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PDFVenezuela’s democratic opposition will never again win an election, says President Hugo Chávez. And “there will be no transition” following October’s presidential election, a leading Chávista official insists.
The radical populist yesterday rejected claims that he had left a leadership vacuum while he undertook cancer treatment in Cuba, but his absence prompted criticism from the opposition.
“Venezuela today is being governed via a telephone, via Twitter,” said Henrique Capriles, the democratic coalition’s presidential candidate. “Today, we are five months away from electing a stagnant present or a progressive future,” he added:
Capriles, a center-left state governor who admires Brazil’s “modern left” political model, has been struggling to close a two-digit gap behind Chávez in most opinion polls. He is on a nationwide “house-to-house” tour to try and project himself as a national leader and hear Venezuelans’ problems. But he is struggling to win headline space from Chávez.
In a half-hour telephone broadcast yesterday, Chávez appeared to suggest that the electoral process would be engineered to forestall any prospect of a victory for his critics.
“The opposition are never going to win any elections in Venezuela, ever again, we are going to give them a resounding knockout,” he said.
Chávez recently said that “a thousand buffaloes will pass through the eye of a needle” before he will cede power.
A source close to the government said over the weekend that Chávez’s health has deteriorated considerably with the radiotherapy. He has been in intense pain and is unable to walk, requiring him to use a wheelchair, the source told Reuters. “There is great anxiety over what is coming,” the source said:
Chávez’s health is treated as a state secret – like that of his mentor and friend, Fidel Castro of Cuba. The Venezuelan has had three operations since last June, including one that removed a baseball-sized tumor. But officials have refused to divulge details about his cancer.
He is supposed to have completed the last of five radiotherapy sessions in Cuba in recent days, but his uncharacteristic silence has brought speculation his condition is getting worse, possibly fatal.
Officials deny that a recently-formed Council of State is a transition agency for ensuring post-Chávez continuity – Chávismo without Chávez.
“It is not a transition (committee) and there will be no transition,” said Vice President Elias Jaua at the weekend. “There will be elections, re-election and a new term for Hugo Chávez.”
Allies seen as potential replacements for him if he cannot run include Jaua, Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro, and National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello. Chávez’s two daughters, who have no political experience but frequently appear with him in public, are seen as potential stand-ins who could command respect from supporters and allies.
“There is no way to know the likelihood of any given scenario without serious information about Chávez’s health,” said local pollster and analyst Luis Vicente Leon:
“But one thing is clear: Chávez will be the candidate, dead or alive. Even if Chávez is physically absent, the campaign will be full of his symbols, photos, messages and missions,” he told Reuters:
Opposition leaders, who have avoided directly commenting on his illness, describe him as a doctrinaire autocrat whose steady expansion of the state has weakened the economy and left Venezuelans dependent on state handouts.
Capriles, a center-left state governor who admires Brazil’s “modern left” political model, has been struggling to close a two-digit gap behind Chávez in most opinion polls. He is on a nationwide “house-to-house” tour to try and project himself as a national leader and hear Venezuelans’ problems. But he is struggling to win headline space from Chávez.
Some observers fear that Chávez’s politicization of the Venezuelan military and promotion of known narco-traffickers to the most senior officer ranks has increased the likelihood of a coup should the democratic opposition win the October poll.
“But even if these officers are true democrats that reject Chávez, the Bolivarian regime has already in place para-military groups such as the Bolivarian Circles” writes analyst Luis Fleischman:
It has also created a militia that responds directly to the executive branch. As things are defined now, Para-military forces and even militias might be filled with “fighters” from other groups such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and even Middle Eastern terrorist groups such as Hezbollah; two groups Chávez has embraced.
Secondly, the regime has created a network of people who have benefitted from his regime and would like to see continuity. This includes the “boliburguesia” , which is a business class that has made its wealth not from its hard work and devotion but by virtue of its connections to the state.
The appointment of former military intelligence chief Henry Rangel Silva as defense minister and his recent admission that the military would not accept an opposition victory in October, confirm that the leadership “will provide continuity to the Bolivarian revolution regardless of an opposition victory in the upcoming election,” he writes, noting that authoritative sources also suggest that Cuba is involved in preparing a “soft coup” in the event of a democratic victory:
Nelson Bocaranda, who is a columnist for the Venezuelan daily El Universal, revealed that in Cuba there was a meeting between Hugo Chávez, Raul Castro, six Cuban generals and eight pro-Chávez Venezuelan generals, including the Minister of Defense, Rangel Silva. The discussion was focused on possible scenarios after the death of the Bolivarian leader. Bocaranda reports that among the issues considered was the possibility of creating a situation of chaos including violence and looting which would provide an excuse for the military and other non-military security forces to carry out a self-coup.
Chávez’s plan to pull Venezuela out of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) suggests that he is trying to solidify his authoritarian legacy.
“The last president to make a similar threat was Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori in 2000 when the IACHR had handed down a series of recommendations about death squad killings, the seizure of a private television station and the sacking of a constitutional court judge,” writes Christopher Sabatini is editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly and senior director of policy at the Americas Society and Council of the Americas:
The spectacle of two supposed ends of the ideological spectrum—the self-proclaimed socialist Chávez and the neoliberal Fujimori—railing against the IACHR is really not as surprising as it sounds. It’s the common bond of autocratic regimes that want to be free of international scrutiny and the obligations to protect and defend their own citizens that transcends ideology. And for those, the IACHR—which has stood in defense of human rights for over 50 years irrespective of the ideology of the government—makes a logical enemy.
