Elections

Yesterday was election day for Venezuela. It was not a presidential election, but a parliamentary one. The best way to sum it up is by putting this link here:

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/09/27/venezuela.elections/index.html

The culture around it has been interesting to see. Many more people than average were expected to come out to vote. After voting, voters had to dip their pinkies in indelible ink, so today we were seeing lots of visa applciants and coworkers with purple pinkies :) Chavez was on TV tonight, as he is just about every night, talking about his party and how they were winners.

Without saying too much, I can definitely say that I'm more thankful than even for the freedoms we have and take for granted in the USA. It will be interesting to see how things change over the next weeks. The fact that the opposition won enough seats to prevent the socialist party from having a 2/3 majority could at the very least have a psychological impact on society. But only time will tell.

One interesting cultural note with the elections is something called "ley seca," which means a ban on selling/serving alcohol anywhere in public starting at 6:00 pm on the Friday before the elections and lasting through 6:00 the Monday after. They do not enforce the rule in private homes/property, though, so of course this was a great excuse for a Friday night happy hour after work.

I expect things to mostly go on as usual at this point, but it has been interesting to be surrounded by and to see a little bit of the electoral process here in Venezuela.