Monthly Archives: September 2012

Sep
25
2012
Posted by
admin
Comments

Chávez Rival Rises in Venezuela Polls

The Wall Street Journal
September 25, 2012
By Ezequiel Minaya and David Luhnow

WO AL212 VENEZU G 20120925184402 Chávez Rival Rises in Venezuela Polls

Courtesy of: Zuma Press

CARACAS—Venezuelan opposition politician Henrique Capriles is gaining ground on President Hugo Chávez two weeks before a presidential election in this highly polarized country.

A pair of surveys published Tuesday showed a tighter race for the Oct. 7 election than many had expected. Local pollster Varianzas had Mr. Chávez, who has been in power nearly 14 years and seeks a new six-year term, with a 49.7% to 47.7% lead, within the poll’s margin of error.

Datanálisis, one of Venezuela’s most respected pollsters, showed Mr. Chávez with a larger 10-point lead—47% to 37%. But even in the Datanálisis poll, which has a margin of error of 2.4%, Mr. Chávez’s lead may not be as safe as it sounds. Since April, Mr. Capriles has closed the gap to 10 points from 17 points, suggesting the 40-year-old state governor is winning over undecided voters.

The Datanálisis survey showed as many as 15% of the electorate still undecided—a margin bigger than Mr. Chávez’s lead. If that group turns out to vote on Election Day, and favors Mr. Capriles—two big ifs—the gap virtually disappears.

“The chances of a victory for the opposition are higher than what the market is pricing,” wrote Alejandro Grisanti, an analyst for Barclays, in a note to clients following the Datanalysis poll results. Investors in the past week have bid down the price of Venezuela’s 10-year bonds, anticipating a Chávez win.

For much of the past year, Mr. Chávez, 58 years old, has held a commanding lead in most polls. His government has ramped up social spending and used its control of most television and radio to flood the airwaves with ads.

But the race has tightened thanks to an intensive door-to-door campaign from Mr. Capriles, a center-left candidate who has worked hard to reassure Venezuela’s poor majority that he will keep Mr. Chávez’s popular social programs intact.

“Capriles is the best candidate the opposition has put up against Chávez,” said Luis Vicente Leon, head of Datanálisis.

Mr. Chávez, meanwhile, has been much less active on the campaign trail. The Venezuelan leader is hampered by health concerns after a yearlong battle with cancer, and his government hasn’t disclosed the cancer type or its prognosis. Mr. Chávez claims he is cured.

“He is sick or he was,” Mr. Leon said. “What is clear is that he does not have [Capriles's] vitality.”

Meanwhile, another big local pollster, Consultores 21, had Mr. Capriles ahead by two percentage points in a recent poll. The poll registered only 5% undecided voters. “The important number to look at is support for Chávez, and virtually all polls agree that he is just under 50%,” said Luis Christiansen, the company’s pollster. “As long as he’s under that level, he’s very vulnerable.”

A close election provides an opportunity for Venezuela to end the rule of Mr. Chávez, a former army tank commander who has nationalized much of the economy, used high oil prices to ramp up public spending on the poor, and critics say polarized Venezuelans by pitting the poor against the middle and upper classes—what Mr. Chávez calls “los escualidos,” or “the squalid ones.”

But a contested election also raises risks of instability in the country with the world’s largest oil reserves that is a major oil exporter to the U.S. Some analysts wonder whether Mr. Chávez or his impassioned supporters would be willing to give up power in the case of a narrow loss.

“Listen, if Chávez loses, then I’m taking to the streets,” said Felicita Gerome, a 77-year-old retiree in the 23 de Enero neighborhood, which is home to pro-Chávez militias.

During the campaign, Chávez supporters have on occasion tried to physically prevent the Capriles campaign from entering poor neighborhoods, known as “barrios.” On a recent day in the coastal town of Puerto Cabello, Chávez supporters burned several trucks belonging to the Capriles camp.

Mr. Chávez hasn’t publicly mentioned the periodic clashes between his supporters and the opposition. He does say his government is the only hope for stability and peace for Venezuela.

