Sources in Venezuela today report the murder of Oswaldo Rodriguez, the Regional Director of the National Election Council for Amazonas State. It was the second murder of an electoral official in the last three months.
The BBC reports that the National Director of the Election Council situated the killing in the context of a "campaign of insults and slander" in advance of Congressional elections in December.
Spanish language ANSA news agency accounts say the police have not yet ruled out that common criminals may have been responsible. The facts of the case, however, make that unlikely.
More on the flip.
Rodriguez, it turns out, was removed from his hotel room at gunpoint, forced into his official use pickup truck, and driven away. Several hours later he was admitted into a local hospital with a severe cut in one leg. The reports do not indicate if he was conscious when admitted, or if he was able to identify his attackers.
The previous murder occurred in Northeastern Venezuela in June, coming hard on the heels of a grenade attack on the elections commission office in Carabobo state in May. Elections officials in at least five other states, furthermore, have received death threats in recent months.
According to the BBC, the Venezuelan opposition accuses the electoral council of pro-Chavez bias, and they say this bias is the reason they lost last year's recall referendum.
It looks like it's starting. Low intensity conflict in our own backyard. That raises two questions for me: 1) will the Chavista police be able to contain the subversive threat to Venezuelan democracy? and 2) where is Otto Reich?