Monthly Archives: October 2012

Oct
1
2012
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What’s Next Venezuela Election Update: October 1, 2012

Henrique Capriles exaltado 655x471 What’s Next Venezuela Election Update: October 1, 2012

Courtesy of: EFE / Getty Images

With less than a week before the Venezuelan elections the focus remains on the tight race between opposition candidate, Henrique Capriles and President Chávez. With violence at an all time high, many believe Venezuela’s crime pandemic will destabilize Chávez’s regime. Chávez, meanwhile, has called for a new fight against crime as the election draws near in an attempt to gain support from Venezuelans. However, Capriles continues to rise in the polls, gaining ground on Chávez. Many see his campaign’s success as due to his focus on the day-to-day issues that matter most to Venezuelans: the chronic power shortages, out-of-control crime, runaway inflation and unemployment. Meanwhile, the CNE, Venezuela’s electoral authority, is requiring Venezuelans registered in Miami to vote in New Orleans, making it a three-day trip to the polling center for the largely pro-Capriles group of expatriates. Capriles’ closes his Caracas campaign with a march attended by thousands of supporters. Meanwhile, Chávez uses dirty tricks on the Venezuelan ballot to confuse voters on election day.

Will Venezuela’s Pandemic of Crime Destabilize Hugo Chávez’s Regime?, Time

The three gangbangers are holed up in a small hut deep in the lush overgrowth of San Casimiro, a town two hours south of Caracas – and they’ll be there for the foreseeable future. They’re in hiding  after a shootout days earlier back in their home barrio of Antímano, one of the hillside slums located above the Venezuelan capital, scared of retaliation from rival gang members.

Chavez calls for crime fight as Venezuela vote nears, Reuters

CARACAS, Sept 25 (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called for a new fight against crime on Tuesday, acknowledging an issue that voters say is their top concern ahead of an election in less than two weeks.

Chávez Rival Rises in Venezuela Polls, The Wall Street Journal

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.

The three-day trip to the polling station, The Economist

ON OCTOBER 7th millions of Venezuelan voters will head to polling stations to cast their ballot in a presidential election, which pits Hugo Chávez, the radical leftist incumbent, against Henrique Capriles of the opposition Democratic Unity (MUD) coalition.

The Challenger, New York Times

MONTREAL — Even on TV, the energy of the crowd comes through. The opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski is ripping into his stump speech, and the townspeople in the city of Maturin, in Eastern Venezuela, are eating it up: “Today,” he bellows, “I want you to think about your problems, and think: Has the government brought solutions to your problems?!”

Some former allies ditch Chavez in Venezuela vote, CBS News

CARACAS, Venezuela — Liliana Carias used to hope President Hugo Chavez would change her life. Not anymore. She’s been living for years in a dirt-floor shack without running water, and after voting for Chavez in the last three presidential elections, the single mother of four said she’s tired of waiting for help.

Venezuela’s Capriles Closes Caracas Campaign as Thousands March, Bloomberg Businessweek

Venezuelan opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski symbolically closed his Caracas campaign against President Hugo Chavez yesterday with a march attended by thousands of supporters.

Chavez dirty tricks? Venezuela prints a confusing ballot, The Cristian Science Monitor

With a week to go before the election and the ballots all printed, the Venezuelan National Electoral Council (CNE) announced that votes for the Unidad Democratica party will go to a relatively unknown third party candidate (Reina Sequera) even though opposition candidate Henrique Capriles’s picture is on the ballot in that spot (h/t Miguel).

 
Oct
1
2012
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Panel: Superior Capriles Campaign negates Unlevel Playing Field

South Americas October Surpise Panel: Superior Capriles Campaign negates Unlevel Playing Field

Screen Capture: Bipartisan Policy Center - South Americas October Surpise

Venezuela under Chávez does not meet the standards for a real democracy, according to statements made by former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe. The former leader told an audience at Washington’s Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) that Chávez has failed to protect the security and freedoms of Venezuelan citizens during his rule and has not allowed their active participation in government.