Despite the narrowing race, Mr. Leon suggests Mr. Chávez still has the upper hand. In an interview before the latest results, Mr. Leon said that in past presidential elections, many of the undecided voters in polls stayed at home—giving Mr. Chávez comfortable victories.

In slums surrounding Caracas, the capital, it is easy to find support for the president. Jesus Alberto Mijares, a 57 year-old bus driver, said he was voting for Mr. Chávez because of social programs like Barrio Adentro, which provides free basic health care in small clinics staffed by Cuban doctors. “Before Chávez, we never saw doctors in the barrios. The Cubans even make house calls,” said Mr. Mijares, who says he has been treated several times for ulcers.

In many barrios, however, there is also a growing sense that it is time for a change, even among those who have voted for Mr. Chávez in the past.

“Someone in power too long becomes accustomed to power, and becomes a dictator,” said Darleny Osorio, a 56-year-old teacher in the Ruiz Pineda barrio. She said she has always voted for Mr. Chávez—but no longer.

Write to Ezequiel Minaya at [email protected] and David Luhnow at [email protected].

To read this article on The Wall Street Journal, please click here.

 
Sep
25
2012
Posted by
admin
Comments

ICYMI: Chávez accused of election dirty tricks

Financial Times
September 24, 2012
By Benedict Mander

Chaves ICYMI: Chávez accused of election dirty tricks

Courtesy of: AP

Shortly after Venezuelan television stations began a live broadcast of a major opposition rally this month, coverage was cut and replaced with images of President Hugo Chávez looking jovial and fatherly as he visited young children at school.

It was one of the populist leader’s infamous “chain broadcasts”, in which all regular programming on public access television and radio is suspended so that he can trumpet the achievements of his “Bolivarian revolution”, often for hours on end.

Mr Chávez’s opponents cite this as just another example of how the socialist leader, who has said in the past he wants to rule until 2021, is stacking the decks in an increasingly tight race for the presidency.

Mr Chávez has been in power for more than 13 years and the opposition sees this year’s poll – due to take place on October 7 – as its best chance yet of ousting one of Latin America’s most controversial leaders. Henrique Capriles, the pro-business opposition leader, is Mr Chávez’s main rival. Now allegations of government electoral abuses have raised fears about how far will Mr Chávez go to ensure his victory.

“This is corruption, a crime,” says Eduardo Semtei, a former member of Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE), which oversees the election, of Mr Chávez’s ‘chain broadcasts’.

Mr Semtei, who now advises the opposition, criticises the “fawning” body for abandoning its duties. “Everyone knows that four of the CNE’s five directors are pro-Chávez – that’s one thing. But it’s not OK that they ignore . . . government abuses,” he says.

The CNE’s partial treatment was evident last month when it sought to prevent Mr Capriles from wearing a baseball cap emblazoned with the colours of the national flag. It claimed this violated campaign regulations – although it has never questioned the president’s use of national symbols in his own clothing and logos.

“Without a doubt the greatest weakness of the process lies in the inequitable conditions of competition,” according to a report on Venezuela’s elections released by the Wilson Center, a US think-tank. Although it described the voting system itself as “reliable”, it criticised the politicisation of the electoral council, Mr Chávez’s media advantage and opaque campaign financing.

A major opposition gripe is Mr Chávez’s almost unlimited access to state oil revenues – Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world – that allows him to “buy” votes by investing heavily in his popular social programmes. Central government spending grew by 41.1 per cent in real terms last month. By contrast, Mr Capriles must raise campaign funds privately.

And while the president also has almost unlimited access to television time, which he routinely uses to trumpet the government’s achievements and assail his rival – calling him a “pig” and a “loser” – Mr Capriles’ enjoys far less airtime.

Maryclen Stelling, a pro-government sociologist who is also a CNE substitute director, admits that the boundary between Mr Chávez’s role as president and candidate is “blurred”. “It’s difficult to prove when Chávez is no longer acting as president but as candidate,” she said.

Adding to the tension are opposition allegations that people fear they will lose their jobs if they fail to vote for Mr Chávez. Many Venezuelans fear their vote will not be secret. The names of signatories of a petition for a 2004 referendum that attempted to unseat Mr Chávez were made public. The signatories were later blacklisted by government ministries.

