Right now, Venezuela is getting ready for Presidential elections on Sunday. Populist president Hugo Chavez is going for a third term against young rival, Henrique Capriles.
And because Venezuela is often depicted in US media as having less than free and fair elections the Venezuelan Embassy in Belize held a small conference today to explain the procedure.
7News was there and here's an excerpt of the presentation, where the Embassy spokesperson described their sophisticated electronic voting system:
Gabriel Sanchez, Charge D' Affairs - Venezuelan Embassy
"There are two machines over there that they have when you go to the center for voting. Basically when you go there - it serves like a calculator and you present your ID to the president of the board then you are going introduce the number in that calculator. After that if it is approved you have to press your finger print in the machine. When that is finish you are going to go to the second machine which is the secret machine that is fully covered and nobody is going to see because you are going to exercise your right to vote."
"In there is a touch screen where you will see the ballot. The ballot is not a piece of paper; you will go there and see exactly the persons who are running for president. You are going to press the candidate that you feel more likely to do it - you press it on the touch screen and after that there is going to be a message saying if that is the person you voted for. If that is correct you press vote and after that it's going to print like a receipt where you will fold it and put it in a box."
"After that you have to ink your finger and the process will be over. It's a very easy process, it's not that complicated."
And if the Venezuelan Presidential Elections doesn't strike you as important to Belize, well, it should. That's because our country enjoys several benefits for our relationship with Venezuela.
Two of those major benefits include Mission Milagro, in which hundreds of Belizean patients are flown to Venezuela to receive free eye surgery, and the recently resurrected Petrocaribe agreement, in which Belize gets fuel at low interest credit and deferred payment.
Today, we asked the Embassy's spokesperson about the status of those benefits should their government change.
Here's what he told us:
Gabriel Sanchez
"There is an old saying that one of the Minister of Foreign Affairs from Venezuela used to say which is very clever: we will cross that bridge when we get there. What I can is that the government of Venezuela is fully committed to their agreements. It will continue because of the agreement and we will respect that."
The results of that presidential race is expect to be announced by Monday or Tuesday the latest.
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