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A presidential election in which president Hugo Chavez is running for reelection is scheduled for July 30 in Venezuela, postponed from May 28, the same day president Alberto Fujimori was reelected in Peru after an electoral process that was far from being fair and honest. On July 2 Mexicans went to the polls and elected an opposition candidate in an election as fair and honest as the country had not seen in decades.
Which way will Chavez go? Will he, like Mexico’s Ernesto Zedillo, preside over a fair and honest election? Or will he follow Fujimori’s example to assure himself of reelection?
A year and a half after Chavez took office in a populist triumph, the coalition around what he calls a “peaceful revolution” has withered. Erstwhile political allies accuse him of ruling with an authoritarian streak, funneling assistance to Colombia’s leftist rebels and failing to help Venezuela's vast underclass. Although Venezuela is the third-largest oil exporter in the world, more than half the country lives in poverty. The official unemployment rate is 15 percent, though private economists put the rate at closer to 20 percent.
Chavez’s approval ratings, which peaked near 90 percent, have dropped about 30 points as the economy continues in a grinding recession that has resulted in the loss of an estimated 650,000 jobs since the beginning of last year. Capital flight accelerated to $3.5 billion in the first quarter of this year, violent crime has soared and anti-Chavez discontent rumbles in the military. Health care, education and garbage collection have deteriorated while the rebuilding from last December's devastating floods has stagnated.
Nonetheless, the cashiered army lieutenant colonel who led a failed coup in 1992 is favored to win reelection by a substantial margin. A poll conducted between June 23 and July 2 shows him 17 points ahead of his nearest competitor with 48 percent of the preference among voters in the seven largest cities in the country, against 31 percent for former comrade-in-arms and governor of Zulia state Francisco Arias. Like a number of onetime military officers who sought to overthrow President Carlos Andres Perez in 1992, Arias broke with Chavez in February and contends he has betrayed the goals of the rebellion by fomenting hatred, attacking leaders of the Catholic Church as part of the old guard, consolidating power and exacerbating the plight of the poor.
Chavez appears to hold on to a safe margin. However, it may be disturbing for him that the number of undecided voters grew from 6 to 16 percent from April to July, usually a sign that voters have begun a process of reassessment of the candidates. If Chavez sees his chances of being reelected are not as good as they were, the Fujimori example might prevail.
One respected observer of the coming election, the monitoring network of the Andres Bello Catholic University, has announced that it finds it impossible to carry out its task and that it was leaving the so-called Auditing Committee because it cannot audit the voting machines to be used in the election to make sure votes are counted accurately. On the other hand, a spokesman for the U.S.-based Carter Center, which is also monitoring the electoral process, said the resignation of the members of the National Electoral Council in charge of the election—which had been accused of incompetence and bias—and its reorganization is “a step towards credibility.” The spokesman noted, however, that the Center “is concerned with the delay [by the Council] in allowing external audits” of the process.
Outside of the electoral process itself there are forces at work that raise worries about the future of a constitutional government.
Shortly after appearing before the National Electoral Council to accuse Chavez of illegally using patriotic symbols in his re-election bid and breaking electoral laws when he takes unfair advantage of his high office to campaign against candidates that must pay their own expenses, airforce Col. Silvino Bustillos was detained at the air force headquarters in the capital of Caracas, This is the second active military officer to publicly denounce the Venezuelan leader in less than a month. A week before, Capt. Luis Garcia Morales was kicked out of the National Guard for publicly calling for Chavez’s resignation. Reports that Chavez might be losing support in the armed forces are plentiful. Midlevel officers, not the top brass, have been behind many of the conspiracies to overthrow governments in Venezuela.
Even more concerns are developing among Venezuelans about the state of the country’s economy. Capital flight is not new to Venezuela, particularly at times of heightened political uncertainty. But now everyone, from businessmen to housemaids, is stoking a constant stream of demand for hard currency. Capital is leaving Venezuela so fast that analysts say this year it could equal as much as 80 per cent of the forecast oil export windfall of $9 billion, an unprecedented 30 per cent of estimated total export earnings.
Venezuela’s influential Roman Catholic bishops, gathered in the Episcopal Conference, have called for President Chavez to seek a pacific solution for the nation’s crisis, emphasizing that the people expect from its authorities deeds and not words.
In addition to the president, national legislators, governors and mayors will be chosen on July 30. Even if Chavez wins, because of the diminished value of his coattails, his candidates may win only a quarter of the 23 governorships being contested and he may no longer be certain of capturing the two-thirds majority in the 132-seat National Assembly that looked likely not long ago. Were this to happen, Chavez might move to affirm his authority going even beyond the great powers given to him by the new constitution he pushed through last year.
Claudio Campuzano (claudio-campuzano@hotmail.com) is U.S, correspondent for the Latin American newsweekly Tiempos del Mundo and editorial page editor of the New York daily Noticias del Mundo. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com