A Venezuelan woman gets ready to cast her ballot at a voting station in Caracas mainly made up of women in the last presidential elections, on Apr. 14, 2013. Credit: Raúl Límaco/IPS

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Jul 9 2015 (IPS)

More women could be elected to the Venezuelan legislature, but the new rule on gender parity for the upcoming parliamentary elections has been caught up in the political polarisation that has had this country in its grip for years.

“This rule was long in coming, and is the product of decades of struggle and sacrifice by hundreds of women,” Tibisay Lucena, the president of the National Electoral Council (CNE), said at the presentation of the new regulation on gender parity. “We are moving towards the construction of a better democracy,” she added.

The single-chamber National Assembly for the 2016-2020 period will be elected on Dec. 6, after years of severe political polarisation fuelled, since Nicolás Maduro became president in 2013, by falling oil prices, devaluation, inflation and shortages of basic goods.

The new gender parity regulation adopted by the CNE was quickly caught up in the clash, although women from both sides of the political spectrum celebrated the fact that Venezuela had joined the “club” of Latin American nations with gender quotas in parliamentary elections.

“Women’s rights are already a matter of state in Venezuela, thanks to our struggles and to the comprehension of (late) President Hugo Chávez (1999-2013), the driving force behind the 1999 constitution,” a member of the Latin American Parliament, Marelis Pérez Marcano of the governing United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), told IPS.

This oil-producing nation first adopted a gender quota – reserving at least 30 percent of candidacies for women – in the 1997 parliamentary elections. But the rule was revoked by the 2000 electoral law and replaced by CNE calls for gender parity.

As a result, the current 165-seat legislature consists of 137 men and 28 women (17 percent) – a proportion that puts Venezuela in 18th place in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU).

In top place in this region is Bolivia, where women comprise 53 percent of the lower house of parliament and 47 percent of the upper house. At least 10 other Latin American countries have gender quotas for parliamentary elections. And one of them, Argentina, was the first country in the world to adopt such a law. Colombia also has a 30 percent quota for high-level public posts.

Venezuela’s new rule stipulates that political parties must present an equal number of male and female candidates and must alternate them on their lists, both for members of parliament and alternates.

When a precise 50/50 parity is impossible in one of the 24 electoral regions, then at least 40 percent of the candidates must be women.

Elsa Solórzano of the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD), a catch-all coalition of 27 opposition groups and parties, complained about the timing of the new regulation and argued that it violated several constitutional clauses.

She said the regulation, officially implemented on Jun. 29, came a month after the MUD held primary elections supervised by the CNE itself. The coalition is now holding debates on how to rearrange the lists of candidates.

Furthermore, she noted, Article 298 of the constitution establishes that the electoral law “cannot be modified in any way” in the six months prior to elections.

Supporters of the governing United Socialist Party of Venezuela outside of the legislature in Caracas. Credit: Courtesy of Raúl Límaco

“The trick was the political maneuvering, not the substance of the rule: parity. And it’s obvious that it was the doing of the CNE, not of we women who were ignored when we demanded in a timely fashion the right to be elected,” activist Evangelina García Prince, minister of women’s affairs in the 1990s and a member of the Venezuelan Observatory of the Human Rights of Women, told IPS.

Virginia Olivo, president of the non-governmental Observatory, said that in this country there is “a low level of political representation for women, with a parliament that is below the regional and global averages.”

Statistics provided by the IPU indicate that women represent 24.5 percent of lawmakers in Latin America and 20 percent globally.

According to the 2011 census, 39 percent of the seven million mothers in this country of 30 million people are heads of households. And of the mothers who are on their own, 10 percent are adolescents.

Olivo pointed out that, although no precise statistics are available, most of the nine million people living in poverty in Venezuela live in these female-headed households. As another illustration of the inequality faced by women, she noted that women earn 82 percent of what men earn for the same work.

Defending the new gender quota, Lucena said that since February she has been talking with female opposition leaders about the gender parity rule that was being drawn up.

But “these individual conversations don’t mean the MUD was formally informed,” said Vicente Bello, one of the coalition’s electoral affairs officials.

But another opposition leader, Isabel Carmona, president of the Democratic Action party, which governed the country several times in the 20th century, supported the regulation, arguing that “the rights protected by the justice system are not subject to political bargaining.”

“This measure affects the cultural roots of power, because culture in Latin America has made machismo a symbol of power. We are starting to dismantle that, because no one who has a privilege has the generosity to give it up,” Carmona said.

