January 30th., 2009

Chavez’ Campaign Style

A powerful adversary surged against Chavez:  The Students, who, daily, and around the country hold demonstrations against Chavez’ indefinite re election and that of all other officers of electoral origin.  Its most powerful weapon is the peaceful character of the students’ mobilization and their claim to live in a country wherein human rights are respected, specially the right for a plural university, wherein all ideas may be discussed with liberty and tolerance, without pretensions to impose a sole thought.  This is what is affirmed by the National Parliament of Youth and Students, recently organized with young ones of all the country.  Chavez’ reaction was an autobiographic chapter:  “I hereby order the Minister of Defense, the Minister of the Interior and the Head of the Metropolitan Police:  give them gas, the real one, the good one, and send them to jail.  On the contrary, I will deal (fire) with the responsible Chiefs”.  Military and police immediately complied with the orders.  A newspaper published a picture, on the front page, of a student leaning against a wall, with white hands up, terrorized, and in front of him, at only a few meters, a police man was aiming him with a gun.  The police and military launch tear gas, the real one, with mustard gas.  They shoot plastic bullets which frequently cause grave injuries to the demonstrators.  The most dangerous repressors are the “collective works”, generally those riding motorcycles, comprised of civilian paramilitary groups who undergo terrorist acts.  The new Metropolitan Mayor affirms that they were part of his antecessor’s payroll, and that now they are being paid by the Ministry of the Interior.  Officers of the Chacao and Baruta Mayors’ Offices were able to detain “infraganti” two of the motorists committing acts of violence, with a red uniform, and with criminal records.  They were put to the order of the District Attorney’s Office, who immediately ordered their freedom.

An independent newspaper reported that in one sole day, several people were assassinated on account of political reasons: in Valencia, a journalist from the opposition; in Barinas, another journalist from the opposition and in Caracas, a teacher, apparently for the same reasons, and furthermore, four young demonstrators.  Motorists, in red shirts, lit up the car of the president of the University Center Federation; they launched tear gas, for the second time, to the house of Marcel Granier, a directive of RCTV.  For the sixth time, they did the same thing against the Seat of the Nuncio, and their protest has had no response on the part of the government.  The “collective works”, when they launch the real bombs, they leave pamphlets, in order to attest their authorship.  On Tuesday, January 20, an armed group, whose leader was pro Chavez, assaulted the seat of the Ateneo, one of the institutions with the highest prestige, wherein, apart from undergoing cultural activities, it is the seat of NGO’s that defend human rights.  The attack was extended to the Museum of Natural Sciences, wherein they caused damages, stole purses and cellular phones, and all this in before the indifference of police picketing close by.  With the same use of the real bombs, the students were prevented from arriving to the Supreme Court of Justice, wherein they proposed to submit a Constitutional appeal for the right to vote.  Chavez affirmed that the demonstrators were small groups, not at all important, “bourgeoisies and pitiyanquis” that want to de stabilize the country, stimulated and financed by the US Embassy.

HE THREATENS WITH WAR IF THE OPPOSITION WINS

To maintain Venezuelans in a state of permanent tension has always been Chavez’ policy.  Analysts question what has led him to elevate the current scenery of aggressiveness and violence.  Every day there are news regarding new events of disrespect; launching of bombs in universities, use of tanks in the University in Tachira, detention and trial of university leaders.  The answers to such questions are varied.  For some, it is about the rage produced by the civic rebellion of the students.  For others, fear of an electoral defeat.  Such a criteria would explain exclusive dedication to the campaign and his imposition that the Ministers do the same as well as the higher ranking officers, and to extend the re election to other positions of popular election.  Chavez personally assumed the direction of the campaign.  Only a few deny his condition of an autocrat, that he abuses the control he holds over all the public powers, but he does it without modesty.  Those who sustain the opinion that he fears a new defeat, are backed up by the December and January surveys that gave the NO option a considerable advantage.  Others find that Chavez is conscious that the bad image of the government affects his party men and he tries to compact them with the argument that a defeat would be the end of the regime, of the benefits that they now enjoy.  Recently, in the tour to Tachira, he expressed:  “If the opposition reaches power there will be a war, since the people will not allow to be stripped of what has been accomplished in ten years of revolution”.  He added that the Governor’s  Offices won by the opposition will “try to eliminate all current programs, since they hate the people…to avoid that they may suppress the social programs I have decided to encourage the idea of an unlimited re election.  When I see all that they are doing, I say to myself, Uh Ah, Chavez is not leaving”.

