Venezuela Election Results 10/7/2012

Early election results have a difficult time for incumbent strongman Hugo Chavez. Early exit polls have Chavez trailing Henrique Capriles.

Despite the express prohibition of the Venezuelan electoral law to publish polls, apparently the opposition leader would get 51.3 percent of the votes, while the incumbent candidate would get the 48.06 percent of the ballots.Variance director, Rafael Delgado, explained to Caracol Radio that the exit polls survey was conducted in the Capital District and the states of Zulia, Lara, Aragua, Miranda, Carabobo and Anzoategui .

Good news, but Chavez has fixed an election before.

UPDATE 9:33 pm:

The voting booths remain open-- despite a complaint from Capriles' campaign that voting is over, with Chavez cronies rallying (or threatening) voters:

Mr Capriles has complained via Twitter that electoral authorities should close voting stations because most lack queues.
Dozens of red-shirted Chavez loyalists on motorcycles are cruising in central Caracas, and a Capriles campaign spokesman is calling for them to be banned from the streets.

UPDATE 9:42: Venezulean newspaper the Week has declared Chavez the winner with 53% of the vote:

Chavez won with 53 percent of the presidential vote

UPDATE 9:52: And the military is surrounding the Presidential palace. 

UPDATE 9:59: A new exit poll has Capriles ahead:

According to an initial exit poll from the Varianzas agency, Henrique Capriles has won 52.6 percent of the vote against 47.4 percent for Hugo Chavez.
Now, we often hear that polling companies in Venezuela are either notoriously unreliable or hopelessly biased. Does this apply to Varianzas? Daniel Duquenal, one of Venezuela’s leading dissident bloggers – and a sharp-tongued critic of most opinion polls – had this to say about the company in a post about a September poll conducted by Varianzas, which placed Chavez two points ahead of Capriles:
Let’s note also that Varianzas has had a good track record recently and that YVpolis considers it the least biased of all pollsters in Venezuela.

OH NO 10:39:

The election commission has declared Chavez the winner.....

The president of Venezuela won with 54.42% in Venezuela's presidential election.

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