As expected, Henrique Capriles Radonski won Venezuela’s first-ever presidential primary yesterday, garnering 62 percent of the vote. However, Venezuela’s voters exceeded expectations, as nearly three million of the nation’s 18 million registered voters participated in the election. Opposition officials were characterizing a turnout of two million voters as successful. Long lines formed at polling stations throughout the country, even in neighborhoods that have traditionally been strongholds of President Hugo Chávez.
After more than 1.8 million Venezuelans cast their vote in support of the Governor of Miranda, Capriles addressed a crowd of thousands outside his campaign headquarters on Sunday night. In a show of unity rare in modern Venezuelan politics, Capriles’s four rivals eased any doubt that the opposition would fracture by joining him on stage at the victory celebration.
His unity-focused victory speech remained consistent with campaign rhetoric from recent months.
“I aim to be the president of all Venezuelans,” the young governor of Miranda state told the crowd. “It isn’t the time of lefts or rights. It’s the time of all Venezuelans…In union there’s strength!”
Capriles, who is considered a moderate, promised to salve ills such as 27 percent inflation and one of the highest murder rates in Latin America. The enormity of the turnout suggests mounting frustration by Venezuelans, as the country remains plagued by these and other issues, such as high unemployment and excessive poverty.
He has committed to keeping the more popular of Chávez’s anti-poverty policies while gradually repealing some of his most contentious measures, including price controls and the expropriation of private sector companies.
Internationally, Capriles has indicated he will keep Venezuela away from alliances with controversial governments such as Iran and Syria. He professed respect for the “modern left” of Brazil’s political system, which has combined activist social programs with a respect for private enterprise to lift tens of millions of citizens out of poverty.
Capriles supporters expressed hope that Sunday’s results will herald a victory in the fall. “Venezuela needs to change,” said community organizer Lelia Sutil. “We can beat Chávez if we lose our fear,” Alexis Fernandez of Petare explained. Perhaps the most ringing endorsement, however, came from the primary runner-up Pablo Pérez, who told Capriles, “My friend, you are going to be Venezuela’s next president.”
Despite a unified opposition and the better-than-expected turnout, Capriles will face an uphill battle against Chávez this October. The president controls most of Venezuela’s media and has already ramped up government spending to try and ensure a victory. Nevertheless, commentators believe that the litany of problems facing the nation have left the president in his weakest political position in years.
Michael Shifter, president of the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue, summed up the political landscape: “Chávez has never been more vulnerable, and the opposition never more united… But the question is whether it will be enough to defeat Chávez.”
Capriles and the opposition have nine months to answer that question.