People's Democracy

Venezuela: US Destabilisation Game Continues

Yohannan Chemarapally

OPINION polls published a few days before the April 14 presidential elections in Venezuela had predicted a comfortable victory for the designated successor of Hugo Chavez, Nicolas Maduro. But the final results came in as a bit of a surprise. Maduro could win with only a little more than 1.8 percentage point over his right wing opponent, Henrique Caprilles Radonski.

WAKE-UP CALL

FOR RULING PARTY

The result has come up as a wake-up call for the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela. Under the leadership of President Chavez, the party had virtually swept the board in the elections for state governors in December 2012. In the elections held in last October, Chavez had handily defeated Caprilles by more than a million votes. A significant bulk of those votes has thus shifted to Caprilles within a span of just six months, and that too to a candidate supported by the oligarchs. It should not, however, be forgotten that Chavez also tasted defeat, narrowly, when he lost a referendum in 2007 to bring changes to the presidential term limits in the constitution.

Opinion polls taken a few weeks before the hurriedly arranged presidential elections had indicated that the sympathy factor following the death of Chavez would not translate into votes. This time, unlike in October last, the opposition was fully united behind one candidate. But the opposition had obviously no realistic hopes of winning, and it had already started alleging that the election was anyway going to be rigged. Caprilles went to the extent of saying that Maduro would not be able to complete his term as president, as he lacked the stature to hold such a high office. Even before the voting booths opened, the opposition was already talking about a “recall” election, in order to destabilise the Bolivarian revolution. The Venezuelan constitution has a clause which allows a referendum to be held for the recall of the president.

The opposition in the normal course of things should have been happy with its performance but it chose to dangerously up the ante by alleging fraud and taking violently to the streets. As many as 18 primary health centres and three fair price shops were targeted, resulting in the deaths of seven people. Dispensaries working in poor rural neighbourhoods and manned by Cuban doctors were attacked. Maduro described the opposition’s resort to violence as an attempt to take “Venezuela off the road of democracy.” The international community knows that the Venezuelan electoral system is among the fairest in the world. Former US president, Jimmy Carter, described it the most transparent in the world. “As a matter of fact, of the 92 elections that we’ve monitored, I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world,” Carter had remarked in September 2012.

OPPOSITION

UPS THE ANTE

Caprilles wasted no time in denouncing the Maduro victory as “illegitimate.” Among the few international takers for the claim, not surprisingly however, was the Obama administration. The US secretary of state, John Kerry, called for a recount and was not ready to recognise Maduro as the winner. The president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, said that the US was planning to stage another coup in Venezuela by questioning the legality of the elections. “I am certain that behind those remarks, the United States is preparing a coup d’état in Venezuela,” the Bolivian president said.

The Venezuelan Electoral Commission urged the losing candidate to use “legal methods” to pursue his complaints. The commission was quick to audit 54 per cent of votes immediately after the complaints from the opposition, in front of observers from both sides. No mistakes were found. But yet the opposition shrilly kept on insisting the immediate manual recount of all the votes cast in the elections. In Venezuela, like in India, the votes are electronically counted and the electoral system is completely computerised. There are two records of every ballot — the paper vote and the electronic vote. The Election Commission announced on April 16 that it would carry out a full audit of the votes. The opposition was fully aware that the audit of the remaining 46 per cent of the votes was not going to change the results.

From the outset, Maduro had said that he welcomed a “full recount.” “If they want an audit, then do an audit. We have complete trust in our electoral body,” he said. All the charges of electoral skulduggery that Caprilles has made have proved to be unsubstantiated. All the regional organisations, including the Organisation of American States (OAS) and the regional blocs Mercosur and Unasur, were quick in recognising the victory of Maduro. The NAM also issued a statement supporting the Venezuelan government and calling for stability and cessation of violence. Venezuela’s Election Commission had invited 150 international observers to cover the elections.

US GAME OF

DESTABILISATION

Since the abortive military coup against Chavez in 2002, the US State Department has been working overtime to destabilise the Venezuelan government. An investigative article published by the Brazilian Agency for Investigation Reporting and Journalism — Publica, has detailed the strategy of the Bush administration to bring about regime change in Venezuela. The former US ambassador to Caracas from 2004 to 2006, William Brownfield, had formulated a five point plan to destabilise the government. The plan included funnelling huge funds to the opposition allegedly to strengthen democracy, subverting the mass base of the ruling party and isolating Chavez internationally. Brownfield is currently the US assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. According to the Publica report, Washington had spent 15 million dollars for the technical assistance and training of over 300 civil society groups in Venezuela. The money was channelled through the US Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) that was specifically set up after the failed 2002 coup.

