This morning, Venezuela woke up to a clearly different political landscape: Hugo Chávez has lost in the country’s most populated areas, specifically in Caracas, Miranda, Carabobo, and Zulia. The loss of Caracas is particularly significant, especially considering the opponent he faced: a veteran from the once-powerful party Acción Democrática, Antonio Ledezma.
But it gets better. In a country where the vast majority of the population is urban, historically concentrated in a few large and densely populated cities filled with poor neighborhoods, Hugo Chávez and his handpicked candidates have suffered defeats. The argument that he enjoys massive support among the poor has been shattered by the victory of Carlos Ocariz from Primero Justicia in Petare, arguably the largest slum in Latin America.
Thus, Chávez no longer has the backing of the majority of votes in Venezuela’s most populated regions, nor have his candidates won a single election in any of the country’s universities, casting a very bleak shadow over his future, especially with the plummeting oil prices. Of course.
The red tide is washing away, folks. You can fool some people all the time, and all people for some time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.