TELEVISION: Puppets Bring Humour to Election

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Jose Zambrano

CARACAS, Jun 23 1998 (IPS) - The biggest drawcard in Venezuela’s current election campaign is a group of puppets that appear nightly on television and imitate the major political figures vying for office.

For 10 minutes from Monday to Friday on Channel 2 – prior to the airing of a prime time soap opera – the antics of the puppets have attracted a huge following with TV viewers.

“I need to appear as serious as the countrys current situation,” says the puppet portraying Irene Saez, the long- haired former beauty queen and Mayor of Caracas. When she announced she was running for president the real-life Saez began wearing her blonde tresses in a bun.

“Doctor, I’m here because I need help with the disagreements on my team,” a puppet – identifiable as Hugo Chavez – asks a psychiatrist. Chavez is the former Colonel who led a coup attempt in 1992, but now is a front runner in the electyion race and is busily negotiating contradictory statements from the groups that are supporting him.

The Venezualan programme is called ‘Muecotes’, a local version of TV shows in other Latin American countries where political humor or social satire has been presented with the aid of puppets.

“In our case, the idea was to create a comedy show in an electoral year,” says Cesar Rondon, the writer of the show. “It was made possible because the electoral campaign has brought together a group of candidates with a degree of notoriety that is unparalleled in the last 25 years.”

Besides Saez, who was Miss Universe 1981, and Chavez, former commander of a parachute battalion, there is Henrique Salas, a businessman who attempts to woo voters in advertsiements which show him riding horseback with his followers. There is also Claudio Fermin, the former social democratic mayor of Caracas, a cultivated sociologist.

Then there is Luis Alfaro, head of the Democratic Action (DA) Party who, at 76, is the oldest of the candidtes and finally, there is Miguel Rodriguez, a n eloquent economist who is representing the group Apertura, created by former president Carlos Andres Perez following his expulsion from AD in 1996.

In a typical sketch on the show, Perez, who implemented an unpopular adjustment plan in 1989, is approached by Teodoro Petkoffa socialist who implemented President Rafael Calderas adjustment programme in 1996 who confesses that he wished he could have implemented Perez’s programme.

Another former president, Luis Herrera (1979-1984), from the social democratic Copei party, which is supporting Saez, gives the new candidate advice. In the sketch, the programme jokes about the fact that it was during Herreras government that the economy went into its enduring downward spiral.

The satire is often merciless. Fermin alway is portrayed being bogged down in doubt – as it was not until 1997 that he finally decided to leave AD- and Petkoff is depicted with his unruly hair and volatile temper.

The sketches are brief, simple and direct and we look for the “middle ground,” says Rondon. “Once all the characters are recognized by the public, we throw ourselves into the humor that is generated in everyday political life.

One of the problems is that politicians and political parties sometimes change their positions on issues within the 10-day period that it takes for a script to be turned into a show and then broadcast.

It only took a couple of weeks for the show to catch on and ‘Muecotes’ now is the most popular program on Channel 2, which is the second most popular channel in Venezuela.

The puppets’ satire has spiced up regular comedy programs that use live actors, as well as interview and political debate programs, which have gained high ratings. It has also created spaces for new programs such as “Hooray for Politics!”

Muecotes has drawn on the experiences of similar programmes in Colombia and Mexico and the widely-viewed British TV show “Spitting Image” which, during the conservative government of Margaret Thatcher, inspired political puppet programmes.

The Venezuelan puppets, which cost 10,000 dollars each, are made in Colombiaand constructed from clay molds using fiber glass, latex and other chemicals. Talented puppeteers from the local Tilingo Theater, are in charge of manipulating the dolls on screen.

The puppets have brought some much needed humour into an otherwise tense, even ugly, election campaign that has resulted in the four leading candidates jockying for top position at a moment when public opinion is unfavorable to political par ties.

The humour is important because Chavez has insinuated that he will call for an insurrection if his “inevitable victory” is not recognized. Meanwhile, his rivals are asking Venezuelans to chose between violent or peaceful change, between dictatorship and democracy. (IPS/FIN/jz/mj/ip cr/mg/mk/98)