Presidential elections in Venezuela

With only twelve days left before the December 3 Venezuelan presidential elections, the newspaper with the largest national circulation had as its major front page story: overweight women have a hard time finding clothes that fit them. Two days later, the principal headline informed the nation that the “hallaca,” a traditional Venezuelan Christmas meal, would be more expensive this year than last year in the government sponsored markets.
It is easy to see that the election campaigns are not the only item on people’s minds today and maybe not even the most important. Christmas is coming, a time for clothes and food, and, in addition, everyone already knows what the final result of the elections will be.
In my memory, the current campaigns here are very comparable to the pep rallies that we had before football games when I was in high school. Saint Mary’s High School in Cheyenne, Wyoming, had only about 200 students. That meant there were few males adequately built for the bruising game and even fewer who were willing to put their bodies on the scrimmage line to be beat to pieces by the other teams in the region. Throwing high-school-age students into a lion’s den might have been appropriate for the Roman Empire, but it probably should have seemed a bit strange for a Christian school to do the same with its own members.
Nevertheless, we always celebrated these events with pep rallies, hayrides and bonfires. We knew we were going to lose. From the time I was in first grade, I don’t think we ever had a winning season. But from time to time we did win a game over some smaller school and it kept our school’s name in the newspaper, which made us proud and happy.
The public school in Cheyenne did have a great team and they also had pep rallies, even though they didn’t really need them. Life simply needs celebrations.
And so last Saturday, the opposition candidate, Manuel Rosales, filled the streets with his supporters shouting their cry of, “Atrevete,” (Take a chance). On Sunday, the supporters of President Hugo Chávez filled another part of the city with, “Uh, ah, Chávez no se va,” (Uh, ah, Chávez won’t be leaving the presidential office).
The quantity of people in both cases was impressive and everyone seemed to be having fun. Rosales likes to say that those present at his demonstrations are there because they want to be; those supporting Chávez have to be there or they will lose their government jobs or benefits. However, I didn’t see any people at the Chávez gathering who looked as if they were forced to be there. The opposition newspapers and television stations mockingly showed the buses that were used to bring Chávez’s supporters to Caracas from outlying areas. But even if one hundred bodies came in each of the five hundred buses, the total would only amount to about 50,000 people, a small part of the hundreds of thousands present.
These acts were the closing rallies in Caracas, but the pep rally rituals will continue in other parts of the country until election day, when I predict that Chávez will win with more than 60 percent of the votes, the highest percentage ever. Why?
One reason is that all the major polls show him winning easily. Only Penn, Schoen and Berland who announced that he lost the referendum in 2004 think differently. At that time they used the help of Sumate, the Venezuelan organization partly funded by the U.S. government, to do their exit polling for them.
But a more important reason for me is the people with whom I have spoken recently. I will share three examples.
The owner of a restaurant told me that he had signed the document calling for a referendum to remove Chávez from office in 2004. He said he had since “seen the light” and was now planning to vote for Chávez.
In a travel agency I overheard the owner quoting Chávez as she spoke to someone on the telephone. When the conversation was over, I kidded her about that. She then announced that she was planning to vote for Chávez. For years her face has turned red with anger whenever his name was mentioned. The other day she was calm as she announced her voting decision. With all seriousness she said that she had come to see that he had done more for Venezuela than any other president in her lifetime.
However, contrary to the opinion of these two business people, the owner of a car wash announced that although he had voted for Chávez twice, he was going to vote for Rosales. He was not happy at all with Chávez.
Something struck me as particularly interesting about these three situations. The restaurant help were all pleasant, were conversing among themselves and seemed to be happy. The travel agency personnel have always been very professional in the attention they give their clients. The owner of the car wash, however, complained that only two of his four workers showed up to work that day. The two “workers” I saw were children about the ages of twelve or thirteen. Apparently child labor presented no problem for him. Down the street another car wash had all the adult help they needed—evidently paying a different wage than he does.
The biggest question here today is not who will win the elections but what will happen when the results are announced. This should not be taken lightly. Many people are worried that the opposition will not accept their defeat. Immediately after the recall referendum in 2004, the opposition cried, “fraud,” and said they would present proof within a day. No proof has ever emerged.
On television the other night, a Chávez supporter announced that 40,000 black t-shirts with “FRAUD” written on them had been discovered, ready for a similar campaign after Sunday’s elections. True or false, I don’t know, but it is very much indicative of the worries that abound. The owner of a bakery told me that in his home he has extra cooking oil, cornmeal flour, coffee, water, etc., just in case anything should happen. The U.S. embassy has urged its citizens here to follow a similar procedure.
I said to one friend that I would like to be in the center of Caracas Sunday night to see the celebration. The reply? Stay out of the center of Caracas.
Hopefully the elections will take place peacefully and everyone will accept the results. But even if calm does follow the elections on Sunday, don’t expect a bed of roses for Chávez for the next six years unless a sizeable part of that one-third of the population, that maintains it is the majority, decides to permanently move to Miami.
(Charles Hardy is author of a forthcoming book on Venezuela to be published by Curbstone Press. Other essays by Hardy can be found on his personal blog Cowboyincaracas.com . You may write him at cowboyincaracas@yahoo.com.)