CHAVEZ' PSUV PASSES TEST

clipped from: www.venezuelanalysis.com

record-setting 65.5 percent voter turnout. Of the 16.8 million registered voters in Venezuela, roughly 11 million went to the polls. This is a record for the country

the National Electoral Council (CNE) managed the influx at the polls and made results of the voting available online through its website just hours after all of the 11,297 polling stations closed. This was made possible by the electronic voting machines used in Venezuela

The results strongly favor the PSUV, the party of Hugo Chavez

• They won 17 out of 22 governorships, or 77 percent of the total.

• 80 percent of mayoralties.four out of the five states where opposition governors were elected, the majority of mayoralties went to the PSUV

• including Valencia, an important industrial and manufacturing city in the coastal state of Carabobo

• All states in Venezuela with strategic natural resources and industries elected PSUV candidates for governor, with the exception of Zulia in the West.
  

• pro-government leadership prevailed in the oil-rich states of Anzoategui, Barinas, Bolívar, Monagas, and Delta Amacuro, some of which encompass the lucrative Orinoco Oil Belt.

• The state of Bolívar, in particular, also hosts the country's other important basic industries: hydroelectricity, aluminum, steel, iron, and petrochemicals. A majority of the mayoral races in these states also went to PSUV candidates.

Although the mayor for metropolitan Caracas went to the opposition,

• Libertador, the city's most heavily populated district - home to 1.7 million residents - elected the PSUV's municipal mayoral candidate Jorge Rodríguez.

• Libertador is by far the largest of the five urban districts in Caracas.

The opposition won the governorship in Carabobo, Tachira, Nueva Esparta, Zulia, and Miranda.

• In the state of Carabobo, the opposition only managed to win two of the mayoral races, while the PSUV won 11 mayoral races.

• In the state of Nueva Esparta, 6 of the 11 mayoral races went to the PSUV.

• In Tachira, the PSUV won at least 15 of 29 mayoral races.

• In Miranda, they won at least 14 of 21 races.

the opposition's five victories were claimed by far smaller margins than those earned by the PSUV

• by margins of just 10 percentage points or less in four of those states (as low as 1.3% in Tachira and 3% in Carabobo), and won by 15 percentage points in the fifth state (Nueva Esparta)

• government won by roughly 50 percentage points in two states, 30 percentage points in five states, 20 percentage points in four states, and 5 to 10 percent in six more states.