Imitating Fidel, he decided to write a column, “Chavez’ lines”, which is published three times a week.  It is evident that at the end of the campaign he wants to accentuate the polarization around his personae. Luis Vicente Leon, a directive of Datanalisis, believes that the display of Chavez’ campaign has been of such magnitude that it has dulled the opposition, even if they hold a clear message regarding the rejection of the indefinite re election, in front of the overflow from the government, wherein the lack of equilibrium on information reaches inconceivable extremes, as well as the use of the State’s  resources and the control of the National Electoral Council (NEC) regarding publicity to favor the governments’  option.  He advises the opposition to look for alternative communication channels, since apart from the fact that they lack economic resources, the NEC has placed publicity for the government in the best hours and Chavez, in three weeks, has made more than 40 acts of propaganda using the State’s TV or national TV chains of the radio electric means.

The Constitution provides for impartiality and transparency of the electoral entities.  It prohibits government officials from any activity oriented to induce voters, and likewise it forbids them to use money or property from the State to undergo electoral activities.  The Suffrage Law prohibits use of “symbols of the Nation, and of the name or pictures of the Libertador”.  Frequently you may see the President dressed with the colors of the flag and his campaign commando is called Simon Bolivar.  Political Parties and civilian organizations have gone to the NEC and the Electoral Chamber requesting the compliance of the legal order.  In both entities, the recourses have been denied, or declared without cause on account of lack of evidence.  A respectable Jurist drafted a book regarding notorious and public facts wherein Chavez has violated the Constitution and laws regarding electoral matter.  The chapters dedicated to the referendum are bulky.

MILITARY, REFERENDUM AND CONSTITUTION

The Military seem induced by Chavez to constitute as important actors of the referendum.  The Plan Republica exists and empowers them to collaborate in the electoral processes.  The International Observers have shown their surprise for the military presence in an activity that corresponds exclusively to civilians.  The Director of the Tal Cual newspaper, Teodoro Petkoff, has insisted in that the Plan Republica must adjust to the functions inherent to it.  In a press conference called by the Vice President of the Republic, accompanied by high ranking officers, the Head of the Plan Republica, General Gonzalez Gonzalez gave a press conference from the Presidential Palace and in a rude tone he rejected the declarations by Petkoff, for having “disqualified” the Armed Forces.  The Vice President, Colonel Carrizales, stated that the Military “are very clear on what is their role in the Bolivarian Revolution” and Gonzalez qualified Petkoff of being “a liar, a traitor, and an extortionist”.  He emphasized that it is the President who must give the action lines to the Plan Republica, “and he does so very clearly”.           

Petkoff wrote and editorial that was the talk of the town all week, telling Gonzalez that “he would not follow his example, disqualifying and insulting, qualifying his newspaper as a little paper and pamphlet”.  He added that “such pamphlet”, curiously, made them honor it with a press conference from Miraflores in which the Head of the Plan Republica appeared accompanied by his higher ranking officers and the Vice President.  He pointed out that the Military may not check the credentials of the members of the voting tables and the witnesses since that is not a function of the Plan Republica, as sustained by Gonzalez, but exclusively of civil personnel that has been designated for such purposes.

He ratified that in the former elections, there were cases wherein at the time of closing, electoral tables had been obliged to stay open so that groups of voters were transported by government vehicles by party people from the PSUV, and that in some cases, it was military officers who were empowered to extend the voting event.  That there were also cases wherein several military tried, and some times succeeded, to open the tables that had already closed so that people brought by the government were able to vote.  Petkoff affirms that to point out such irregularities does not constitute “an attack” to the Armed Forces, but a contribution so that the Military do not undertake, in electoral events, functions that are forbidden to them by the Constitution.  “Finally, he requests General Gonzalez to show which article of the Constitution states that the Armed Forces is at the service of the Revolution”, as he claimed in the press conference.  “Excuse me, but Article 328 of the Constitution states the following:  the Armed Forces constitutes an institution, essentially professional, without political militancy.  Within the compliance of its functions, it is at the exclusive service of the Nation and in no case to the service of any one person or any political partiality”.  Petkoff’s affirmations have been a matter of permanent questioning and recourses before the National Electoral Council.  Its President called for a press conference “to affront the perverse matrix” that according to her, some means of communication have been generating against the Electoral entity.  She defended the Plan Republica, of whom she assured “defends with dignity the security of the election centers”.  Inspiring herself in Chavez’ words, she assured that “the February 15 referendum will allow, once more, to demonstrate the world that the Venezuelan electoral system is an example of impartiality, accuracy and transparency”.