The CENI officially announces the YES´victory at the HAT referendum

Tuesday November 30th 2010, the electoral commission patched up by the HAT has officially published he victory of the YES vote in the referendum unilaterally organized by the HAT. The Rajoelina sphere´s supporters massively responded YES to the obvious question, whether the constitutional draft dimmed to serve the 4th republic is to be accepted or not. 74% of expressed votes pledged the TGV made constitutional draft expected to legalize to Antananarivo´s elected mayor on top of the transition until the presidential elections.

3,761,977 people from the 7,151,223 registered voters would have cast their ballots on November 17th 2010. The HAT boosted the participation rate to 52.61% by tampering the electoral rules on the vote´s very day. The YES would have gathered 2,659,962 votes against 924,542 for the NO, namely a 25.81% high difference. Predictable, since there was practically no way to vote NO at the end of this one way campaign. Supporters of the NO even had to be carefully searched for any public channel interview.

The HAT´s electoral commission will be retaining that the live propaganda time granted to both trends was the same. This represents however a tenth of the campaign. The HAT leader and his ministers nearly monopolized the national TV channel for their explanation campaign of Andry Rajoelina´s non official candidacy at the referendum.

Abstention vs. participation

This referendum´s next stake was the first ever use of the unique ballot paper. The 179,423 blank or invalid votes, 4% of the whole, are a cause for concern anyway. The CENI signaled however very few minor irregularities in the run out of the HAT´s first popular consultation. Merely 3612 votes have been cancelled. The polling operation failed from taking place in 37 out of  the country´s 18,173 polling stations, due to security or various other “non reported” issues.

This referendum´s major stake was participation rate, supposed to embody the people´s will to move Andry Rajoelina´s way forward. The victory finally proves baseless. The 52% high participation rate is a national average between less than 40% in the Analamanga region, which has the largest number of voters, and the almost empty Androy region´s 80%.

The NO won in one single region: the Bongolava in the west. The  YES was short from losing in the Itasy region, in the east. This referendum´s undisputed winner is unarguably the abstention, despite the HAT´s alteration of the rules of engagement and despite the violent repression against the incitation to keep away from voting. November 17th´s referendum was neither fair nor legal enough to deserve any recognition. Even the democratic lure failed