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2012 Venezuelan presidential election

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Venezuelan presidential election, 2012
← 2006 7 October 2012
  File:Hcr.jpg
Candidate Hugo Chávez Henrique Capriles Radonski
Party PSUV PJ
Alliance GPPSB MUD
Incumbent President

Hugo Chávez
PSUV



Venezuela will hold elections on 7 October 2012, also referred to as 7-0, to choose a president for the six-year term beginning February 2013.

The candidates are incumbent Hugo Chávez, representing the Great Patriotic Pole (Gran Polo Patriótico, GPP), and Henrique Capriles Radonski, the candidate chosen by the opposition Coalition for Democratic Unity (Mesa de la Unidad Democrática, MUD).

Patriotic Pole

Incumbent president Hugo Chávez Frías announced he would seek re-election at a University Students' Day rally held in Caracas in November 2010; his first mandate began in 1999, and should he be reelected for the 2013–19 term, he will have served 20 years as president. In July 2011, Chávez reaffirmed his intent to run in spite of his battle with cancer.

Chávez is supported by the Great Patriotic Pole (GPP), an electoral coalition led by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela, PSUV) – which has been in power since 1999. A member of a GPP collective said to Venezuelanalysis.com that the GPP was created in 2011 to support Chávez' re-election and "formally unites 35,000 Venezuelan movements and collectives" as well as Chávez-supporting political parties.

Democratic Unity

The opposition parties are grouped in the Coalition for Democratic Unity whose candidate was selected through an open primary election held on 12 February 2012. The MUD electoral coalition consists of the parties Justice First (Movimiento Primero Justicia, PJ), Fatherland for All (Patria Para Todos, PPT), Project Venezuela (Proyecto Venezuela) and Popular Will (Voluntad Popular, VP) as the main supporters of Henrique Capriles in the primary elections of February 2012. Other parties in the coalition include A New Era (Un Nuevo Tiempo, UNT), Democratic Action (Acción Democrática, AD), COPEI, Movement to Socialism (Movimiento al Socialismo, MAS).

Henrique Capriles Radonski, the Democratic Unity candidate, has been the governor of the country's second largest state, Miranda, since 2008, was twice elected mayor of the Municipality of Baruta (2000–08), president of the defunct Venezuelan Chamber of Deputies (1999–2000) and vice-president of the Venezuelan congress prior to that. He is a founding member of the Justice First party. The Washington Times says he is a moderate with center-left views.

MUD primary elections

Capriles won the opposition primaries with 1,900,528 (64.2%) votes of the 3,059,024 votes cast (votes abroad not included). The other candidates on the 12 February primary ballot were:

Voter list dispute

See also: Tascón List

A dispute erupted after the primary elections over the disposition of the voter rolls, rising out of concern that opposition voters could incur reprisals. Because the names of voters who had participated in the request of the 2004 recall referendum against Chávez had been made public via the Tascón List and, according to opposition leaders, those voters were later targeted for discrimination or lost jobs, the MUD had guaranteed voter secrecy. On Tuesday 14 February, Venezuela's Supreme Court ordered the military to collect the voting rolls "so that electoral authorities could use them to investigate alleged irregularities during Sunday's elections".

An attorney for the opposition said that records are to be destroyed within 48 hours by law. Violence broke out as the opposition attempted to prevent police from collecting the names of voters. One young man, Arnaldo Espinoza, was run over and killed by a police tow truck that backed up suddenly, attempting to separate people who were protecting the vehicle belonging to the vice-president of the regional office for the primary elections in the state of Aragua. Later the opposition declared all voter rolls had been destroyed.

Other Opposition candidates

Leopoldo López was barred from running following corruption charges which he denied and for which he was never tried; in 2011, the Interamerican Court of Human Rights overturned the Venezuelan government ruling and said he should be allowed to run. On 24 January, placed "in the awkward position of being able to stand for elections but not hold office", he withdrew his candidacy to support Henrique Capriles Radonski.

Candidates César Pérez Vivas (governor of Táchira state), Antonio Ledezma (mayor of the Metropolitan District of Caracas) and Eduardo Fernández (former secretary general of COPEI) withdrew from the race, saying they would support candidates with better chances of winning.

Campaign

The authority of the Venezuelan National Electoral Council (CNE) to oversee the election was recognized by the opposition. Chávez said the fairness of the CNE should not be challenged.

According to the Washington Times, Chávez has said the opposition represents "the rich and the U.S."; as part of his campaign, he increased social spending and investments to benefit the poor, and plans to launch a satellite made in China before the elections. Capriles criticized Chávez for expropriating private businesses and for the government's use of the state-controlled media; it will be hard for him to compete with Chávez's "ability to take over the airwaves of all TV and radio stations when he deems appropriate".