Uribe participated in a BPC panel last week focusing on recent developments in Venezuela and Colombia, which include Venezuela’s tight presidential election, entitled “South America’s October Surprise?” The former Colombian president was joined by Dan Fisk of the International Republican Institute and Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue.

The panel discussed whether Venezuela’s upcoming elections can be considered fair as well as the likelihood that opposition candidate Henrique Capriles will defeat Chávez. Participants also tried to predict how the president will respond if he loses.

“There was a hemispheric consensus that elections [are] how you judge a democracy,” Fisk said of Venezuela’s upcoming vote. But he added that Chávez has manipulated the system to provide the appearance of a democracy while suppressing citizens’ democratic rights. “A lot of people have given [Chávez] credit that you can take away people’s freedom through a series of democratic processes.”

Uribe, though, had much stronger words. “I am against the Chávez dictatorship with or without elections,” he said. He further criticized the Chávez administration for failing to pursue the narco-terrorist organization FARC in Venezuelan territory. That failure has bled across Venezuela’s borders, undermining the stability of Colombia that the government of president Uribe worked hard to attain.

Fisk said that while the technical voting process in Venezuela appears to be fair, the real disparity – and the threat to democracy – lies in the campaign itself.

“The problem is not the machinery, it is the campaign process,” Fisk said. Venezuelan law allows the president to call mandatory national broadcasts, known as cadenas, at any time, and Chávez has abused this power to saturate Venezuela with campaign propaganda. Meanwhile, Capriles must pay for airtime, and lacks the resources to match the reach of the state media.

Chávez has also used the resources of the government, supplied by the country’s vast oil reserves, to finance his campaign. “In many ways PDVSA is the lubricant of the Chávez campaign,” Fisk said. Chávez has increased social spending, and then trumpeted that increased spending in his campaign rhetoric, giving Venezuelans the impression that it is he, not the government, who is giving them these benefits.

Despite all of this, Fisk says that this is the most competitive race that Chávez has ever faced. It remains to be seen if all of the electoral advantages Chávez enjoys can blunt the impact of his economic mismanagement, which has led to severe shortages and skyrocketing inflation, or make Venezuelans forget the recent refinery fires and one of the world’s highest crime rates.

Shifter added that the opposition has run an excellent campaign, and Capriles has refused to fall for tactics and provocations of Chávez. The opposition has stumbled in the past and has its best chance yet, in part because it has unified itself into one group. In addition, he did join the concerns of the other panelists, adding that “there is not a level playing field.”

In an encouraging bit of consensus, the panelists for the most part dismissed worries that Chávez would reject the results if the opposition wins. “It would be very hard in terms of politics in Venezuela and international pressure to deny [an opposition victory],” Shifter said. He warned, however, that the process may not be smooth. “We should be prepared for some amount of violence and instability. We have seen that in campaign stops in the past couple of days,” alluding to recent Chavista-incited violence at Capriles rallies.

Fisk added that the United States should be prepared to accept the results if the election appears credible, and that he believes that Venezuelans will peacefully accept the results as well.

 
Oct
1
2012
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Capriles Rally Draws Thousands Against Chavez Ahead of Vote

Bloomberg News
October 01, 2012
By Nathan Crooks and Jose Orozco

henrique capriles radonski Capriles Rally Draws Thousands Against Chavez Ahead of Vote

Courtesy of: Juan Barreto / AFP / Getty Images

Venezuelan opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski symbolically closed his Caracas campaign against President Hugo Chavez yesterday with a march attended by tens of thousands of supporters.

Capriles, dressed in a shirt styled with the three colors of Venezuela’s flag, promised to confront growing violence in the South American country after he said three supporters were shot and killed over the weekend in Barinas state. He asked voters to judge Chavez’s priorities after 13 years in power and decide if they were happy with their lives today.

“This government gives away resources to every other country,” Capriles said. “There is no gauze in the hospitals here, but they give money away to sponsor samba dancing at the carnival in Rio.”