Margarita López Maya, a historian and political scientist, said “the unexpected decision to require gender parity for the candidates in the 2015 parliamentary elections reveals, once again, the governing party’s interest in generating an atmosphere of uncertainty and uneasiness to disrupt the important elections that will take place on Dec. 6.”

Her warning is based on the fact that the five members of the CNE – four of whom are women – are pro-government, and only one, the only man, is considered a supporter of the opposition. The rule was approved with the votes of the four female members.

Leaders from across the political spectrum say that if the opposition, which for now is ahead in the polls according to the main polling companies, wins a majority in the legislature, it would launch a transition process that could push the PSUV and President Maduro, Chávez’s political heir, out of power.

But, said Lucena, the electoral authority’s new rule “refers to the candidates that the political parties will offer, but it will clearly be the voters who will decide, with their votes.”

During much of Chávez’s time in office, women headed up the rest of the branches of government: the legislature, the judiciary, the electoral authority, the attorney general’s office, the comptroller-general’s office and the ombudsperson’s office.

Women are also a majority in the judiciary and have been cabinet ministers since 1967. In 1979 the country had its first women’s affairs minister, and in 2013 a woman admiral was defence minister.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

By Fabíola Ortiz
RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 23 2013 (IPS)

The challenge for Venezuela is to strengthen democracy, and for its new president, Nicolás Maduro, it is to overcome a potential recall referendum and to further the interests of his political supporters, Marcelo Serpa, of the Latin American Association of Election Campaign Researchers (ALICE), told IPS.

Chavismo, “the political movement that awakened Venezuela,” will remain in force for many years to come, although “it will not rule forever,” said Serpa, a Brazilian economist with a doctorate in communication from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. “But no government that does not pay attention to the poorest sectors will be possible,” he said.

Maduro was elected on Apr. 14 as the candidate of the governing United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), founded by Hugo Chávez (1954-2013) who was president since 1999 and died of cancer on Mar. 5.

Marcelo Serpa has worked on several election campaigns in Venezuela. Credit: UFRJ

President Maduro must consolidate his administration and face up to hazards such as the appearance of Chavista dissidents within the leftwing Bolivarian movement, said Serpa, who has worked on several electoral campaigns in this country and has just published the book “Eleiçoes Espetaculares – Como Hugo Chávez conquistou a Venezuela” (Spectacular Elections: How Hugo Chávez Conquered Venezuela) in Brazil.

Q: How did Chávez manage to conquer Venezuela and win the affection shown by so many people, even after his death?

A: He tried two ways: the old Latin American-style coup d’état (as an army lieutenant-colonel in 1992), and after doing jail time and being amnestied, he converted his Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200 (MBR-200) into a party to reach power in a democratic manner, almost as the saviour of the country.

Q: What was the context in Venezuela when Chávez emerged on the political scene?

A: There were several other attempted coups apart from Chávez’s. Venezuela’s recent history is marked by political instability.

The socio-demographic profile when Chávez became president was this: (the upper-income) categories A, B and C together made up four percent of the population, and the rest belonged to (the lower-income) classes D and E, in an economy that was wholly dependent on oil.

Q: How was he able to attract so many followers?

A: During the two years that he was in prison (after his aborted military uprising), he drew up a government plan and several proposals, including a reform of the system that would take into account the rentier privileges from oil.

The country’s economic model was focused then on oil, which was in the hands of a small élite. Chávez wanted to end the rentier economy, and he wanted all the profits from PDVSA (the state oil company) to go towards spending in Venezuela aimed at putting an end to poverty.

With the new constitution rewritten in 1999, Chávez appropriated those resources for the social programmes and managed, for instance, to eradicate illiteracy.

Q: There has been a great deal of speculation about the lack of transparency in the handling of information about the illness and death of Chávez. What is your analysis of this communication process?

A: I have been to Venezuela several times, and have worked during elections as a communication professional, and in my view the information flow has always been very good.

Chávez had a problem with the international media in particular, and then with the closure of RCTV, the main Venezuelan television channel.

That was controversial, but I have never seen greater freedom of the press than in Venezuela. To say that the press there is not free is not true. Chávez gave interviews to all journalists and gave press conferences every Sunday. He was greatly misunderstood by the international media.

Q: What is his legacy to his political successor?

A: Before Chávez, Venezuela was impoverished; the recipients of oil rents were wealthy, but none of that wealth went to the poor. Today Venezuela still has many problems, but the poorest classes have their needs met to a certain extent. They receive enormous assistance from the state thanks to the oil resources.