On 15 February 2012 the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) said that Capriles "was vilified in a campaign in Venezuela's state-run media, which insinuated he was, among other things, a homosexual and a Zionist agent". A 13 February 2012 opinion article in the state-owned Radio Nacional de Venezuela, titled "The Enemy is Zionism" had said that Capriles, a self-professed devout Catholic whose ancestors were Jewish, was "the candidate of the Venezuelan and transnational oligarchy". and that "Zionism hides behind a religious and nationalist speech that attempts to make invisible its colonialist nature and purely political pretensions of deeply hegemonic and racial superiority. Zionism is born to set in motion the plans of imperialism in the Arab world, to strategically place a base of operations in the area. It is, without doubt, the ideology of terror..." The article said "The rational and open fight against poverty, racism and anti-Semitism, makes no sense if it is not directed against Zionism and capitalism, which represent 90 per cent of the poverty in the world, the imperial wars, death and misery of millions of people, and the growing threat of extinction of all species on the planet and the planet itself." Jewish groups including the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Anti-Defamation League condemned the attacks and voiced concern to Chávez, who vowed in 2009 to punish incidents of anti-semitism.

The week before the MUD primary elections, Mario Silva repeated on his political satire program La Hojilla or "The Razorblade" (aired on state-run television station Venezolana de Televisión) allegations by a policeman that in 2000 he had caught Capriles in a sexual act with a man in a car. Capriles said the report was false; no police report of the incident has been produced, and the local police did not comment.

The WSJ noted Chávez's popularity among poor Venezuelans, and that "Chávez dominates the nation's mass media, and has been spending lavishly on social programs to sway Venezuelan voters". On 16 February Chávez sent a public message to Capriles saying: "The blinking idiot has some advisors that have recommended him that he should not confront me and I tell you, jerk, you are to confront Chávez because the matter is with me ... the more you try to disguise, the more you will find me, everyday, you jerk! You will not succeed in avoiding confrontation with Chávez, which is confrontation with patriots, with the homeland, with national dignity!"

In an interview with the Global Post, Capriles said his campaign was based on "improving education, which he sees as a long-term solution to the country's insecurity and deep poverty". The Global Post says that "housing, health and other programs have been the cornerstone" of President Chávez's tenure, who "remains very popular, largely because of the vast number of social programs he has put in place, funded by Venezuela’s vast oil wealth". A January poll places Chávez's approval rating at 64 percent.

In a Mass during Easter Week, Chavez wept and asked Jesus Christ to give him life; he hasn't revealed the specifics of the type or location of his cancer, but his illness has been a factor in the election campaigning.

Disturbances

On 4 March 2012, Capriles held a rally in Caracas' San José de Cotiza neighborhood, during which a group of armed men began firing guns "in an apparent effort to break up the rally". Capriles was subsequently taken safely from the scene. Journalists for TV channel Globovisión had been covering the rally; according to reporter Sasha Ackerman, both she and her cameraman were threatened by the armed men, who confiscated their equipment and footage of the shootings. A Globovisión statement the next day identified the armed men as PSUV supporters, citing their red shirts—dress associated with the party—and the group's apparent level of organisation. Venezuela's justice minister, Tarek El Aissami, claimed that the attacks were perpetrated by opposition supporters, while some government sources said that Capriles' bodyguards were to blame for starting the violence.

PSUV politician Diosdado Cabello declared that Chávez was the only one who could guarantee peace. He added: "those who want fatherland will go with Chávez; those who are traitors will go with the others". He also said that if the opposition wins, it would take the measures of the IMF.

Plots

On 20 March Chávez declared he had intelligence reports about an alleged plot to assassinate Capriles but his government "has nothing to do with it"; he said the government was monitoring security for Capriles. Capriles responded that what the government should do is to guarantee security for all Venezuelans. According to the Chicago Tribune, Chávez implied the plot was from within the opposition party. Capriles' campaign manager said the announcement was intended to force a change in Capriles' house-by-house campaigning style.

In a televised rally on 29 March, Chávez claimed the existence of an opposition plot to disrupt the election with violence and "attack ... the constitution, the people and institutions". Of the "list of actions" he said he was preparing in response, Chávez said he was willing to nationalise banks or companies that supported the opposition should they " the constitution and the national plan."

On 13 April, Chávez said Capriles Radonski was behind a conspiracy plan against his government. He also declared he would win with at least 70% of the votes and that he had created a civil-military command to neutralize the plans if the opposition did not recognise the results.

Opinion polling

Voting intention (%)
Pollster Publication date Chávez Capriles Radonski Source
Hinterlaces Jan 2012 50 34
IVAD Feb 2012 57 30
Hinterlaces Mar 2012 52 34
IVAD Mar 2012 56.5 26.6
Consultores 21 Mar 2012 46 45
Datanalisis Mar 2012 44.7 31.4
ICS April 2012 57.3 32.7
Varianzas April 2012 49.3 45.1

References

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