VENEZUELA:1ST UPDATE: Chavez Wins...But Loses 2/3 Majority.

LINK CHANGE/ MARKETWATCH /
Analysis: Jose De Cordoba and Dan Molinski/ 28 Sept./    
   Election results show that President Hugo Chavez's party, the PSUV, won at least 95 of the 165 seats in the unicameral legislature. The opposition coalition won at least 65 seats and 52% of the popular vote.
   Though both sides claimed victory, Chavez lost the two-thirds majority that has allowed his allies to ignore the opposition and rubber-stamp measures while giving the president decree powers, rewriting fundamental laws and appointing key officials such as Supreme Court justices. The results probably signal  bitter confrontations ahead of Chavez's attempt for re-election in 2012.

VENEZUELA: Social Networks Working Full Blast Before Election.

M.HERALD/ JIM WYSS/    Venezuelans vote tomorrow on 165 parliament seats. Pollsters say Hugo Chávez's PSUV and his opposition are just a few points from each other. But judging from TWITTER followers, Chavez should have an easy victory.

    Chávez (chavezcandanga) has more than 847,600 followers, making him the 289th most-popular Twitter user globally -- and the second most-followed leader in the world after Barack Obama.
   ComScore research reveals that Venezuela is behind only Indonesia and Brasil in Twitter use and that 19% of Venezuela's internet users also have Twitter accounts while the U.S.in 11th place with 12% usage.

VENEZUELA: Has Chavez Fixed The System To Control The Vote?

M.HERALD/ BY JIM WYSS /
     Opposition critics maintain that President Hugo Chavez and his party have bent rules and ignored the constitution to game  Sunday's parliamentary election... with new voting districts and electoral laws that make it virtually impossible for him to lose the majority.
``The constitution calls for proportional representation, and this system no longer provides that,'' said Luis Enrique Lander, the director of Ojo Electoral, one of four national groups monitoring the race. ``Now it's a quasi-majority system. The winners won't take everything, but they will take almost everything.''