Private enterprise has shrunk, which has compelled the state to take on certain functions and commitments that are beyond its possibilities.

Q: What is your view of the Apr. 14 presidential elections?

A: The victory of Chavismo came about on the back of a spectacle-ridden discourse, in which emotion was frankly predominant over reason. When Chávez announced he had to go (to Cuba) for further surgery and that, if he were unable to govern, the people should elect Maduro, polls indicated that 35 percent of Venezuelan respondents did not know who Maduro was.

In October 2012, Chávez beat (opposition candidate Henrique) Capriles by a difference of 10 percentage points. But in this election, it was difficult for Chávez’s prestige to be transferred wholesale to Maduro. I had already forecast a difference of two percentage points between the two candidates.

Q: What is your view of the role of the opposition in this process?

A: The opposition made the same mistake as Chávez: it tried to get to power first by force, and then by democratic means.

Venezuelan politics are aggressive. The opposition was never silenced. Capriles himself was imprisoned (for alleged involvement in a violent protest outside of the Cuban embassy after the 2002 failed coup against Chávez) and then amnestied by Chávez. But the opposition was absent for a long time, and is now trying to reconstruct itself and paying a high price for it, which allowed Maduro’s victory.

Q: What do you predict for the future?

A: A new era is beginning, of Chavismo without Chávez. Venezuela’s path is to strengthen democracy. Chavismo will not remain in government eternally. After so many years of rule, it has a problem of image attrition.

But another kind of government, that does not pay attention to the poorest sectors, will not be possible. A number of (social) programmes have been installed that will have to be maintained. Chavismo has made its mark and will continue to be present for many more years. It was certainly Chavismo that awakened Venezuela.

The presidential term is six years, and a constitutional provision allows for a recall referendum after the halfway mark, in certain circumstances. It is probable that the opposition will try to hold a referendum against Maduro.

What is at stake is whether Maduro is capable of surviving, as much by maintaining his mandate as by furthering the interests of his party. There may even be some Chavismo dissidence within leftwing Bolivarian socialist thought.

Excerpt:

UNASUR presidents back Nicolás Maduro’s triumph and fly to Venezuela for the inauguration. Credit: Presidenty of Peru

By Ángel Páez
LIMA, Apr 19 2013 (IPS)

Nicolás Maduro was recognised as president-elect of Venezuela by a Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) emergency summit held in Lima to discuss the situation in the highly polarised country, where a narrow electoral result triggered social and political tension.

Meanwhile, Venezuela’s electoral authority said it would audit the ballots that were not already scrutinised on election night, in response to opposition demands.

It was after 1:00 AM Friday when Peruvian President Ollanta Humala announced, at the end of a nearly three-hour debate behind closed doors, the bloc’s support for Venezuela’s election authorities, who had declared Maduro the winner of the Sunday Apr. 14 elections.

Humala publicly congratulated the leftwing Maduro, the political heir of the late Hugo Chávez (1954-2013), who stood by his side smiling and looking clearly relieved. On Friday Maduro will be sworn in.

“With this consensus agreement we want to express UNASUR’s position that we will always be involved in the task of accompanying, strengthening and cooperating in the processes of fortifying the democracy that we have today in the region of South America,” Humala said.

“The idea and spirit of UNASUR is to contribute to and cooperate in the solution of problems that can affect democracy,” he added.

A Peruvian official then read out the summit statement, whose second point indicated that UNASUR urged all sectors that took part in Venezuela’s presidential elections to respect the official results announced by the National Electoral Council (CNE).

The meeting hosted by Humala was attended by presidents Cristina Fernández of Argentina, Evo Morales of Bolivia, Dilma Rousseff of Brazil, Sebastián Piñera of Chile, Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia, José Mujica of Uruguay, and Maduro himself, as president-elect of Venezuela.

Vice President Jorge Glas represented Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, who is on a tour of Europe, and ambassador Marlon Faisal Mohamed-Hoesein took part in representation of Suriname. The only active member of the bloc not represented at the meeting was Guyana.

Paraguay is still suspended over the June 2012 removal of President Fernando Lugo by the country’s legislature.

The chairman of Peru’s parliamentary commission on foreign relations, Víctor Andrés García Belaúnde of the opposition Popular Action party, stressed the significance of the emergency summit given the political standoff in Venezuela.

“The case of Venezuela is not similar to that of Honduras (where President Manuel Zelaya was ousted in 2009) or Paraguay. Venezuela is the fourth-largest economy in Latin America, and it is also a member and promoter of the creation of UNASUR, and this decision by the bloc will have repercussions throughout the entire continent, if not the world,” García Belaúnde told IPS.