Despite the huge challenges he faces, Mr Capriles is confident he can win. “This is David against Goliath,” he told the Financial Times. Mr Capriles won the governorship of Venezuela’s second most populous state in 2008 against one of Mr Chávez’s closest allies. “Nobody ever gave me an election victory as a present.”

At least both sides recognise the validity of Venezuela’s computer-encrypted voting system. “The voting system has so many security controls that if voting counts are manipulated it will be detectable,” said Jennifer McCoy, director of the Americas programme at the Carter Center, which works to promote human rights. “It will be very difficult to change the result on a large scale.”

Furthermore, analysts point out that Mr Chávez derives his legitimacy from winning democratic elections. In 2007, he recognised defeat in a constitutional referendum, although he called the opposition’s win “a victory of sh*t”.

Mr Semtei says that if opposition election observers are present at all voting centres, the probability of fraud will be “nil”. “But the probability that the [government] will try is one hundred per cent.”

To read this article on the Financial Times, please click here.

 
Sep
24
2012
Posted by
admin
Comments

What’s Next Venezuela Election Update: September 24, 2012

caprilesychavez445a What’s Next Venezuela Election Update: September 24, 2012

Courtesy of: BBC Mundo

The Venezuelan elections are only two weeks away, and opposition candidate Henrique Capriles’ campaign has put himself in a good position to hand President Hugo Chavez his first electoral defeat. The two candidates have run very different campaigns, with Chávez running a populist campaign based on grandiose promises and Capriles a more granular, issue-oriented campaign, directing his rhetoric toward fixing the basic problems of the country. Chávez’s declining popularity, meanwhile, is partially the president’s own doing, as Venezuela’s crime rate has become one of the highest in his world since he came to power. Despite its successful campaign, the opposition is worried about violence and has voiced concerns that pro-government armed groups could seek to intimidate voters at the polls. Chávez has already shown that dirty tactics are not beneath him, having just last week blocked a Capriles event from the airwaves by calling a mandatory national broadcast of his own. Meanwhile, the possibility of a change in government is exciting investors, although Chávez’s increased election-year spending is taking Venezuela’s international reserves to record lows, making a post-election currency devaluation very likely.

An Emboldened Opposition Challenges One of Latin America’s Most Skilled Politicians, The Huffington Post

There is no doubt that the Oct. 7 presidential vote will be Hugo Chávez’s most difficult election to date.

Venezuela’s Capriles says he’ll fix country’s problems, not world peace, Reuters

Venezuela’s opposition standard bearer Henrique Capriles mocked President Hugo Chavez’s grandiose campaign pledges two weeks before the election, and vowed to fix voters’ daily problems if he wins.

Insight: Chavez plays populist card for Venezuela election, The Chicago Tribune

To understand why President Hugo Chavez may win yet another election in Venezuela next month, go and sit under the mango trees of Los Rastrojos or Sabaneta.

Venezuela crime out of control, imperiling Chavez re-election, USA Today

Margarita Hernandez has been waiting more than a year for someone to pay for the murder of her 18-year-old son, killed by thugs a few blocks from his home.

Venezuela Opposition Concerned About Armed Groups, ABC News

The campaign of Venezuelan presidential candidate Henrique Capriles said Tuesday that it has detected risks of trouble at dozens of polling centers in areas where Colombian rebels or other armed groups are known to operate.

Venezuela’s Capriles slams Chavez for blocking broadcast, Reuters

Shortly after Capriles began speaking to thousands of supporters in a Caracas park, Chavez launched a “chain broadcast” across all public access television in which he celebrated his government’s achievements and extolled the virtues of socialism.

Investors Turn Gaze to Venezuela Election, The Wall Street Journal

The approach of next month’s national elections has created a fervor among investors in the country’s bonds but is ringing alarm bells for some.

Venezuela’s Reserves Fall to Five-Year Low Before Vote, Bloomberg Businessweek

Venezuela’s international reserves last week fell to their lowest level in more than five years as the government boosts spending ahead of next month’s presidential election.