23N Regional Elections: The 3 rd Impasse of Hugo Chávez Frias

1. 23N Regional Elections:The 3rd Impasse of Hugo Chávez Frias Thomas W. O´Donnell URPE Summer Conference 2009

2. 23N Regional Elections:The 3rd Impasse of Hugo Chávez Frias His electoral base eroding and oil revenues down President Chávez abandons the chavista electoral model, and autonomy of workers’ unions and the press June 2009 Thomas W. O´Donnell • Centro de Estudios del Desarrollo (CENDES) Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV), Caracas • FulbrightScholar, Venezuela, 2008 • Visiting Scholar, Graduate Economics Department The New School for Social Research, New York (2008-09) Contact: E-mail: twod@umich.edu URL: http://tomod.com

3. A. Introduction • An electoral revolution 2 • Bolivarian electoral crisis 2 • Sweeping Responses 4 • Ending electoral opposition 4 • Ending workers’ autonomous unions 6 • Threateningtoendoppositionpress and broadcastjournalism 7 • Failings of the Bolivarian-chavismo model 7 • What is to be done? 10

4. B. The 23N Elections • Class Outcome of 23N 15 • Urban-rural split in a highly urbanized country 15 • Has Chavismo begun to lose the urban working and poor classes? 18 • Caracas: results in the barrio of Petare 19 • Caracas: Stalin´s showing in Libertador 24 • Opposition organizing in Caracas barrios 28 • What do workers’ and poor votes for the opposition say about chavista social programs? 29

5. C. Chávez: Revolutionarywithout a revolutionaryparty • The new PSUV 36 • Organizational Cohesion Derived from Official Corruption 41 • Chavista lack of control: Crime and Complexity of Urban Areas 43 • Urban Situations Favoring the Opposition 44 • Distortions of electoral democracy 44

6. Introduction Brief background to 23N • 3 impasses of Hugo ChávezFrias • The revolution, classes • Bolivarianism & chavismo • Who, Why, How … • From coups to elections • Class/social base • Oil

7. B. The 23N Elections • Class Outcome of 23N 15 • Urban-rural split in a highly urbanized country 15 • Has Chavismo begun to lose the urban working and poor classes? 18 • Caracas: results in the barrio of Petare 19 • Caracas: Stalin´s showing in Libertador 24 • Opposition organizing in Caracas barrios 28 • What do workers’ and poor votes for the opposition say about chavista social programs? 29

8. Metropolitan District of Caracas Ilustración 1: Electoral districts, Metropolitano de Caracas. Source: CNE website, URL: http://www.cne.gov.ve/divulgacion_regionales_2008/mapas/01_grande.jpg

9. B. The 23N Elections • Class Outcome of 23N 15 • Urban-rural split in a highly urbanized country 15 • Has Chavismo begun to lose the urban working and poor classes? 18 • Caracas: results in the barrio of Petare 19 • Caracas: Stalin´s showing in Libertador 24 • Opposition organizing in Caracas barrios 28 • What do workers’ and poor votes for the opposition say about chavista social programs? 29

10. Metropolitan Caracas 4,850,728 19.0 x # State Population (2005 estimate)% 1 Zulia 3,520,376 13.10 x 2 Miranda 2,789,073 10.30 x 3 Capita District 2,284,291 8.50 x 4 Carabobo 2,106,264 8.38 x 5 Lara 1,751,625 6.75 6 Aragua 1,629,433 6.28 7 Bolívar 1,490,612 5.58 8 Anzoátegui 1,440,876 5.30 9 Táchira 1,145,374 4.50 x 10 Sucre 895,978 3.53 11 Falcón 877,386 3.45 12 Portuguesa 848,259 3.34 13 Monagas 828,363 3.26 14 Mérida 819,760 3.10 15 Barinas 730,407 2.87 16 Guérico 723,965 2.85 17 Trujillo 691,908 2.58 18 Yaracuy 499,049 2.16 19 Apure 457,685 1.79 20 Nueva Esparta 426,337 1.66 x 21 Vargas 329,447 1.29 22 Cojedes 291,234 1,14 23 Delta Amacuro 149,427 0.42 24 Amazonas 136,506 0.30 x TOTAL for opposition: 46.40% Venezuelan 2005 population data States won by the opposition on 23 November 2008 are marked with ‘x’.Population data: Wikipedia

