2006 Venezuelan presidential election

Chávez's campaign manager Rafael Lacava 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".[11] According to the Associated Press, 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".[12] El Universal reports that Chávez said, "In this electoral process there are two candidates only, namely Hugo Chávez and George W. Bush".[13]

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. This consult would allow the voters of Venezuela to remove him from his post. He has said that if he won that recall referendum, he would then call for a referendum to ask the people for indefinite re-election to be put into the constitution.[14] On 26 November Chávez made his final rally in Caracas; it was called "The Red Tide takes Caracas". Reuters estimated that hundreds of thousands participated.[15] Chávez supporters packed several streets.

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 for all unemployed and direct contribution to the underprivileged".[16] The latter being promoted as Mi Negra which is a debit card 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.[17] According to the Los Angeles Times, 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 and social justice". Rosales would halt oil giveaways, "including sales of discounted oil to Cuba, until Venezuela reduced its high poverty rate".[18]

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".[19] Rosales held several large rallies around the country; the largest being "Las Avalanchas" in Caracas.[20] 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.[21]

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".[22][23]

Chávez launched his campaign with a slogan of 10 Millones de votos (10 million votes),[24] On multiple occasions the campaign used the more combative "10 millones por el buche" (10 million votes down their throats).[25] 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.[13][25]

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.[26][27] A poll conducted by Cifras Escenarios reported that 76.7% of Venezuelans liked the love message.[28] The English translation of the message is as follows:

Always, I have done everything out of love.
For the love of trees and rivers, I became a painter.
For the love of knowledge, studies, I left my dearest village, to study.
For the love of sports I became a ball player.
For the love of the motherland I became a soldier.
For the love of the people I became President, you made me President.
I have ruled these years out of love.
For love we did Barrio Adentro.
For love we did Mission Robinson.
For love we did Mercal.
We have done everything for love.
There is a lot left to do. I need more time.
I NEED YOUR VOTE. YOUR VOTE FOR LOVE.

Atrévete con Manuel Rosales is the Rosales campaign slogan.[29]

¡Ni el imperio, ni el barbudo! (Neither the [U.S.] empire, nor the [Cuban] bearded 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."[30]

The ballot was the largest in Venezuelan history which, according to El Universal, is explained by division among adherents to grassroots Chavismo.[33]

• 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.

• Democratic Action[42]

(*) Technical tie

(+) Results are political segmentation, not voter intention[63]

(++) This poll was attributed to the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. 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 largely saw a Chávez victory. Rafael de la Fuente of BNP Paribas stated "The market expects a Chávez victory, they don't even question it". Ricardo Amorim of WestLB 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 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".[64]

Shortly after the first set of partial results was broadcast on the night of the election, Hugo Chávez showed up in the Balcón del Pueblo (Spanish for The 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.[72]

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 studies his supporters had made, and the results of the audits, showed a narrower difference between him and Chávez than was reported by Lucena.[73] 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."[74]

The elections were monitored by The Carter Center, who in an extensive report concluded that the elections were "fair, transparent and without serious irregularities".[75] Carter Center praised "the civic spirit of the elections" and hoped that "other Latin American nations will follow Venezuela's example in the future".[75]

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.[76]

After the polls close at any voting table, the following steps are carried out:[77]

• The DRE voting machine 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.

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.[77]

The following procedures occur step by step:[77]

• 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.

The opposition is denouncing unfair pressure by the government against those governmental workers who might not want to support the president. They released a video that showed energy minister and head of PDVSA, 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.[85] The CNE opened an investigation into Rafael Ramírez following the protests from the opposition[86] and Ramírez was eventually fined.[87]