Capriles, 40, has held large rallies across Venezuela over the past month to close his campaign and build momentum after making house-to-house visits to offer what he described as a message of unity, progress and private investment. He filled the stadium used by Chavez’s favorite baseball team on Sept. 27 in a rally to close his campaign in the central state of Carabobo.

“This has to be one of the largest marches in the history of Caracas,” Capriles said yesterday to a throng filling the length of Bolivar Avenue in downtown Caracas, a symbolic space often used by Chavez for campaign rallies, waving party flags, chanting, dancing to campaign music and blowing vuvuzelas.

Leopoldo Lopez, a member of Capriles’ campaign team, said on the Globovision television network Sept. 28 that he hoped as many as a million people would attend the march. The campaign didn’t provide an estimate on the size of the march afterward.

Three Dead

Shots were fired at a caravan of cars in eastern Barinas state on Sept. 29 when Capriles supporters tried to pass a checkpoint, the Primero Justicia political party said in a statement, adding that the barricade had been set up by “presumed” Chavez supporters.

Police have detained three suspects, the Venezuelan government said yesterday in an e-mailed statement, without providing additional details. Chavez, who spoke at a rally yesterday in western Zulia state, said the incident was “regrettable” and urged his supporters not to fall into “provocations.”

Chavez, who also spoke at a rally on Sept. 29 in central Miranda state, said he himself is one of the biggest critics of his government and that there were reasons for some people to be “discontent.”

Insecurity, Crime

“There have been failures and problems, but what is at stake on Oct. 7 is not about the small or medium problems including water or electricity problems,” said Chavez. “We’ll solve the problems of insecurity and crime.”

Andrea Thadino, who lives in Caracas slum of San Agustin where a cousin was killed by a gunfight three years ago, said she works at a street nail salon because she can’t get a job teaching at a public school after signing a petition against Chavez.

“Despite studying for five years, I have to work as a street vendor to survive,” she said in an interview at yesterday’s march while carrying her 2-year-old son. “I voted for Chavez the first time but not anymore. I think Capriles is a sincere man who is going to make a change.”

Fitness for Office

Capriles, a former governor of Miranda state, has played up his youth and fitness to offer a stark contrast to the condition of his 58-year-old opponent, who is coming off three operations related to an unknown cancer in the past 15 months. He is ahead in several polls while trailing by as much as 15 percentage points in others.

“There are two options here. One we already know and has been in power for 14 years,” Capriles said. “I lead the other option that aims to solve your problems.”

Capriles, who arrived on a truck with “Progress” written on its windshield, said Chavez had dashed the hopes of many Venezuelans.

“There was a lot of hope, wherever you went, there were rivers of people full of hope,” said Capriles, referring to the period after Chavez was first elected. “Almost 14 years later, you be the judge of who is in the process of change and who is sick with power. Because the man in Miraflores defrauded the Venezuelan people.”

After his speech, Capriles hugged his mother and tossed his trademark baseball caps with the Venezuelan colors into the crowd.

Middle Class Votes

Chavez, a self-professed socialist who is traditionally supported by the country’s poor, has spent his final days on campaign trying to attract middle class and rich voters.

“Those with a big house and two or three cars in the garage, a good job, their kids in a good school, the ones who go to the club on Friday night and take their plane to Miami or Margarita Island on Saturday, those people should vote for Chavez,” the former paratrooper said in an interview broadcast yesterday on the Televen television network. “We are the guarantee of tranquility. Think about it well. It’s not for me, it’s for you.”

Armando Briquet, head of the Capriles campaign, said the government is trying to make the vote difficult for the opposition with actions including the closing of Venezuela’s Miami consulate, which will require thousands of voters to travel to the nearest voting center in New Orleans.

“Even with all that, we are going to win by more than 10 percentage points,” Briquet said backstage after the rally, citing the campaign’s polling numbers.

“On Oct. 7, Chavez wins!” Chavez told supporters yesterday in Zulia state. “It will be a grand victory, I don’t have a doubt.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Nathan Crooks in Caracas at [email protected]; Jose Orozco in Caracas at [email protected].

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Joshua Goodman at [email protected].

To read this article on Bloomberg News, please click here.