11. The rates of abstentionism reported by the CNE for voting on 23N, nationally and in various areas discussed here.

12. GDP per capita for Latin American states in 2007 showing data from three sources: IMF, World Bank and the U.S. CIA. Venezuela had about the fourth highest GDP per capita in Latin America in 2007. This year’s data puts Venezuela somewhat higher than in most years, as 2007 was a year of very high oil prices. In recent years Venezuela has been surpassed now by three other counties whose economies are either not dependent on oil (Chile and Argentina) or significantly less dependent on oil (México). These states have been able to surpass Venezuela by developing more diversified economies. Nevertheless, as compared to most Latin American states, Venezuela’s GDP income should allow it to enjoy a relatively high level of social and economic benefits for all social classes, and to develop a diversified economy. Note its GD P per capita is about 25% higher than Brazil’s, 60% higher than Colombia´s and 300% of Bolivia´s.

13. Estimate of cumulative migrations into Venezuela. Source: World Bank paper Quantifying international migration” at http://go.worldbank.org/J4ZJ1ZMK40 , based on a database of bilateral migrant stocks (the fourth) produced by University of Sussex, Global Migrant Origin Database, using countries’ 2000 census rounds. “The data … are generated by the stock of migrants at destination country and territory disaggregated by country and territory of origin around the year 2000. They make no reference to the time at which a migration has taken place, but provide only an estimate of the cumulative migrations to date into an area (net of re-emigrations). At present, no global source exists for flow data in which immigration (or emigration) can be related to specific periods of time, for example, movements over the previous 1 year or 5 years. Flow data of this type are only available for a relatively few, generally more developed, countries. In a way, international migration statistics are not far from where data on internal migration were some 40 years ago.”

14. Urbanization in Latin America, UK, USA and China Venezuela is the most highly urbanized Latin American state after Puerto Rico. Electoral victory in densely populated states and in large cities is especially necessary to govern Venezuela.

15. Chávez circling ¨main separatist regions¨ during 23N campaign, on AlóPresidente. . Chávez first declared that the population in “Zulia and Tachira” states are “not oppositionn” but rather “really the biggest separatists” and the area of Caracas and its litoral are also not opposition but rather “the second biggest separatists.” Then, with increasing anger, President Chávez reversed this assessment, crossing out the initially drawn “1” and “2” and declared that Caracas and the surrounding littoral are “really the number-one separatists” in the country, and Zulianos are “the number-two sepatarists” in the country. This indicates some of the long term tendency to permanently punish these areas, and to not “waste” resources on them. Photo: T. O´D.

16. 23N voting results from the municipio of Sucre one of five such municipios that, along with the federal district of Caracas comprise the Municipality of Caracas. Results are shown for each of the five local

17. Stalin and his mom” appearing on the opposition television station Globalvision, on Mother’s Day, 2008 during his election campaign for alcalde (mayor) of the municipio of Libertador in Caracas. A student leader from the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) in Caracas, Stalin González, ran as an independent, without any prior electoral experience or organization against the chavista candidate, Jorge Rodriquez, who was actively backed by President Chávez and his national PSUV party. Nevertheless, Stalin received 41% of the vote. Libertador was the only municipio retained by chavista oficialismo in Caracas. Photo: T. O´D.

18. A wall located on Avenida Las Sciencias in Chaguramos, a working and lower-middle class neighborhood in the Caracas municipality of Libertador, photographed in January 2008, shortly after the 2D 2007 referendum. . It reads, at the top: “All Power to the People.” The lower portion originally read, “Vote yes and yes” (as there were two separate sections to the 2D ballot). This portion has been altered by opposition activists to read “Vote NO and No”, to which, then, pro-government activists added a leading “No”, so that it finally reads “Don´t Vote No and No.” The printed sign on the light poll is in favor of a ‘yes’ vote for the referendum: “Yes, with Chávez.” To the right, the initials “CNE” stand for “Commission National de Elections.” The line through the initials and the slogan “NO VOTAS” above it, calls for boycott of the referendum, and indicates mistrust in the government electoral commission. Photo: T. O´D.

