Has Chavez’s supporters broken the law by setting up a new political party?
A controversy has arisen regarding a new pro-Chavez party, the UVE. This party was recently set up and registered. The opposition claims it is a dummy party set up only to help more pro-Chavez candidates win than would otherwise possible. The reason has to do with how many election results are calculated in Venezuela. In some countries all candidates are directly elected from certain geographic areas. The U.S. and Britain use this system. In other countries office holders are voted in by list where each party gets a number of seats that is in proportion to its percentage of the overall vote. Israel and Italy use those types of systems. Venezuela combines both of those systems. In Venezuela some seats are decided by direct votes for particular candidates and others (for the same office) are decided by lists based on a political parties overall percentage of the vote. The rub is that to make sure minority parties are represented proportionally the number of seats of seats won by a party