The third point of the Lima announcement ratified what was stated in the Apr. 15 Declaration of the UNASUR Electoral Mission to Venezuela: that any complaint, question or request for an extraordinary procedure raised by any participant in the electoral process should be channelled and resolved within the existing legal framework and the democratic will of the different parties.

It went on to “take positive note of the CNE decision to use a methodology that would permit the total audit of the polling stations.”

In Venezuela, electronic voting machines produce a paper receipt, which voters deposit in boxes. On Sunday, 54 percent of the boxes were automatically scrutinised. The CNE has now agreed to audit the remaining 46 percent.

In the elections, Maduro took 50.8 percent of the vote, compared to 49 percent for opposition candidate Henrique Capriles, a difference of 270,000 votes. On Monday Capriles called publicly for a total recount, and thousands of opposition protesters took to the streets to back that demand. On Wednesday he filed a formal request with the CNE.

The decision to audit the rest of the ballot receipts, which according to the CNE is the only option provided in the regulations for the law on electoral processes, was accepted by Capriles, who said “with this we are where we want to be.”

In the end, the opposition leader did not fly to Lima as had been speculated ahead of the UNASUR meeting.

The fourth point of the UNASUR declaration called for a halt to any “attitude or act of violence that jeopardises the social peace of the country”. It also expressed “solidarity with the injured and the families of the fatal victims of Apr. 15, 2013” and called for dialogue and the “preservation of a climate of tolerance for the good of the entire Venezuelan people.”

Seven people were killed and 61 injured during the unrest on Monday, according to Attorney General Luisa Ortega.

After the UNASUR declaration was read out, Maduro lifted his right fist and hit his chest in a sign of victory.

While the summit was taking place, a group of Venezuelans gathered outside of Peru’s presidential palace, beating pots and pans and waving signs protesting the presence of the president-elect. But they were drowned out by a larger number of Peruvian sympathisers of Maduro and the late Chávez (who died of cancer on Mar. 5, after 14 years in power).

Legislator Freddy Otárola Peñaranda of Peru’s governing Nationalist Party, a member of the foreign relations commission, said UNASUR’s decision was in line with the fundamental principle that each country must resolve its own domestic problems.

“With this resolution, UNASUR is helping our Venezuelan brothers and sisters to find peaceful solutions to their problems under the principle of respect for the self-determination of peoples, “he told IPS.

“Venezuelans have to work out their own internal questions, without meddling by anyone,” he added.

Farid Kahhat, head of the international politics department at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, said that once Venezuela’s CNE agreed to audit the boxes with the ballot receipts, a UNASUR declaration was no longer necessary.

But he told IPS it was important that the bloc called for dialogue between the Venezuelan government and the opposition, and that it did not merely back Maduro’s victory.

By Diana Cariboni
MONTEVIDEO, Apr 17 2013 (IPS)

When the left was in opposition in Latin America, it never tired of repeating that true democracy was not limited to electing governments at the ballot box. Democracy was also needed in the distribution of rights and riches.

Now that self-described leftwing governments predominate in the region, the catch is to make that maxim their political practice. They must fulfil the formality of celebrating clean, fair and transparent elections that produce governments of the majority that do not trample on the minority, nor prevent them from exercising their role of social control.

In the last 15 years in Venezuela – ever since the late Hugo Chávez won his first presidential elections – there have been many elections and popular consultations based on the referendum, recall and plebiscite mechanisms provided in the constitution.

Diana Cariboni. Credit: Courtesy of the author

But there was also a failed coup d’état and an oil industry lockout with the same aim: to overthrow the government.

Meanwhile, the country developed an automated voting system described by the electoral authorities as “perfect,” and praised by institutions above suspicion of authoritarian conspiracy, like the Carter Center.

But the country’s democracy is far from being perfect, and further still from being predictable.

Only six months ago, Chávez gained a comfortable majority with 55 percent of the vote (more than eight million votes) against a rival, Henrique Capriles, who won a not inconsiderable 44 percent (over 6.5 million votes).

On Sunday Apr. 14, Chávez’s heir-apparent Nicolás Maduro secured a victory for the governing party, but with a margin of only 270,000 votes ahead of Capriles.

A number of relevant factors influenced the mood of voters in the last six months: the death of Chávez, after an illness surrounded by questions and secrecy, an economy facing difficulties, and a general climate of uncertainty about the prospects of the Bolivarian revolution in the absence of its leader.

