REGARDLESS OF DEMOCRATIC PROCESS CHAVEZ WILL REFUSE TO TRANSFER POWER

By Luis Fleischman and Nancy Menges

As Vilma Petrash indicated in her article published in this edition of the Americas Report, some Venezuelans have hope that the upcoming October 7^th elections could put an end to Chavez’s pseudo-democratic farce and authoritarian rule. However, there has been a long history of electoral fraud during the last thirteen years of the Chavez regime.

Through control of most media and almost all institutions of government, Chavez has the upper hand. The question is, will this election be any different in terms of its ultimate outcome?

Petrash acknowledges at the end of her article that after October 7^th the situation in Venezuela may escalate into civil war and violence.  It is certainly possible that this could happen.

There is, indeed, polarization in Venezuela but it is not like the polarization we have here in the United States. It is a violent polarization promoted by the Chavez government. Chavez has taken measures to restrict the media and at the same time has increased media outlets linked to his government and his ideology of Chavismo. One of them, Radio Nacional de Venezuela, is responsible these days for publishing virulent anti-Semitic material against Henrique Capriles Radonski, the newly elected opposition candidate who will run against Chavez in the October presidential elections. Radonski is being attacked because of his Jewish ancestry and his connections to international Zionism that, according to the Chavez-linked publication, “has assassinated millions of Palestinians besides owning 80% of the world economy and the media”.

Chavez is trying to intimidate Capriles Radonski from the outset by calling him, a “low life” and a “pig”.

With regard to elections, Chavez has a long history of fraud and reluctance to give power and accept the public will. Chavez’s aggressiveness towards those who oppose or criticize him has succeeded in causing panic, particularly in the aftermath of the 2002 failed anti-Chavez coup and the 2004 recall referendum. Fear of losing ones’ job, fear of persecution, fear of retaliation and other types of intimidation have had tremendous impact. Chavez tried to block the recall referendum through manipulation, intimidation of those who signed the petitions and by threatening to use military force to defend his government. On two occasions Chavez invalidated the signatures collected and on another occasion he tried to prevent the delivery of the petitions by closing the country’s airports. Next Chavez tried to change the composition of the Supreme Court in order to make it loyal to his rule. The recall referendum that Chavez resisted for more than a year has turned into one of the most effective instruments in the hands of Chavez to claim popular legitimacy.

In the aftermath of the recall referendum, Chavez authorized a Venezuelan congressman (Luis Tascon) to obtain copies of the list of signatures of those who signed the petition for the recall referendum.

The government used these lists to fire workers and block job applications. Furthermore, in 2005 a new database was created called the “Maisanta” program. That program contained detailed information on all registered voters, totaling over 12 million citizens. The program informed the user if the registered voter had signed the recall referendum against Chavez, abstained from voting in elections, participated in the government’s missions or signed a counter-petition for a recall referendum against opposition legislators.This list broadened the number of people targeted by the government to either be fired or denied a job or contract.

In the 2006 presidential election that Chavez won, it was reported that there were 1.3 million registered voters without address and a 34% increase of registered voters since 2003.  Likewise, it was reported that a high number of very old people registered that by the laws of nature should have been deceased.

In December 2007, Chavez was finally defeated in an attempt to bring to referendum a constitutional reform to re-elect the president indefinitely plus other measures that would have given the government effective control over the Central Bank and other aspects of the economy. Chavez suffered another defeat in the November 2008 municipal elections. Chavez appealed to the practice of disqualifying candidates for office. During the 2008 local elections, more than 300 candidates were ineligible for office based mostly on charges that could not be proven. Such bans of candidates were carried out with the complicity of the national electoral committee and the Supreme Court, two bodies clearly controlled by the executive power. In those elections, the opposition made some important gains including in the state of Miranda and the City of Caracas. Chavez reacted by removing some key social services such as health care from the jurisdiction of Miranda to the federal government and placed mobs in Caracas city hall that undermined the work of the then- newly elected mayor of Caracas, Alfredo Ledezma.

Following this, Chavez tried again the same referendum in February 2009, won it and gained indefinite re-election.

In the September 2010 parliamentary elections, Chavez supporters received a lower percentage of the votes than the opposition yet re-districting policies carried out shortly before the elections enabled pro-Chavez candidates to hold more seats than they deserved based on the principle of proportional representation.

It goes without saying, the state-owned oil-company, PDVSA and other state companies have been encouraged to intimidate employees so they would vote in favor of the referendum. Chavez also controls all the powers of the state including the electoral national council in charge of election supervision. This institution never bothers to read the rules and the regulations but only obeys the man who placed them in their jobs.

In other words, none of the factors we mentioned above reflects the existence of a democratic state in Venezuela. It definitely shows that democracy is a tool to establish authoritarianism and expand executive prerogatives.

The Venezuelan opposition is euphoric now and some may think that Chavez will have no choice but transfer power in case he loses the election. But he will not. He already appointed authoritarian figures in key positions. One of them is Henry Silva Rangel who was appointed Minister of Defense. When he was chief of the Venezuelan army he pointed out that the “military is married to the Bolivarian project”, in a clear message that the military will side with Chavez even if he legitimately loses the election.

This is why we have no doubt that Chavez will not give up power in this coming October.

Therefore, the prospect of civil war in Venezuela is very real and should that happen the United States should step up to the plate and support the opposition.