19. Candelaria, Municipio de Libertador, City of Caracas STALIN GONZALEZ 17. 705 Votos 62,55 % JORGE RODRIGUEZ Adjudicado 9.252 Votos 32,68 % CLAUDIO FERMIN 847 Votos 2,99 % ANDREA TAVARES 219 Votos 0,77 %

20. A wall slogan in the 23 Enero barrio La Piedrita is the leader of a pro-chavista collective located there. The leader was ordered arrested by Chávez when he was confronted by exposés that appeared in the opposition press, based on a tape recording of La Piedrita ordering members of his group to stop and confront Jews on the street, and demand they tell whether their loyalties are to Israel or Venezuela during the 2008 Israeli invasion of Gaza. This occurred in a heightened atmosphere of tensions just after the main synagogue in Caracas had been invaded by several armed men and desecrated, and the names and addresses of Jewish families taken from the computers. Several members of the PM, the Metropolitan Police of Caracas and a central-government intelligence officer were eventually arrested and charged in the synagogue invasion after Chávez had opined that it had really been a provocation committed by the opposition themselves to tar the chavista government. The collective engages in forceful, sometimes armed, interventions such as, in May 2009, occupying a hospital the government was nationalizing. The wall slogan reads “Honor and Glory” to “Raul Reyes”, the FARC guerrilla leader who was killed in Ecuador in 2008 by Colombian Armed Forces in a cross-border raid. It is signed, “FARC-EP” where EP indicates People´s Army. La Piedrita is among the many chavista organizations that openly support the FARC. (Photo courtesy Dale Graden.)

21. B. The 23N Elections • Class Outcome of 23N 15 • Urban-rural split in a highly urbanized country 15 • Has Chavismo begun to lose the urban working and poor classes? 18 • Caracas: results in the barrio of Petare 19 • Caracas: Stalin´s showing in Libertador 24 • Opposition organizing in Caracas barrios 28 • What do workers’ and poor votes for the opposition say about chavista social programs? 29

22. Figure 1. Left: Posters for Nuevo Tiempo candidates P. Perez and M. Rosals for 23 November 2008 elections, posted in Santa Lucia community in Maracaibo. Right: “Manuel Rosales … Don´t turn yourself in, Zulia Supports You!” on wall between the O´Leary Bridge and Plaza Miranda in Maracaibo, taken May 2, 2009, shortly after he fled to Peru. (T.O’D)

23. B. The 23N Elections • Class Outcome of 23N 15 • Urban-rural split in a highly urbanized country 15 • Has Chavismo begun to lose the urban working and poor classes? 18 • Caracas: results in the barrio of Petare 19 • Caracas: Stalin´s showing in Libertador 24 • Opposition organizing in Caracas barrios 28 • What do workers’ and poor votes for the opposition say about chavista social programs? 29

24. C. Chávez: Revolutionarywithout a revolutionaryparty • The new PSUV 36 • Organizational Cohesion Derived from Official Corruption 41 • Chavista lack of control: Crime and Complexity of Urban Areas 43 • Urban Situations Favoring the Opposition 44 • Distortions of electoral democracy 44

25. A banner displayed at the entrance to the Founding Congress of the PSUV (Partido Socialista Unida de Venezuela) at the campus of the Bolivarian University in Chaguramos, in Caracas, on the 16 and 17th of February 2008. Photo: T. O´D.

26. Another banner displayed at the entrance to the Founding Congress of the PSUV, on 16 and 17 February, 2008. It reads “Welcome delegates of the PSUV to Insurgent Caracas.” Photo: T. O´D

27. A. Introduction • An electoral revolution 2 • Bolivarian electoral crisis 2 • Chávez’ Sweeping Responses 4 • Ending electoral opposition 4 • Ending workers’ autonomous unions 6 • Threateningtoendoppositionpress and broadcastjournalism 7 • Failings of the Bolivarian-chavismo model 7 • What is to be done? 10

28. THE END