Why did abstention win?
In the end we shouldn’t be surprised. Mere wishes do not come true and crude reality imposes constraints on unbridled illusions. Political defeat coupled with a high abstention rate places the strategic leadership of the revolution in the only rational and emotional space to overcome the current situation: to recognise mistakes and correct them, starting with the one-sided view of the infallibility of the leader. With the abstention of close to 7.2 million voters (45 per cent of the electorate), and the extremely narrow margin between those who voted in favour and those who voted against the reform (51 to 49 per cent), the worst-case scenario – a tie with catastrophically high abstentions – was not only the most probable event but the actual one. Political abstention The opposition stayed in neutral gear relative to the December 2006 presidential elections. The stark truth is that the reforms were lost because there was a decrease in the social base of support for the revolution, a rea