And then on Sunday Apr. 14 a different and complex snapshot was taken of the citizenry, requiring a close reading by government leaders and the opposition.

The voting system was the same on both occasions. But the narrow margin of the result and a list of 3,200 alleged irregularities gave the opposition an opportunity to cast it into doubt.

The authorities claim the system is reliable and accurate. All eyes are on the boxes containing the paper receipts issued by the voting machine when voters cast their electronic votes – basically, ballot boxes full of votes.

There are allegations that some of these boxes have been found on roadsides, containing ballots for Capriles. And he is demanding a “vote by vote” recount.

Electoral fraud is a familiar problem in Latin America, where there is a whole repertory of actions to sway citizens’ votes, most of them taking place before polling occurs.

From Mexico southwards, the tradition of vote-rigging includes transporting voters, impersonation, abduction, forgery of identity documents, coercion, threats, violation of voting secrecy and vote-buying.

In some rural areas of Colombia things have reached such a point that, as polling day draws near, votes command increasingly higher bribes in goods and services on the informal local market, such as bricks, tiles and fuel, as well as cash.

In last year’s presidential elections in Mexico, alleged vote-buying, especially attributed to the victorious Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), took the form of vouchers for consumption of goods in certain shopping centres being handed out almost openly.

But none of this generates much concern abroad, nor is it a hurdle to international recognition of the governments that emerge from these elections.

Did electoral fraud of this kind occur in Venezuela? The opposition has denounced a series of irregularities. And the electoral authorities say they will investigate them when they receive the formal complaints, but that no recount will change the result declared on Monday Apr. 15. So there will be no total recount.

The opposition is accusing the government of misappropriation of state resources during the electoral campaign. The government replies that opposition parties represent large economic powers with vast resources and private media outlets at their service.

Meanwhile, although Maduro and Capriles have both called repeatedly for “peace,” violence has taken over the streets. There have been fatalities, and dozens of people have been injured.

Amid the commotion, something has been lost from view: Venezuelan society has long wanted to put an end to decades of apparent democracy, and oil profits for only a few.

In the last 15 years, the country has made strides in poverty reduction, and many marginalised people were able to learn to read and write, and gained access to education and health care. They were also empowered to speak up, and to feel that one of their own, someone close to them, represented them in the presidency.

But it cannot be forgotten that Venezuela today has serious problems, such as a high crime rate, a weak economy and excessive dependence on oil.

If they do not understand the electoral snapshot represented by Sunday’s results, Maduro and Capriles risk riding the roller coaster of setting at odds the two halves of their nation, instead of leading them to a mirror and showing them the need to coexist and understand each other.

“Venezuela has enormous possibilities. The main problem is for it to find itself,” said Uruguayan President José Mujica, interviewed on Tuesday Apr. 16 by the Telesur television chain. “Human progress is the offspring of labour, and requires stability and commitment,” he said.

“It’s important for the Venezuelan people to learn to walk together, with differences, but with points of agreement. They can’t expect to be exactly the same,” he said. “A nation is a collective message.”

* Diana Cariboni is Associate Editor in Chief of IPS.

Excerpt:

Noisy pot-banging protests broke out in Venezuela’s cities to demand a recount of the votes from Sunday’s presidential elections, which leftwing candidate Nicolás Maduro won. Several people have been killed in violent incidents.

In upscale neighbourhoods in the main cities, residents took to the streets Monday night in favour of opposition candidate Henrique Capriles, who took 48.97 percent of the vote compared to Maduro’s 50.75 percent.

But pots were also banged in poor neighbourhoods and small towns, traditional strongholds of the governing United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) of late president Hugo Chávez (1999-2013), who died of cancer on Mar. 5.

Demonstrations in several cities, in some of which the protesters numbered in the thousands, ended in clashes with the security forces. Seven people were killed and 61 injured, according to Attorney General Luisa Ortega.

The interior minister, General Néstor Reverol, said two PSUV supporters were shot by motorists who were apparently opposition sympathisers.

Protests were also held Tuesday in a dozen cities in the interior, in front of the offices of the National Electoral Council (CNE), which were heavily guarded by the military National Guard.

“We’re tired of being told lies,” 41-year-old schoolteacher Olga Hernández, beating an old pan in the working-class district of El Valle on the southwest side of Caracas, told IPS. “If the government says it won, why don’t they hold a vote-by-vote recount?”