A US state department cable, exposed by Wikileaks described the USAID-OTI activities were mainly aimed at “undermining the credibility of the Venezuelan government.” The cable by Brownfield said that the strengthening of democratic institutions opposed to the Venezuelan government “represents the majority of USAID-OTI work in Venezuela.” The OTI funded over 50 social projects with the aim of “fostering confusion within the Bolivarian ranks.” The Wikileaks cable went on to say that the OTI had reached “238,000 Venezuelans through over 3,000 forums, workshops and training sessions delivering alternative values and providing opportunities for opposition activists to interact with hardcore Chavistas, with the desired effect of pulling them slowly away from Chavismo.” The Venezuelan government forced Washington to close the offices of the OTI in 2010.

The opposition, however, seems to have imbibed the political coaching given from Washington. Caprilles ran on a populist plank, promising to continue virtually all of Chavez’s welfare programmes. According to reports in the Venezuelan media, he even adopted Chavez’s distinctive style of speaking, peppering his speeches with anecdotes. He repeatedly compared himself with another socialist, the former Brazilian president, Lula da Silva. On the campaign trail, he said that if elected he would immediately raise the salaries of workers by 46.5 per cent. Maduro had to play catch-up and promise a similar hike. By virtue of having run for the governor and president posts earlier, Caprilles had become a seasoned campaigner. This time around he shifted his focus from Chavez and trained his gun solely on Maduro, claiming that he was not competent to lead the country.

THE NATION IS STRONG,

THE NATION IS AWOKEN

The privately owned media that overwhelmingly supports the opposition kept harping on Maduro’s working class background and his beginnings as a bus driver. Maduro is, however, proud of his working class roots. He drove a bus to register his candidacy for the presidency. Maduro did not help his cause much by pushing ideological issues to the background and talking about the importance of spirituality and “the conversation with a bird” carrying a message from Commandante Chavez. The opposition also used a photograph of Maduro with the late Indian “godman,” Satya Sai Baba, to paint a picture of him being a non-Christian in a predominantly Catholic country.  

In the run-up to the April elections, the country had experienced another spurt in inflation following the devaluation of the currency. Due mainly to the ambitious welfare programmes the government had undertaken, which included free healthcare and education along with subsidised food for the poor, the central bank was facing a liquidity crunch. The government had to curtail some of its food imports earlier in the year, leading to shortages of some essential commodities. All these factors made the government, which was now under the effective charge of Maduro, susceptible to the propaganda unleashed by the opposition. After the results of the tightly fought election were announced, the president of the National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello, who belongs to the ruling party and was a close associate of Chavez, said that the results “oblige us to make a profound self-criticism.” He said that it was “contradictory for the poor sectors of the population to vote for their long time exploiters.” But the overwhelming majority of the Chavistas did not abandon the ship. They no doubt remembered that Caprilles was among the enthusiastic supporters of the abortive 2002 CIA sponsored coup against Chavez.

In a televised address following the elections, President Maduro said that the American intervention in the country’s politics, particularly during the months before the presidential election, has been “brutal and vulgar --- and in direct coordination with the oligarchs.” Though Maduro did not specify the actions undertaken by the Americans, the government has been accusing the USAID, the US National Endowment for Democracy and the International Republican Institute for strategising and financing the opposition’s election campaign. According to the investigative reporter, Eva Gollinger, Caprilles was an early beneficiary of funds from the National Endowment for Democracy and the International Republican Institute in 2001 when he formed his Justice First Party.

President Maduro has emphasised that the “peaceful revolution” started by Chavez would be further consolidated. “The media myth that our political project would fall apart without Chavez was a fundamental misreading of Venezuela’s revolution,” Maduro wrote in an opinion piece which appeared in the Guardian newspaper. In a speech he delivered after being formally sworn in as president, Maduro pledged to “construct an independent, free and socialist Venezuela for all.” At the same time he warned the opposition against promoting “xenophobia” in Venezuela. He was alluding to the targeting of Cuban-staffed health clinics in the country by opposition supporters after the election results were announced. Maduro also said that the opposition is determined to reject the conclusions of the Election Commission and that “they have another plan.” He emphasised that the “nation is strong, it is awoken” and is ready to face more attempts at violence and sabotage. In his inaugural speech, Maduro made the announcement of achieving “zero poverty” in Venezuela by 2019.