This is something I’ve wanted to share since returning from the presidential race in Venezuela back in January 2007. Chávez managed to accomplish what he did for one simple reason: the utter ineffectiveness of his opposition. Be it charismatic mayors, student leaders, regional governors, media barons, or regular politicians, it’s quite difficult to find another country where an opposition front is so pathetically ineffective. Chávez lost the amendment referendum in 2007 because he misjudged his electorate—those who cast votes and those who protect them. He didn’t lose because a few posh kids organized a couple of marches. He didn’t lose because Raúl Baduel threatened him. No. His first defeat occurred because he alienated his own military, governors, and public officials who feared granting him enough power to appoint shadow authorities and create new federal, regional, and municipal public institutions that could jeopardize their easy access and control of resources. If the results are to be believed, 3 million Chávez supporters did not vote, and Chávez was forced to concede.
In 2006, the opposition failed to cover 40% of the ballots. The 40% absence from the opposition across 33,000 polling stations amounted to 7 million votes for the incumbent. A year after that, the opposition still couldn’t cover all the stations, but the defeat— for Chávez—came from within because let’s be realistic: the Venezuelan opposition is about 4.5, maybe 5 million people who would vote for anyone but Chávez.
Now the country is facing another election. Having lost control of the most populated cities and states, Chávez must advance his attempt to secure indefinite reelection, amidst falling oil prices and his resulting decrease in popularity. Without money, there’s no love lost between the poor and Chávez. This is a straightforward, mercantilist relationship typical of the sheer materialism of all Venezuelans. The opposition is gearing up for what it does best: messing things up. Instead of highlighting the obvious illegality of the constitutional amendment/reform and the massive Chávez failure, they are dancing to the tune played by the coup plotter.
The latest incident was a meeting at the Maiquetía airport involving Alberto Federico Ravell (owner of Globovisión), Julio Borges (head of Primero Justicia), Luis Felipe Planas (chief of a political shell called COPEI), Omar Barbosa (co-owner of ONU Nuevo Tiempo), and a young man in his twenties from one of Chávez’s hundreds of community media networks. This seasoned group of politicians and media moguls had just returned from Puerto Rico, allegedly after meeting with U.S. State Department officials. On the agenda was a strategy to defeat Chávez’s attempt for indefinite reelection. The conversation went something like this: “Hey, Alberto, did you get instructions from the U.S. on how to defeat the amendment? How did it go? What’s your plan?” asked the young man. The owner of Venezuela’s only 24-hour news channel replied, “It was fine, we are not going to import radioactive material from Iran, we’re not seeking advice from Cuba…” Then Ravell commented on how he felt about the food he had, and in response, the young man accused him of being on the U.S. payroll. At this point, Ravell lost his cool and cursed, even making homophobic comments. But it got worse. The other three fools—Borges, Planas, and Barbosa—watched the whole spectacle and astonishingly couldn’t catch this kid who, by the way, isn’t even a journalist, but a product of Chávez’s warlike media factory, and he continued to ridicule them. You can see everything here.
I am truly outraged by this, not because of the aggressor who isn’t a journalist (obviously doing what chavistas are good at), but because of Ravell, who is, let’s not forget, the owner of the only 24/7 news network in Venezuela. Keep in mind this is the guy who travels the world ‘defending’ free speech while decrying the attacks against him, his network, and his staff. This is the guy who goes to Madrid with the director of El Nacional to complain to the King of Spain about the political situation. This is the guy who has eyes and ears at all opposition meetings, being a firsthand witness, while his partner cashes in on financial deals with the regime. So why does he travel abroad for political meetings? What’s in it for him? Who gave him the right to bring us more unnecessary shame and disrepute as an opposition? What about the other three? How is it that a handful of politicians can’t give a half-coherent response to a kid firing volleys? I’ll tell you why: the kid was telling the truth, or at least part of it. As they say in the land where I was born, “they were caught with their pants down and no paper.”
It is a genuine disgrace that the opposition leadership is in the hands of such treacherous and intellectually barren individuals. They deserve Chávez, who has already learned the news and will gain much from this.