Venezuelan pastor fills presidential void left by opposition
WITH TWO months to go before Venezuela’s presidential election, the only challenger to jump in the ring against President Nicolás Maduro is a littleknown television evangelist who was once arrested for fuel smuggling and has a range of business ventures.
Despite his questioned past and the steep odds against him, the Rev Javier Bertucci claims that he uniquely speaks to the vast majority of struggling Venezuelans disillusioned with both the opposition and Maduro’s unpopular government.
“I’m the only one who can guarantee the governability of the country,” Bertucci said in an interview. “I’ve travelled the country for eight years, seen the tears of mothers ... . No other leader can awaken the aching hearts of the Venezuelans.”
But some antigovernment activists see his longshot candidacy, which so far doesn’t have the backing of any party, as dividing the opposition and lending undeserved legitimacy to Maduro’s re-election attempt. It also underscores the rising political i nfluence of fastgrowing Protestant churches in Latin America, where a bornagain singer is the front-runner to be Costa Rica’s next president and an evangelical bishop is now mayor of Rio de Janeiro.
On Wednesday, Venezuela’s opposition emerged from days of closed-door meetings t o announce it would boycott the snap April 22 election unless the government met its demands for international observers and took other steps to ease fears that the vote will be rigged.
While at least one prominent politician is weighing breaking ranks with the opposition, the deadline to register candidates is fast approaching and Maduro’s call Wednesday for early congressional elections to coincide with the presidential vote is likely to further entrench hardliners who say Venezuela has descended into dictatorship.
That leaves Bertucci, who announced his candidacy Sunday before a large television audience of shouting, crying worshippers at a mega-church in Valencia. With his wife Rebecca, who is also a pastor, Bertucci leads the Venezuelan wing of the Maranatha church, a Panamabased Pentecostal movement that was started in 1974 and claims to have 500 churches spread across the world.
While hardly a household name, the social media-savvy
Bertucci has a loyal following. His Bible-thumping TV show is broadcast daily on one of Venezuela’s biggest networks. He also heads a well-known charity, The Gospel Changes, which organises makeshift soup kitchens and Christmas toy giveaways in poor neighbourhoods hardest hit by the worst economic crisis in Venezuelan history.
Constitutional ban
But the 48-year-old has no political experience and faces a constitutional ban on clergy occupying Venezuela’s top office – something he claims to have got around by renouncing his religious affiliations.
There’s also concern that he could take votes from t he opposition if it changes its mind, although Venezuela’s biggest evangelical party endorsed Maduro in the 2013 election. An estimated 17 per cent of Venezuela’s population of 31 million is believed to be affiliated to a Protestant church.
Sceptics also suggest he may have also relied on the government to build a business empire and get out of some runins with the law.
In 2010, Bertucci was briefly detained after prosecutors charged a company he owned with smuggling a shipload of 5,000 tons of diesel fuel disguised as paint thinner. He’s also listed as the officer of a Florida medical equipment company, owns a construction business and, according to leaked documents, once inquired with Mossack Fonseca, the law firm at the centre of the so-called Panama Papers on the financial dealings of the world’s rich and famous, about opening an offshore company valued at $5 million.
Bertucci has said all of his business dealings are connected to his pastoral work and the offshore company, which he never ended up opening, was part of an effort to import meat to feed hungry Venezuelans.
He also insists he’s not doing the government’s bidding.
“The opposition thinks that by not presenting a candidate the elections will be invalidated,” he said. “But if nobody confronts Maduro, he’ll continue in power and Venezuela’s reputation will continue to be discredited.”