In response to:

Don't Cry for Me, Venezuela from the October 6, 2005 issue

We regret the following errors in Alma Guillermoprieto’s article “Don’t Cry for Me, Venezuela” [NYR, October 6]. On page 27, Acción Democrática, a political party, was incorrectly identified as Alianza Democrática. The date of the second election of Carlos Andrés Pérez was given as 1989. He was elected in 1988 and took office in January of 1989; the Caracazo, or Caracas riots, took place in February 1989. The empty chair referred to on the same page, in the book cited, Hugo Chávez sin uniforme, was pulled up for Bolívar at meetings that took place before Chávez took office.

On page 29, Chávez was said to have two parties. He has one official party, and an alliance with several others. But in elections to the National Assembly and for local office, chavistas and their allies now run two separate lists of candidates on a single ticket, in a gambit known as the morochas, or twins. This allows chavistas to win both direct election and proportional representation seats. Sumate, the vote-monitoring organization, has in recent days denounced this mechanism, which results in a larger number of winning candidates for the majority party than they could obtain in a direct vote.