The pot banging protests, which have been common in Venezuela since 1992, became especially popular during the acute political crisis of 2002-2004, when the opposition attempted to oust Chávez by means of street protests, business shut-downs and a frustrated coup d’etat.

The protests that broke out Monday were in response to Capriles’ call for a recount. But
Attorney General Ortega said the candidate had not filed any formal request, and was “inciting the citizens to take to the streets on the basis of arguments that he should set forth to the CNE.” She said his calls for protests were “destabilising acts.”

She also pointed out that in many countries, presidential elections have been won with a 0.5 percent difference.

On Monday, the CNE proclaimed Maduro the winner with 7,563,747 votes, against 7,298,491 for Capriles, after nearly 100 percent of the ballots had been counted, with the exception of 60,000 cast by Venezuelans living abroad.

Voters in Venezuela use electronic machines that generate a voter-verified paper trail. The voter deposits the paper ballot in a ballot box, and random audits can be carried out.

Based on 3,200 irregularities that Capriles claims were documented, the opposition candidate demanded a total recount instead of the random audits.

On Sunday night, Maduro said he would accept a vote-by-vote recount. But on Monday, the CNE declared him president-elect without responding to the demand. PSUV leaders said the electoral authorities had not responded because no formal request had been filed.

“Everyone knows who is responsible for this violence,” said Maduro, alluding to Capriles. “He will have to answer for the dead that we are mourning. They want to create outbreaks of violence around the country, like in Syria or Libya. But we call on people to reject hatred; we are calling for peace.”

Capriles, meanwhile, said “the illegitimate (candidate Maduro) ordered all this violence to avoid a recount. They are responsible.”

He insisted that “we called for peaceful protests, we are enemies of violence. No to violence!”

A march to CNE headquarters called by the opposition for Wednesday will not be allowed, Maduro said.
.
“You people aren’t going to go to the centre of Caracas to fill it up with death and blood. I won’t allow it. I am going to take a firm stance against fascism and intolerance. If they want to overthrow me, they can come for me. Here I am, with the people and with the armed forces,” he said.

“That march won’t enter Caracas. They are trying to get people killed, to massacre their own people, and then look for an active military officer. I won’t allow it, period,” said Maduro.

The president-elect confirmed reports that some military officers who had reportedly contacted opposition leaders had been detained as part of investigations.

With respect to coverage of the events, he told Venevisión and Televen, the leading TV stations, “Define who you are with, the fatherland, peace and the people, or once again on the side of fascism.”

Meanwhile, Maduro ordered a national broadcast Tuesday of official ceremonies in a health centre and with oil industry workers, which kept the leaders of the opposition from airing their own messages on TV and the radio.

“We are calling for serenity, because what would happen if we marched on your (opposition leaders’) houses? Nothing would be left,” Maduro said.

He was referring to the throngs of pot-banging protesters who gathered outside the homes of the president of the CNE, Tibisay Lucena, and governing party leader William Izarra, in Caracas.

Besieging these homes “is inappropriate behaviour and should not be happening,” said human rights activist Liliana Ortega. “Privacy must be respected.”

The head of the opposition campaign, Henri Falcón, met with Catholic Church bishops Tuesday to ask them to mediate in the crisis.

Nicolás Maduro beat Henrique Capriles in Sunday’s elections. Credit: Courtesy of Maduro and Capriles campaigns

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Apr 15 2013 (IPS)

The political polarisation in Venezuela became even more marked as the country emerged from Sunday’s elections basically divided in half, between two sectors that are antagonistic and reluctant to try to understand each other.

Nicolás Maduro, of the leftwing governing United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV),
the political heir to late President Hugo Chávez (1954-2013), won the elections with 7,559,349 votes, or 50.75 percent, the National Electoral Council announced after counting 99 percent of the ballots.

But the results were challenged by his main rival Henrique Capriles, the candidate of the heterogeneous opposition coalition, the Mesa de Unidad Democrática (MUD), who garnered 7,296,876 votes, or 48.98 percent. He said he would only accept the outcome of a total recount.

The opposition say there were 3,200 cases of irregularities. They are also demanding scrutiny of some 60,000 ballots cast by Venezuelan voters abroad.

Maduro immediately accepted the call for a recount, although he said: “We have a just, legal, constitutional and popular electoral triumph. We respect the seven million who voted for the opposition; you must respect our seven and a half million.”

The candidate, who has been acting president since Chávez died of cancer on Mar. 5, called for “peace,” and said “I believe in peace as the path to prosperity and socialism.”

He added that “a new stage in the Bolivarian revolution is starting, with greater efficiency, honesty and popular power, for an in-depth rectification.”

