Those looking for election fraud might finally have the real thing.Gateway Pundit has been tracking the developments in the referendum in Venezuela. The question is essentially whether Chavez will be granted president-for-life rank with dictatorial powers. For the last several weeks, “no” supporters have been holding a significant lead in spite of Chavez’ remarkably blatant threats and intimidation. Yet, as predicted, Chavez has apparently executed his backup plan to ensure the “correct” result.

Unfortunately, what can be expected in Venezuela is predictable because we have seen it before. Dissenters will be targeted for intimidation, any critical media outlets will be shut down. Chavez will inveigh with new broadsides against America, attempting to distract the attention of his people from repression at home by claiming it is necessitated by shadowy foreign plots against “his” country.

More interesting and potentially unpredictable will be international reaction, especially in the United States. For many months, Chavez’ supporters have acted as a classic spin machine, explaining away each new outrage as unimportant, temporary, or necessitated by the evils of the Bush administration. More recently, however, some elements of this propagandist sympathy movement have begun to distance themselves from Chavez, casting their endorsements in attenuated terms or damning by faint praise. Some have even issued what is, for them, the ultimate condemnation, comparing Chavez to the Bush administration itself, though still asserting Bush as more evil (in spite of Bush’s distinctly odd lack of follow-through on his alleged program of repressing all dissenters, especially when compared to the free hand of Chavez’ thugs in doing so). Will this theft of an election granting Chavez absolute power be enough to finally kick Bush into second place in the hierarchy of the far left’s Legion of Doom?

Prediction: No.

UPDATE: The plan may be backfiring. The Venezuelan vote-counters are refusing to confirm a pro-Chavez result and “no” voters may have a majority.

UPDATE 2: The “no” voters may have won out in the end. This means that the more interesting moves may come in Venezuela. After all, Chavez declared last week that anyone who voted “no” was a “traitor”. With millions of traitors now revealed, how will Chavez respond? How will his defenders in the West?