The Venezuelan Elections

Oct 05, 2012 Editorial

There is no doubt that the October 7th presidential vote will be Hugo Chávez’s most difficult election to date. The man who has dominated Venezuela’s politics for over a decade — and has often expressed his will to rule for at least one more — is suffering from voter fatigue and an uncertain health outlook after being diagnosed with cancer in mid-2011.
He also faces an emboldened opposition and a contender who has managed to create a compelling campaign and policy platform. Some believe that Henrique Capriles, the opposition candidate, could win the elections. But betting on such an outcome is risky, for despite all his administration’s failures, Chávez remains one of Venezuela’s and Latin America’s most astute political leaders in modern history.
The Chávez years have been a roller coaster ride for the opposition. Riddled with competing interests and a lack of political vision, the opposition reached a low point in 2005 when it boycotted the legislative vote, effectively granting Chávez complete control of Congress and of all organs of state. However, a gradual process of consolidation around an opposition alliance, called the Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (MUD), has led to a change of fortune, with the opposition regaining significant voter support in the past few elections. Another key development has been the appearance of a new generation of political leaders, including Capriles, which has broken the link with the country’s discredited traditional parties.
At the same time, despite his relatively young age, Capriles has gradually built up a record as a skilled public administrator in the past 13 years — first as a legislator, then as mayor of Baruta (a municipality of the capital, Caracas) and until June 2012 as the governor of the state of Miranda (one of the most populous in the country).
He has also distinguished himself from past opposition candidates by building a policy platform that is more in tune with the social and economic concerns of lower-income Venezuelans, who make up the majority of the electorate. One of his main campaign messages has been to reassure voters of the continuity of Chávez’s social programs, promising improvements in terms of efficiency and management rather than a radical overhaul of social policy.
As part of its campaign strategy, the Capriles camp has also tried to focus on sending a conciliatory message to a very politically polarized society.
This contrasts with the divisive rhetoric of both Chávez and some of the more radical elements in the opposition. This tactic proved successful at the MUD’s first-ever primary elections in February this year where Capriles won by a very wide margin, while the more extreme candidates obtained an insignificant share of the three million votes cast. Now Capriles is trying hard to extend his message among disenchanted and “chavista-light” voters who are tired of and uneasy with Chávez’s campaigning style, which is heavily reliant on the fear factor and on discrediting his opponents.
Indeed, it is this segment of independent voters — composed of around 5-15 percent of the electorate — who will tip the balance in favor of one of the two candidates. Difficulties in discerning the preferences of independent voters have produced widely different results even in Venezuela’s more-reliable opinion polls, adding to the sense of electoral uncertainty that has been building up in the past few weeks.
Although the Capriles camp claims that this hidden vote will lead it to victory, the one constant outcome of most polls is, in fact, that Chávez will win on October 7.
Chávez has an extraordinary ability to connect with Venezuelans, to the extent that he is able to disassociate himself from some of his administration’s biggest shortcomings.
As it stands now, he still holds the upper hand. For Guyanese this would be good news since unlike the Opposition, Chavez has been very conciliatory on the Venezuelan claim to two-thirds of our national territory.

Correction

Contrary to the indication given in yesterday’s (October 4) editorial titled “Confronting Challenges”, the territorial threat to Belize is not from “the Dominican Republic” but from Guatemala.