Capriles said he would resort to “all constitutional means” to challenge the results. “Electoral irregularities are part of a system that is crumbling like a sand castle,” he maintained.

Groups of voters demonstrated outside of government offices in several provincial cities Monday to demand that the National Electoral Council carry out a recount.

“The game isn’t over yet,” said Capriles, adding that “the government should reflect on what kind of country we have,” in view of the narrow margin.

Under the constitution, the winner of Sunday’s elections will complete the 2013-2019 term to which Chávez had been reelected on Oct. 7 with nearly 8.2 million votes – 55 percent – compared to Capriles’ 6.6 million – 44 percent.

Sunday’s results indicate that the opposition gained nearly 700,000 votes compared to the October elections, while Chavismo lost a similar number.

“Chavismo is no longer the overwhelming force it was for 14 years (since Chávez won for the first time in 1998) and it leaves the country politically split now exactly in half,” sociologist and political analyst Tulio Hernández told IPS.

In any democratic country, “even a narrow win, like Maduro’s, would grant legitimacy, but would require a forging of channels to reach governance pacts with the opposition,” said Hernández. “But this government with authoritarian and statist tendencies won’t do that,” he added.

Carlos Romero, professor of graduate studies in political science in several universities, said he preferred “not to talk about a divided country, but about one represented by two sectors. And the fact that Maduro did not have a comfortable majority doesn’t mean he won’t be able to govern.”

“Of course, for Maduro himself it would be beneficial to recognise that the other half exists, and extend bridges of understanding, because he should take measures in the face of the country’s basic problems like inflation, shortages, drug trafficking and insecurity,” Romero told IPS.

Hernández said Sunday’s elections “show a distancing from Chávez as the big political landmark, with the forces aligned depending on their proximity to or distance from him. They also drew a new political map.”

He pointed out that Capriles won in several of the most populous states with the most commercial and industrial activity, in Caracas and in the 10 biggest provincial capitals, while Maduro was victorious in smaller towns and rural areas.

“The equation is that Chavismo won wherever there is more poverty, more rural population and greater dependency on the state as a source of resources, and Capriles triumphed where there is more private sector activity, higher incomes and more urban life,” the analyst said.

Hernández believes Chavismo will become, in the absence of its late leader, a large political force, but lacking in ideology, “because Chávez’s was like a patchwork quilt,” without a solid party of the kind the communists, social democrats or Christian democrats have, and with several different leaders who could invoke the words of Chávez in different ways.

Diosdado Cabello, the first vice president of the PSUV and the leader of the retired military officers who supported Chávez, has already stated that “we must carry out a critical and self-critical review of why so many poor people continue to vote for the candidates of the bourgeoisie.”

The opposition as well, according to Hernández, “now that it is a real alternative with possibilities of governing, has the challenge of giving greater consistency to the amalgam of parties that comprise it and conducting an ideological debate to figure out what it offers the country in terms of state, market, private property, oil and the fight against exclusion and poverty.”

On the international front, there was an unusual break with the traditional automatic recognition of the results and greetings to the winner.

Governments allied with Chávez, such as those of Argentina, Bolivia, Cuba and Ecuador, in Latin America, as well as China and Russia, immediately congratulated Maduro. But others, like the governments of the United States, Spain and France, as well as European Union and Organisation of American States officials, urged a recount.

“The results have surprised the international community,” said Romero. “Most of the governments expected a comfortable win by Maduro, and now it is time for them to reflect on why they did not take a position that was equally distant from the two political camps.”

Nicolás Maduro and Henrique Capriles will face off on Sunday. Credit: Courtesy of Maduro and Capriles campaigns

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Apr 12 2013 (IPS)

Venezuelans will cast their ballots this Sunday to elect a successor to late president Hugo Chávez. The choice is between his political heir Nicolás Maduro – the front-runner in the polls – and the leader of the revitalised opposition, Henrique Capriles.

In the presidential elections that will inaugurate the post-Chávez era, voters will opt for continuity of the late leader’s “21st Century Socialism” or support Capriles’ campaign platform, which promises social and economic progress.

The campaign has been dominated by the figure of Chávez and the powerful wave of grief in the wake of his passing on Mar. 5, 21 months after he was diagnosed with abdominal cancer.

Maduro was foreign minister from 2006 to 2012, vice president after October 2012, and interim president since Chávez travelled to Cuba for his last bout of treatment.

