* Venezuelans go extra mile to vote after Miami consulate
shut
* Many paid their own way to vote
* Widespread disappointment with result
By Kathy Finn
NEW ORLEANS, Oct 7 (Reuters) – Thousands of Venezuelan
expatriates living in the United States traveled to New Orleans
on Sunday to vote in their country’s election but then had a
long, sad journey home after President Hugo Chavez, a man many
of them despise, won comfortably.
They flew to New Orleans on charter and commercial flights,
or rode for hours in caravans of buses and cars, after Chavez
closed Venezuela’s consulate in Miami earlier this year.
Most of the expatriates likely voted for Chavez’s
challenger, Henrique Capriles.
“We feel proud that we made the effort. Unfortunately the
result isn’t what we hoped for,” said Becky Prado, a Miami
school teacher who left Venezuela in 2002, four years after
Chavez was elected president.
Prado traveled 16 hours by bus from Miami to vote and spoke
by phone late Sunday on her way home. “We watched the results on
our phones. There was crying. It’s not a happy journey,” she
said. “There’s some whisky at the back of the bus.”
Earlier in the day a long line of Venezuelans stretched
several blocks outside a voting center set up at a New Orleans
convention center, hoping to end Chavez’s 14-year rule.
Many sang the Venezuelan national anthem and waved the
country’s flag as they waited. Cheers erupted each time another
bus carrying voters arrived.
Carolina Norgaard stood in line for 3 1/2 hours and likely
had another hour to go before casting her vote but said the wait
was worth it. “Today is the day we make the most important
decision for our country,” she said.
Middle- and upper-class Venezuelans, worried about rising
crime and shrinking economic opportunities at home, have led an
exodus of Venezuelan professionals in recent years.
According to a 2010 U.S. Census, around 215,000 Venezuelans
live in the United States, an increase from 91,000 in 2000. A
large number live in and around Miami, home to an expatriate
community that is overwhelmingly opposed to Chavez.
In Venezuela’s last presidential election in 2006, Chavez
won just 2 percent of the 10,799 votes cast by Venezuelans in
Miami, according to election officials.
Chavez ordered the closure of Venezuela’s Miami consulate
after the U.S. government expelled the top Venezuelan diplomat
in the city amid allegations she discussed potential
cyber-attacks against the United States with Iranian and Cuban
diplomats. Chavez denied the charges.
His decision, however, meant 20,000 Venezuelan-registered
voters living in Florida, North Carolina, Georgia and South
Carolina would have to travel on their own to New Orleans to the
next closest consulate.
Many Miami-based Venezuelans opposed to Chavez responded by
arranging charter flights and buses to mobilize voters.
Cristina Pocaterra, a Miami resident who works with a
coalition of Venezuelan opposition parties supporting Capriles,
said organizers expected some 7,000 people to vote in New
Orleans.
Leopoldo Rodriguez and his wife, Nina Rojas Rodriguez,
traveled from Miami with their 4-year-old twin daughters.
He said the couple left Caracas in 2004 fed up with Chavez’s
socialist policies and what he described as their polarizing
effect on the country. “We knew it was only going to get worse
there,” Rodriguez said.
He said they decided to forego an upcoming trip to Disney
World to make the journey to New Orleans. The trip, with
airfare, hotel and other costs, will likely cost them $2,000.
“If we don’t support what we believe in, what’s the point?”
he said.
Asked how some might react if Chavez won, Anselmo Rodriguez,
an insurance executive who lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana,
said, “We will feel a sense of defeat, but also a sense of
accomplishment in that we voted and did what we could.”
