Is Maduro Heading for a Loss?

Joel D. Hirst
Principal, Cordoba Group International

Is Maduro Heading for a Loss?
Posted: 04/01/2013 2:44 pm

With only two weeks to go until yet another election in Venezuela, the
campaign for the highest office in the land is becoming heated and very
personal. Miranda State Governor Henrique Capriles Radonski has
abandoned his deferential tone of 2012 to pound acting-President Nicolas
Maduro with withering attacks both professional and personal. For
Maduro's part, he has been desperately attempting to channel the spirit
of Hugo Chavez. While this is the first election in fifteen years that
does not feature the now-deceased president; you wouldn't know it to
look around. Maduro talks almost exclusively about Chavez. His plan of
government is the same one that Chavez ran on in 2012; on campaign stops
he stands in front of huge posters of Chavez as he holds up pictures of
Chavez; his hand gestures and speaking style are carefully coached to
mimic the bombastic former president; and his campaign song features
prominently a recording of Chavez' voice and the chorus goes "Chavez
forever; Maduro President" (in Spanish it rhymes and is in fact quite
catchy).

Only one major problem, Maduro is not Chavez.

Unfortunately for the un-inspiring Cuban-trained Marxist and former bus
driver, the Venezuelan people are starting to realize this. According to
a recent article in the Nuevo Herald citing internal polls and surveys,
Maduro's campaign is suffering from a series of missteps. First, they
are overusing the image of Chavez which the voters correctly construe as
attempts at manipulation. Maduro is seen as disingenuous, with many
respondents believing he lied to the Venezuelan people about President
Chavez's condition. His now-infamous botching of the funeral (reportedly
causing Presidents Cristina Kirchner and Dilma Roussef to leave early)
caused wide consternation. His style is off-putting and he is seen as
too scripted, like he is reading cue cards and getting instructions
(which feeds into the narrative that the Cuban government controls him -
something which appears to be at least somewhat true). All of this has
led to a collapse in his polling by nine percent and to negatives that
now exceed his positives. Even pro-government news sites only put him at
53%, with Miranda Governor Capriles climbing rapidly in the polls.
According to the Herald, the difference is now only 7%.

This has led National Assembly deputies Stalin González y Freddy Guevara
to denounce an aggressive campaign aimed at promoting opposition
abstention at the polls (mostly through voter intimidation). If true,
this is an odd move for the Maduro campaign, since in Venezuela
abstention historically favors the opposition. In the constitutional
referendum of 2007, the only vote that Chavez ever lost, abstention was
at 44% compared to high turnout rates in the seventies in other votes.

If rumors of consternation in the Maduro camp are true, they are caught
in a trap of their own design. After having used their endless unfair
elections to legitimize the dismantling of their representative
democracy and revoking all the corresponding natural rights and civil
protections, they now have no other option but to push forward with
their unpopular candidate. They are using all the same tricks that
Chavez used for more than a decade; abuse of state resources, blanketing
propaganda, threats and TV airtime takeovers. But this time, they are
backfiring. After having emptied their treasury for the 2012 elections,
they have little money to hand out. In fact, Maduro has had to devalue
the currency twice in 100 days to simply pay the bills which has caused
an increase in inflation and shortages. And the television airtime seems
to be playing against Maduro; the more the Venezuelan people see him on
TV, the less they like him.

To be sure, it is still an uphill battle for Venezuela's beleaguered
opposition. The entire apparatus of a coercive state have been deployed
against them. However, history has on different occasions shown that
elections are not as easily controlled as the Maduro regime would wish.
They have watched in Nicaragua, Zimbabwe, Serbia, Russia, Iran and Peru
as elections marked a turning point for those regimes. Will Venezuela be
next?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-d-hirst/is-maduro-heading-for-a-l_b_2988684.html?utm_hp_ref=cuba