Venezuelans vote on future of ‘Chavista’ politics
VOTERS who kept Hugo Chavez in office for 14 years voted yesterday whether to elect the devoted lieutenant he chose to carry on the revolution that endeared him to the poor but that many Venezuelans believe is ruining the nation.
Nicolas Maduro sought to ride Chavez’s endorsement to victory with a campaign nearly bereft of promises but freighted with personal attacks that was otherwise little more than an unflagging tribute to the polarising leader who died of cancer on March 5.
The longtime Chavez foreign minister pinned his hopes on the immense loyalty for his boss among millions of poor beneficiaries of a socialist government’s largesse and the heft of a state apparatus that Chavez skilfully consolidated.
The governing United Socialist Party of Venezuela deployed a wellworn, get-out-the-vote machine spearheaded by loyal state employees. It also enjoyed a pervasive state media apparatus as part of a near monopoly on institutional power.
Challenger Henrique Capriles’ aides accused Chavista loyalists in the judiciary of putting them at a glaring disadvantage.
Prosecutors and state regulators impoverished the campaign and opposition broadcast media by targeting them with unwarranted fines and prosecutions, they said
Mr Capriles’ main campaign weapon was thus: To simply point out “the incompetence of the state”, as he said on Saturday.
Mr Maduro was still favoured, but his early big lead in opinion polls halved over the past two weeks in a country struggling with the legacy of Chavez’s management of the world’s largest oil reserves. Many Venezuelans believe his confederates not only squandered but plundered much of the $1-trillion in oil revenues during his time in office.
People are fed up with chronic power outages, crumbling infrastructure, unfinished public works projects, double-digit inflation, food and medicine shortages and rampant crime that has given Venezuela among the world’s highest homicide and kidnapping rates.
Mr Capriles is a state governor who lost to Chavez in last October’s presidential election by a nearly 11point margin, the best showing ever by a challenger to the longtime president. He showed for Mr Maduro none of the respect he accorded Chavez. Mr Maduro hit back hard, at one point calling Mr Capriles’ backers “heirs of Hitler”.
It was an odd accusation considering Mr Capriles is the grandson of Holocaust survivors from Poland.
“Capriles ran a remarkable campaign that shows he has creativity, tenacity and disposition to play political hardball,” said David Smilde of the Washington Office on Latin America think-tank.
At his campaign rallies, Mr Capriles would read out a list of unfinished road, bridge and rail projects. Then he asked people what goods were scarce on shop shelves.
The opposition contends Chavez emptied the Treasury last year to buy re-election with government largesse. Mr Maduro, a former union activist and bus driver with close ties to Cuba’s leaders, constantly alleged that Mr Capriles was conspiring with US putschists to destabilise Venezuela and suggested Washington had somehow infected Chavez with the cancer that killed him.
But mainly Mr Maduro focused his campaign message on the theme of his mentor’s October campaign: “I am Chavez. We are all Chavez.”
He promised to expand the government’s antipoverty programmes, but without explaining how he would pay for them.
On Saturday night, Mr Maduro met members of Venezuela’s 125,000-strong citizen militias outside the museum that holds Chavez’s remains to mark a poignant anniversary: 11 years since Chavez was triumphantly restored to power after a failed overthrow initially recognised by the US government.
Michael Shifter, of the InterAmerican Dialogue think-tank, said Mr Maduro campaigned “ineptly”, trying too hard to “replay the Chavez script” and alienating moderate Chavistas. Whoever won yesterday will face no end of hard choices.
Many Venezuelan factories operate at half capacity because currency controls make it hard for them to pay for imported parts and materials.
Chavez imposed currency controls a decade ago, trying to stem capital flight as his government expropriated large land parcels and dozens of businesses.
Now, dollars sell on the black market at three times the official exchange rate and Mr Maduro has had to devalue Venezuela’s currency, the bolivar, twice this year.
Meanwhile, consumers grumble that shops are short of milk, butter, maize flour and other food staples. The government blames hoarding, while the opposition points at the price controls imposed by Chavez in an attempt to bring down doubledigit inflation.
Mr Capriles said he would reverse land expropriations, which he claimed had ruined many farms and forced Venezuela to import food after previously being a net exporter of beef, rice, coffee and other food items.
But even he said currency and price controls could not be immediately scrapped without triggering a disastrous run on the bolivar.
High international oil prices remain a boon for Venezuela, underpinning its economy. Chavez spent $500bn to bolster social programmes, trimming the poverty rate from 50% to about 30%.
But critics say the government has misused the oil industry, ordering state oil company PDVSA into food distribution and social programmes while neglecting investment, thus causing production and refining to drop. Venezuela’s oil revenue is down from $5.6bn five years ago to $3.8bn last year. Sapa-AP