Share

Venezuela Update: Electoral Prospects for 2012

By Ryan Berger and Guillermo Zubillaga

In February, the opposition will choose its candidate to compete against President Hugo Chávez in the October 2012 presidential election. AS/COA looks at the candidates and some of the top issues.

Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s charismatic and mercurial president, will compete for a third term when the country votes on October 7, 2012. In office since 1999, this time around the president faces the dual challenges of his long-term health (despite a recent declaration of being “cancer-free”) and a united opposition movement gearing up to choose its candidate during a primary slated for February 12, 2012.

The main opposition bloc—known as the Coalition for Democratic Unity (MUD)—comes into the election after winning nearly the same number of votes as Chávez’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) in the September 2010 parliamentary election. These 2010 results brought renewed momentum for the opposition after its boycott of the 2005 legislative elections resulted in a wave of PSUV victories that widened the president’s influence over Venezuelan state institutions.

The opposition will certainly be stronger in 2012, but Chávez—a self-proclaimed revolutionary—remains confident, expressing desire to hold office for 20 more years. Positing about next year, he said, “It will be easier for a donkey to pass through the eye of a needle than for the opposition to win the elections.”

Leading Opposition Candidates

Although many candidates seek to compete against Chávez, each candidate and their party signed a unity pact to rally behind whoever wins the primary. That winner will be chosen by the 17 million Venezuelans registered to vote with the results counted by Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE)—an independent oversight body in charge of administering elections. Although the primary is just a few months away, youth movements and student associations are aggressively pushing for a debate among the MUD candidates.

The leading MUD candidates include:

  • Henrique Capriles Radonski of Primero Justicia. He is governor of the state of Miranda, and before assuming that position in 2008, Capriles had also served as president of the Chamber of Deputies. (The 1999 constitutional reform merged the Chamber and Senate into a unicameral National Assembly.)
  • Antonio Ledezma of Alianza Bravo Pueblo. The mayor of the Capital District of Caracas—serving in his current position since 2008—has a long career in politics and previously served as mayor of Caracas’ Libertador municipality as well as a national senator and deputy.
  • Leopoldo López of Voluntad Popular. From 2008 to 2010,* López was the mayor of the Chacao municipality of Caracas, and had planned to run for mayor of the Capital District of Caracas in 2008. Instead, he was issued a six-year ban from public office due to alleged corruption. This ban was overturned by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) in September but summarily upheld by Venezuela’s Supreme Court earlier this month—a move that put Venezuela in conflict with its obligations to uphold the judgements of the IACHR. López has nonetheless committed to campaigning for the 2012 election. The Supreme Court ruling was particularly confusing; it permits López to run for office but prohibits him from assuming the presidency if he wins the election.
  • María Corina Machado. Although she is a political independent, Machado has already collected the requisite number of signatures—1 percent of the 17 million sum—to run on the MUD ticket. She is an assemblywoman representing the state of Miranda in the National Assembly and previously led Súmate, a civic organization.
  • Pablo Pérez of Un Nuevo Tiempo (UNT). The governor of the state of Zulia since 2008, he is an apprentice of Manuel Rosales, the founder of UNT and former governor of Zulia. Rosales led the challenge against Chávez in the 2006 election.

At the end of September, the Caracas-based firm Datanálisis polled likely voters and found that if the election were held this month, 37 percent would support Chávez, 31 percent someone from the opposition, and 32 percent did not respond. In a survey released this week of likely MUD voters, it found that the top three opposition candidates were Capriles (39.8 percent), López (20.4 percent), and Pérez (16.8 percent). Capriles, the leading candidate in this poll, has pledged to lead Venezuela in a similar manner as Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s popular ex-president. In a recent interview, Capriles said, “Brazil is an example to the region of how you can achieve economic growth with social vision.”

Chávez’s Health: What Do We Really Know?

President Chávez, 57, despite being an outspoken and visible public figure, has still not disclosed the details of his cancer roughly four months after his first surgery. However, Salvador Navarrete, a surgeon who treated Chávez in 2002, told Mexican news outlet M Semanal in an interview published last week that he believes Chávez has an aggressive malignant tumor in his pelvis—a diagnosis which carries a life expectancy of only two additional years.

Not surprisingly, a divisive firestorm ensued in the media. Fierce allies of the Chávez regime instigated a strong rebuke of the claims, causing Navarrete to flee the country less than one week after the interview’s publication for fear of his personal safety. The president’s physicians said that, “The current status [of Chávez] is quite satisfactory with an excellent prognosis.” Yet many medical professionals agree that two years would have to elapse after a patient’s chemotherapy treatment to declare oneself free from cancer. This leads many to suspect that Chávez’s claim to a clean bill of health is premature.

Socioeconomic Issues

The economy and security will be top concerns among Venezuelan voters. Jorge Giordani, Venezuela’s planning minister, projects a 5 percent growth rate in 2012, but inflation rose by 26.7 percent from September 2010 to September 2011.

Ahead of the elections, Giordani has already announced plans to ramp up domestic spending by as much as 46 percent next year—a move that worries investors. A recent report from Barclays Capital warns about Venezuela’s recent $3 billion sale of bonds in the local market. It notes that the issuance “confirms that [Chávez] is planning a large increase in public expenditures in the next 12 months ahead of the presidential election, and in order to do so, it seems willing to issue as much as possible.” These particular bonds can be resold overseas by local investors to obtain dollars, a more stable currency, thus continuing a healthy flow of imports.

But the domestic spending is aimed to address the poorest sectors of the population. As much as 67 percent of Venezuelans suffer from food shortages, and the ubiquity of slums and inadequate housing throughout the country has generated attention all the way up to the Palacio de Miraflores. President Chávez has noted that he takes the issue “personally” and has launched the Grand Housing Mission, which aims to build 2 million new units by 2017.

Given the heavy dependence on the oil sector—95 percent of exports are petroleum oriented—exports will need to remain high for strong economic growth. In 2010, oil exports fell by 6 percent to 2.32 million barrels per day (bpd).

However, the recent discovery of the Orinoco Belt of extra-heavy crude has attracted the interest of many multinational firms. According to the Oil and Gas Journal, Venezuelan reserves totaled 211 billion barrels of oil in 2011—the second-largest quantity of reserves in the world. State oil firm Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. intends to aggressively develop the Orinoco project, aiming to lift petroleum production to 4.03 million bpd by 2014.

In addition to the economy, security is still a main issue among the Venezuelan electorate, even according to pollsters with ties to the government. Faced with this perennial challenge, the Chávez regime has decided to punish media organizations who report on pervasive insecurity. Globovisión, for example, was fined $2 million last week.

The economy, security, Chávez’s health, and the strength of the opposition will all be factors that shape the 2012 campaign and the election outcome.

*Editor’s Note: An original version of this article incorrectly stated the years that Leopoldo López served as mayor of the Chacao municipality of Caracas. The correct years of his tenure in that position are 2000 to 2008.

Related

Explore