very very true...
i witnessed elections in santiago rodriguez, it was pretty amazing how openly they buy the votes. a little while before the elections the negotiations started - they went to peoples houses to offer their services, the lady i was staying with got 10 bags of cement, her neighbor got 1000 pesos in cash, and so on. and the voters know how to "vote" very well. the lady told me - if you ever vote, don't vote in the morning, wait till the afternoon, because that's when the politicians get more desperate and start handing out cash. she came home that day and pulled a whole stack of billetes out of her pocket, a total of almost 2000 pesos....