Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean | Analysis

VENEZUELA: Opposition Win Key Districts

Analysis by Humberto Márquez

CARACAS, Nov 24 2008 (IPS) - The followers of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez are celebrating a sweet and sour victory, because while they won 17 of the 22 states up for grabs in Sunday’s regional elections, the opposition took the most populous and politically and economically important states.

The opposition held onto the two states it had won four years ago and won three other key states. In addition, it won the mayoral seats in Caracas and Maracaibo, the country’s second-largest city.

Chávez, who personally ran the campaign in critical states, modified his previously confrontational tone: “I, as head of state, congratulate you, recognise your triumph, and hope that they will recognise the head of government, the constitution, and the people.”

The opposition leaders who were elected also offered to work together with the central government.

And everyone involved in the process, starting with the president of the National Electoral Council, Tibisay Lucena, celebrated the heavy turnout of nearly 66 percent – an unusually high rate for regional and municipal elections.

The high turnout was partly due to the fact that Chávez turned the vote into a referendum on his leadership, repeating over and over again that a vote for his allies was a vote for him.

Since Chávez took office in 1999, elections of one kind or another have been held just about every year, and the results have remained largely the same: the country remains politically divided in two parts, with a majority in favour of the left-wing president.

“There is a balance of forces in favour of Chavismo, but with an opposition that are recovering from the mistakes they made earlier this decade, and that are consolidating their hold over certain areas, mainly in urban middle- and upper-class districts, and winning in new areas,” sociologist Leopoldo Puchi, a leader of the centre-left Movement Towards Socialism, told IPS.

The results

Luis León, director of the Datanálisis polling firm, commented to IPS that “the symbols gained by the opposition were better than what could have been hoped for, because they won in the capital and in states that represent the country’s economic and political heart.”

The opposition held onto the states of Zulia and Nueva Esparta. The former, an oil-producing and agricultural state in the northwest, on the border with Colombia, is the most populous, richest state, and has a distinct regional culture.

Zulia Governor Manuel Rosales, who faces serious allegations of corruption, ran against the president in 2003, taking 38 percent of the vote, compared to Chávez’s 61 percent. On Sunday, he was reelected as mayor of Maracaibo, the capital of Zulia, while his heir apparent, Pablo Pérez, was elected governor.

Nueva Esparta, a state heavily dependent on tourism that comprises Margarita Island and other Venezuelan islands in the Caribbean, remained a solid opposition stronghold.

The opposition also won the state of Carabobo, the main manufacturing region, west of Caracas, and Táchira, in the Andean highlands on the western border with Colombia, which like Zulia has a very strong regional identity.

The fifth state that went to the opposition is Miranda, the second-biggest in terms of population, as it includes the eastern part of Caracas. It is a state of commuter suburbs, tourism and agriculture.

In addition, the opposition took the capital, home to 60 percent of the residents of Greater Caracas.

One painful outcome for Chávez and his allies was the loss of Petare, where nearly one-third of Caracas residents live, mainly in shantytowns that line the hills. The working-class district, a bastion of Chavismo, elected young opposition leader Carlos Ocariz, who beat Jesse Chacón, a member of the president’s inner circle.

Analysts like Puchi and Oscar Schémel of the Hinterlaces polling firm said that in some cases, like Petare and Miranda state, voters punished political leaders seen as ineffective or out of touch with the poor.

The president’s allies won several Andean highlands states, industrial and agricultural states in the north, oil-producing states in the east, mining and industrial states in the southeast, and states in the central and western plains region.

One major gain for Chavismo was the defeat of dissidents who refused to join the president’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), and who ran unsuccessfully in half a dozen states, in some cases backed by the Communist and Fatherland for All parties.

The five states whose governors, elected in alliances backed by Chávez in 2004, distanced themselves from the president in the last 18 months, were recovered by Chávez allies, with the exception of Carabobo, which went to Henrique Salas, the representative of a kind of opposition political dynasty.

More multi-coloured map

The states and key cities won by the opposition, along with dozens of smaller towns offer a more variegated political map of Venezuela and opportunities for building new leaderships.

The opposition “has returned to the state apparatus,” sociologist Tulio Hernández told IPS. The 2005 parliamentary elections were boycotted by the opposition, and as a result all 167 seats in the legislature were taken by Chávez supporters.

From the posts they have won, “the opposition have the opportunity to perform well at the regional and local level, to gain strength as an alternative, and to build an alternative leadership and political project,” said Hernández.

The areas governed by the opposition are home to 45 percent of the population and generate 70 percent of the country’s GDP.

León said that with the new panorama, “Chávez will have to negotiate in key regions and will not be able to carry out the threats he made during the campaign,” like sending some opponents to jail on corruption charges or cutting off funding to opposition governments.

Now what?

First, Chávez will have to take a careful look at the outcome of the elections to determine whether or not it is a good idea to once again attempt to push through a constitutional amendment that would allow him to run for president indefinitely after his current six-year term ends in January 2013.

A constitutional amendment including that change and a raft of reforms of the state was narrowly voted down by 51 percent of voters in a referendum in late 2007.

Nor did the opposition win enough votes to seriously consider another recall referendum – Chávez handily won such a referendum in August 2004 with 67 percent of the vote – or to try to convene a new constituent assembly to overhaul the constitution that was rewritten under Chávez.

The opposition will now have to wait until the 2010 parliamentary elections to gain new ground.

The defeat of Chávez allies in Caracas, Carabobo and Zulia could lead to a reshuffling of forces within the governing PSUV.

It is not yet clear whether Chávez will interpret the results as giving him a new mandate to “deepen the revolution,” as he did when he was reelected in 2006 with 61 percent of the vote.

The outlook will be more complex next year, due to the plunge in oil prices in the context of the current global financial crisis.