As usual, there are plenty of myths floating around when it comes to Venezuela. It is the land of magical realism. Just the other day, I was reading a story in El Universal where Chávez basically claimed that thanks to him, the GDP of Venezuela has tripled indefinitely. At this point, it’s pointless to call out Chávez on his nonsense: the poor man is so disturbed that he believes his own lies. Alarmingly, apart from notable exceptions from the usual suspects, no one in Venezuela’s high society, or abroad, seems to have noticed this news or ridiculed the caudillo for such a spurious ‘achievement.’
But now we have the topic of the primaries just around the corner. On February 12, Venezuelans will vote in the primaries intended to select the opposition unity candidate who will face Chávez in the presidential race of October 2012. There are six candidates in these primaries: an acting deputy (María Corina Machado), a former diplomat (Diego Arria), a former deputy (Pablo Medina), two current governors (Henrique Capriles Radonsky of Miranda and Pablo Pérez of Zulia), and a former mayor (Leopoldo López).
Chávez’s Ministry of Elections, also known as the National Electoral Council (CNE), will oversee the opposition candidate election. Nationwide. Venezuelans abroad, mostly opposition supporters, will presumably cast their votes at Venezuelan embassies and consulates. As in previous electoral occasions, none of these votes will reach their intended destination, and that’s not a myth.
The myth that needs to be debunked today is the article by Francisco Toro in Foreign Policy, “A Real Race in Caracas.” Toro, a long-time political scientist and blogger who should really be better informed, tells his readers that what is happening in Caracas is more or less the same as what is happening in the U.S. among Republican candidates. It’s quite difficult to imagine what kind of framework allows for a comparison between the two primaries.
In the U.S., Republican candidates raise their own money without limits; travel across the country competing in elections held on various undefined dates; in elections organized and led by state and local governments; are free to participate frequently in scathing attacks to undermine each other; have the liberty to decide their own policy and communication strategy indefinitely in front of the primaries; in short, it’s a highly competitive race, marked by individualism, where strategy and communication policy are determined by the candidates and appointed strategists, and purchasing power depends on fundraising capacity, with credibility among party loyalists, more than connections, being able to win the day.
Compare that with Venezuela, a “real race” according to Toro, where the rules of engagement for everyone willing to participate in the primaries were “agreed on” by a non-elected group of old-school politicians, the same ones that when Toro disagrees with he calls “politically toxic,” yet when he agrees refers to as “oracles”: “…I read other experts, but I follow Teodoro Petkoff…” It’s no surprise then that the Venezuelan opposition primaries have been “remarkably free of personal attacks,” as Toro argues.
Supposedly, Petkoff is working with the same group of unelected politicians responsible for choosing the last opposition candidate to face Chávez in 2006, Manuel Rosales. I followed Rosales in that campaign. I witnessed the power that Teodoro wields over the political ‘intelligentsia’ of Caracas. But it should be noted: Rosales was defeated, but Teodoro and his ilk are back, “directing” opposition politics and imposing their will on all candidates. Those who disagree are, in Toro’s words, “politically toxic.” Those wishing to see Chávez judged for his crimes are “the far-right, the extremists, the radicals.” That line, the line of Teodoro, is followed by Toro and other members of the leftist “neointelligentsia.” And it’s worth noting: Petkoff and his fellow ‘strategists’ of the old guard have yet to beat Chávez in an election.
Petkoff must be mentioned, as he edits a newspaper called Tal Cual, partly owned by Miguel Ángel Capriles López, cousin of Henrique Capriles Radonsky. Capriles López also owns Venezuela’s largest newspaper, which chavistas avidly read: Últimas Noticias.
Within this framework, the blog Transition from Foreign Policy publishes Toro’s failed attempt to portray the upcoming presidential elections in Venezuela as a “real race.” The reality, in that context, is to run a primary under the ominous and almost absolute control of Chávez. Because on February 13, Chávez will know precisely, thanks to his Ministry of Elections, the number, name, and location of the hardline opposition voters: those voting in the primaries. He then has seven months and unlimited amounts of money to prepare for what will almost certainly be his third victory in presidential elections, if cancer doesn’t get him first.
Toro is writing for a progressive and liberal audience. Leftists. By making comparisons where parallels may not even exist, Toro is jeopardizing the future of Venezuela and solidifying the myth that Venezuela is a democracy. Because make no mistake: that country is far from having free and fair elections, or a “real race,” which are among the many premises that define functional democracies. A race in which a candidate uses the power of the state, without the slightest hint of superficial checks, cannot be called “real.” Not even in the rarefied and completely surreal atmosphere of decadent progressives.
Toro imagines Capriles Radonsky as the main winner. He has every right to publish hagiographies for his chosen candidate. But a “real race”? That’s a sick joke. Attacks on other candidates, whom he labels as “hard right,” like María Corina Machado, are completely baseless, out of place, and false. The reality is that the six candidates, unlike the northern Republican candidates, face the same likely prospect: six more years of Chávez. In that context, some, like Capriles Radonsky, have adopted populist discourses aimed at winning over chavistas – a virtually impossible goal, if you ask me – and they promise to leave everything almost as it is, knowing that this careless way of governing has brought the country to the brink of bankruptcy. Those defining their campaigns with clear breaks from the hated past, after 13 years, that past is Chavismo, are ridiculed as radicals. The others, read Capriles, Pérez, and López, are labeled as centrists by Toro. What nonsense without foundation. Capriles and Pérez are, quite clearly and historically, leftists and populists, openly admitting their willingness to continue with the welfare state, while López simply cannot be described as anything other than right-wing.
There is no significant competition in Venezuela when candidates are muzzled by rules that some of them were not even allowed to participate in imposing. What we see with the MUD (opposition coalition) is a mirror of Chavismo: the only difference is that in Chavismo only one voice shouts orders, while on the opposition side a non-elected group of obscure players comes to impose “the best” for all.