Winners and losers in Venezuela's presidential election

Winners and losers in Venezuela's presidential election
Nicolas Maduro's victory may be only skin-deep, and there is an upside
to Henrique Capriles' loss.
By Charles Shapiro
April 19, 2013

Venezuela's National Electoral Council declared Nicolas Maduro, the
handpicked successor of the late President Hugo Chavez, the winner in
the presidential election Sunday. But it was a victory in a compromised
system that tilted the table in his favor.

Now Maduro must deal with an economy that is a shambles. He has no clear
mandate and lacks legitimacy in the eyes of nearly half the voters.

The numbers are telling. In the October 2012 election, Chavez won by
more than 10 percentage points. If the Electoral Council figures are
accurate, Maduro's margin was 50.7% to 49%. He got just 230,000 more
votes than Henrique Capriles, the opposition candidate.

Capriles demanded a recount, citing more than 3,200 irregularities.
Maduro initially agreed and then changed his mind. He was quickly
certified as the winner. Protests, charges of conspiracy and violence
followed, resulting in eight deaths.

So who really won and who lost on Sunday?

Losers

Nicolas Maduro. Maduro let a double-digit lead in the polls slide out of
his grasp, receiving 686,000 fewer votes than Chavez had in October
2012. Capriles increased his vote by almost exactly the same number.
Maduro lacked the charisma, communications skills and magnetism of
Chavez. He came across as a substitute trying to channel Chavez.
Assembly President Diosdado Cabello, Maduro's rival within the
government, is calling for "profound self-criticism."

Hugo Chavez. His dying wish was for his supporters to vote for Maduro.
Nearly 700,000 voters ignored his instruction. Inflation forced the
devaluing of the currency by 30% in February. The resulting price
increases cost Maduro dearly. Chavez spent so much government money on
the October election that he left Maduro with empty coffers in April.

National Electoral Council. The Chavista-controlled Electoral Council
ensured that the rules applied only to candidate Capriles. He got four
minutes each day on national television. Maduro spent hours on TV
inaugurating government projects in thinly disguised campaign events.
Although all campaigning was required to end on April 11, the council
raised no objections when every TV and radio station carried a Maduro
political speech on April 14, election day. In previous elections, the
results were released quickly because the vote is electronic. On Sunday,
the council held the results for hours, raising suspicion of fraud. The
council also refused to invite international observers to watch the
proceedings. Had they done so, the observers might well have validated
Maduro's victory.

Pundits and politicians. Many interpreted Chavismo as poor people
striving for political and economic inclusion. They saw the opposition
as the wealthy, the white and the powerful. That distorted vision was
upended by the opposition's 49% share of the popular vote. Those 7.3
million votes span the social classes of the country.

The jury's still out

United States. The U.S. lacks leverage to affect the actions of the
Venezuelan government. By not responding aggressively to Maduro's
campaign charges of conspiracy, sabotage and assassination attempts, it
avoided becoming a foil for the candidate. The Obama administration is
carefully and deliberately calling for a "credible and transparent
process" to "reassure the Venezuelan people of the [election] results."
Meanwhile as production of U.S. and Canadian oil has increased,
Venezuelan oil has become increasingly irrelevant for the United States.

China and Brazil. These two nations supported Chavez, and now they
support Maduro. They believed that Chavez's Socialist Party was the
natural party of power in Venezuela and put all their eggs in that
basket. This paid off during the 14 years of Chavez's presidency with
huge increases in Brazilian and Chinese exports to Venezuela and in
Chinese access to Venezuelan oil. Now China and Brazil may wish to
reconsider their policies.

Winners

Cuba. As far as the Cubans are concerned, what's important is keeping
free Venezuelan oil flowing to Cuba. Maduro's victory, however tenuous,
assures that, at least for now. A UC San Diego colleague who just
returned from Havana reports that Cubans — from taxi drivers to
government officials — heaved a collective sigh of relief Sunday night.
They dodged a bullet.

Venezuelan opposition. The opposition coalition surprised itself. Even
though its candidate lost, it won. A leader is in place. The opposition
is well organized. Its factions buried their internal differences. The
call for a recount and the ham-fisted responses by the government will
keep opposition forces energized. Although it may be premature to assume
that the opposition is on the way up and Chavismo is in decline, the
opposition has internalized an important lesson: Elections are won not
in Washington or at the International Court of Justice but in Venezuela.

Henrique Capriles. In response to the election protests, the Chavista
leaders and their bully boys have displayed an essential thuggishness in
the streets and in the National Assembly. There is great potential for
things to go from bad to worse as Maduro and his team try to hang on to
power but without the savvy and political instincts of the departed
Chavez. Capriles has called for his supporters to "take a break" and
avoid violence. He looks like the statesman, while Maduro asks himself,
"What would Hugo do?"

Charles Shapiro, president of the Institute of the Americas at UC San
Diego, was U.S. ambassador to Venezuela from 2002-04. He will speak
about Venezuela on Friday at the Pacific Council on International
Affairs in Los Angeles. @ioa_shapiro.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-shapiro-venezuela-maduro-protests-20130419,0,6725840.story