential elections in Venezuela Hugo Chávez Bolivarian Revolution December 2006 events in South America