Venezuelan elections a test for Chavez's movement

Posted on Sunday, 12.16.12

Venezuelan elections a test for Chavez's movement
By IAN JAMES and FABIOLA SANCHEZ
Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Venezuelans are choosing governors and state
lawmakers on Sunday in elections that have become a key test of whether
President Hugo Chavez's movement can endure if the socialist leader
leaves the political stage.

Voters in some areas of Caracas were awakened before dawn by fireworks
and reveille blaring from speakers mounted on trucks. But turnout in the
initial hours of voting appeared to be much lower than the country's
October presidential vote, when long lines snaked out of polling
stations and Chavez won another six-year term.

The vote is the first time in Chavez's nearly 14-year-old presidency
that he has been unable to actively campaign. He hasn't spoken publicly
since undergoing cancer surgery on Tuesday in Cuba.

Governorships in all of the country's 23 states are being decided in the
elections. Chavez's party currently controls all but eight of the
states, and if it maintains its dominance the vote could help the
president's allies deepen his socialist policies, including a drive to
fortify grass-roots citizen councils that are directly funded by the
central government.

For the opposition, the elections are apt to determine the fate of its
leadership. The most pivotal race involves opposition leader Henrique
Capriles, who gave Chavez his stiffest challenge yet in the October
presidential election, and is now running for re-election in Miranda
state against Elias Jaua, Chavez's former vice president.

The elections could also be an important dry run for new presidential
elections if cancer cuts short Chavez's presidency.

Chavez is due to be sworn in for another term on Jan. 10. But if his
condition forces him to step down, Venezuela's constitution requires
that new presidential elections be called promptly and held within 30 days.

Chavez said before undergoing the surgery that if he's unable to
continue, Vice President Nicolas Maduro should take his place and run
for president.

Alida Delgado, a lawyer, was waiting to vote outside a school in an
affluent neighborhood of Miranda state. She said she favored Capriles
because Chavez's government has left the country immersed in rampant
crime and economic troubles. She said one of her sons moved away to
Canada several years ago in search of work as a business manager.

As for Chavez, Delgado said: "I hope he recovers, but I think there's
going to be change."

"God willing, I think that soon we're going to have new elections,"
Delgado said, adding: "May the opposition win."

Chavez's son-in-law, Jorge Arreaza, who is also the government's science
and technology minister, said in a Saturday phone call from Havana
broadcast on television that the president had called for supporters to
turn out to vote.

Arreaza said Chavez is in full control of his mental faculties and has
been talking with his children and getting daily visits from Fidel
Castro while recovering slowly from the surgery, which was his fourth
cancer-related operation since June 2011.

Chavez's political allies framed the election as a referendum on his
legacy, urging people to dedicate the vote to Chavez. The government put
up banners on lampposts reading "Now more than ever, with Chavez."

"I'm sure that the Chavista candidates are going to win a majority of
the states because this country continues to be Chavista," said Ricardo
Mendez, a bus driver who voted for Jaua. "We're going to give Chavez a
gift: an overwhelming victory."

Baker Luis Chacon, who also voted for Jaua, said he still thinks Chavez
can beat cancer and isn't particularly concerned about what would happen
if he doesn't. "If he gets worse, new elections will come to choose
another," Chacon said, after voting in the working-class slum of Petare.

If the Chavistas make gains or even hold steady, the executive branch
could strengthen its hold on the grass roots, as communal councils
decide such questions as who gets a new roof, or which streets need
repairs, distributing the funds directly. Chavez's opponents have
objected to the government's campaign to develop such state-funded
"communes" because they bypass the traditional authority of state and
local elected officials.

Chacon said that while he supports Chavez, the local communal council
has no presence where he lives and hasn't managed to fix broken lights
and stairs that wind through the hillside slum.

The closeness of the vote to Christmas and apparent apathy among many
voters suggested a low turnout. In the last presidential election, 81
percent of registered voters turned out, but gubernatorial elections
tend to draw fewer people.

Some said a low turnout could be a hazard both for Chavez's camp and the
opposition.

Political analyst Carlos Raul Hernandez said he thinks Chavez's illness
could keep some voters away because he's developed "a style of messianic
leadership" in which he stands out far above his political allies.

"There are a lot of people who are only interested in Chavez, not at all
the governors," Hernandez said.

---

Associated Press writers Christopher Toothaker and Vivian Sequera
contributed to this report.

Ian James on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ianjamesap

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/12/16/3144472/venezuelan-elections-a-test-for.html