Maduro, the candidate of the governing United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), “has not had the time to build his own image and leadership style; he is dissolved in the legacy, and his style is a kind of ‘copy and paste’ version of his late leader’s,” Mariana Bacalao, an expert on political communication, told IPS.

Analyst Manuel Malaver, an opposition sympathiser, said “the competition is between a very powerful government with a very bad candidate, and a weak opposition with an excellent one…I believe if the campaign were longer, Capriles could well beat Maduro, but its brevity gives Maduro a big advantage.”

Nicmer Evans, a government-leaning political scientist, said “there are three actors in the race: Maduro, Capriles and also Chávez, who is the main candidate in these elections, because what is being debated is whether or not his vision for the country will be accepted.”

Chávez won a new presidential term for 2013-2019 in the October elections, with nearly 8.2 million votes, equivalent to 55 percent. His chief rival, Capriles, the candidate of the Democratic Unity Coalition (MUD), received 6.6 million votes, or 44.3 percent.

The Venezuelan constitution states that if a president dies within the first four years of taking office, elections for a successor must be called within 30 days. This stipulation left the candidates with only 10 days to campaign across this country of 916,000 square kilometres, 24 states, 333 municipalities and 30 million people.

Both Maduro and Capriles have been travelling at top speed from one end of the country to another, visiting up to three cities in a single day, in a bid to galvanise first and foremost their faithful supporters among the electorate, which remains highly polarised.

The candidates are attracting crowds to their rallies that are as or more numerous than they were in the 2012 campaign, presaging another high turnout rate, although experts expect that it will not reach the October record of 81 percent. Voting in this country is not compulsory.

“If Capriles increases his share of the vote a bit, and part of the Chavista electorate abstains (studies show that one in four do not want Maduro), the chances for the opposition are very real,” Carlos Ocariz, coordinator of Capriles’ campaign, told foreign correspondents when the campaign got under way.

The polls published up to last weekend (Apr. 6-7), based on surveys carried out in March, put Maduro in the lead, between seven and 18 percentage points ahead of Capriles.

“None of our scenarios contemplates a possible victory for Capriles,” pollsters Germán Campos of Consultores 30.11 and Jesse Chacón of GIS XXI told IPS.

Around 57 percent of Consultores 30.11 respondents said they would vote for Maduro, while the study by GIS XXI concluded there would be a repeat of the results of October, 55 to 44 percent.

The most traditional polling firms, like IVAD and Datanálisis, also predicted a comfortable win for Maduro. But they declined to report new results once the campaign had started. The electoral laws forbid the publication of polling estimates in the week prior to the elections, and all campaign activity had to end Friday Apr. 12.

Just hours before the pre-election media blackout came into force, polling firms DatinCorp and Datamática found a rise in Capriles’ popularity and a decline in support for Maduro.

The gap between voter intentions for Maduro and Capriles found by some of the more traditional polling firms was cut in half five days before the elections, IPS was told.

Because of the brevity of the campaign, both candidates have behaved aggressively towards their rivals, accentuating the acute polarisation that has marked politics in Venezuela since Chávez first became president in 1999.

“Little Petulant Man, Little Bourgeois,” Maduro taunted his rival, while Capriles accused him of “Fresh Lies” and they heaped insults on each other. They also berated the Electoral Council and called on the public to keep alert for possible tricks and supposed plans on the part of the loser to dispute the results.

Maduro, a 50-year-old former bus driver, is married to fellow PSUV leader Cilia Flores. He mocked the 40-year-old Capriles’ status as a bachelor, while Capriles taunted Maduro’s mistakes in Venezuelan geography and his anecdote about feeling the presence of Chávez in the form of a little bird.

“The language the two main presidential candidates have been using is deplorable. They have been banking on polarisation, which has caused so much damage,” complained Marino Alvarado of Provea, a human rights organisation.

“In a country racked by violence on all sides, we have a political leadership that is not setting a good example, with language that contributes nothing to concord or the peaceful solution of conflicts,” he told IPS.

“Let’s hope there is a clear victory for the winner, rather than a narrow difference, for the sake of peace in the country,” said analyst Jesús Seguías of DatinCorp.

Chacón said, “if there is a wide gap, Maduro’s government can begin more comfortably; it will have the challenge of being more efficient, otherwise the voters will call it to account,” while the opposition would be able to regroup.

In Malaver’s view, “if the result of the vote is tight, even if the government party wins, the confrontation in society will remain. These elections will be like the first round, waiting for a final round, because the part of the country that did not accept the concentration of military and state power under Chávez will accept it even less under Maduro.”