Venezuela's 'Cubanochavista' electoral machine

Posted on Sunday, 05.05.13
VENEZUELAN ELECTION

Venezuela's 'Cubanochavista' electoral machine
BY ROGER F. NORIEGA
rnoriega@aei.org

As the facts behind Nicolás Maduro's fabricated electoral "victory" on
April 14 are disclosed, his legitimacy and ability to govern will be
decimated. Reams of confidential official documents obtained from
Venezuelan sources reveal the existence of a sophisticated political
machine — developed and managed by Cuban advisors — that gives Chavista
party bosses an unfair advantage in mobilizing their voters and
manipulating election results.

This complex system was created in the last several years under the
direction of Cuban advisors, working with Cuban-trained Venezuelan
hard-liners associated with the "Francisco de Miranda Front," and
micromanaged by a database operated in Pinar del Rio, Cuba. The Cuban
electoral team is headed by Raciel García Ceballos, who visits Venezuela
on a weekly basis. Here's how the Cuban-engineered system works:

Using official data that is provided exclusively to the Chavista party
by the National Electoral Council (CNE), a database has been developed
that cross references the list of 18.9 million eligible Venezuelan
voters with the more than 10 million Venezuelans who depend on the
government for jobs, housing, food, healthcare, etc., through one of its
many social programs.

The data were sorted to identify the hard-core Chavista base (about 5.2
million voters) and those whose loyalty depends on government handouts
(about 2.7 million). The latter group is targeted by the Chavista
mobilization team, which can tap the database to find out where each
person lives, works, and votes. Working in collusion with the CNE, the
Chavista machine also has identified about 3,400 of the country's 13,000
polling stations where they concentrate their voter mobilization
efforts. The CNE assigns well-trained members of the Miranda Front to
serve, not as observers but as election officials, to run the voting
process in these target centers.

Even before the first votes were cast on April 14, the Chavista
electoral authorities began suppressing turnout by arbitrarily
reassigning residents in opposition strongholds to voting centers far
from their homes; estimates are that about 1.2 million voters were
impacted by this tactic in October 2012.

Throughout election day, thousands of well-trained Chavista operatives
track and report voter turnout via text messages — giving party leaders
the data they need to assess whether they are delivering their base to
the polls and in which precincts they are underperforming. (This network
also lets the Chavista team know which voting stations are unattended by
opposition observers.)

If a specific precinct is falling short of expected Chavista supporters,
the command center — relying on a computer server dubbed "Roque 2" —
generates detailed contact information for those targeted voters who
have yet to appear at their polling station. The absent voter is
contacted by telephone, and government or military vehicles are
dispatched to his or her home or workplace to transport them to their
polling place.

On April 14, everything was in place to ensure a Chavista electoral
victory just as it did last October. However, that machinery could not
compensate for Maduro's failure to motivate his party's base. Instead,
the system detected an impending defeat in time for the Chavista
authorities to tamper with the vote primarily in polling places where
they knew opposition monitors were absent..

It is telling that since the night of the election the CNE has stripped
all precinct-level reporting from its website. However, the opposition's
monitors collected tally sheets from at least 60 percent of the voting
centers, including some that show a 15-30 percent drop in turnout in
Chavista bastions since last October's election. Reports that opposition
candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski won in some of the poorest
neighborhoods of the country suggest that Maduro was defeated soundly.

The CNE was quick to reject Capriles Radonski's demand that the paper
ballots be counted. Uniformed military began to burn election materials
and to shoot and bludgeon peaceful protesters. The president of the
National Assembly silenced opposition members and rushed to swear in Maduro.

In the days after the vote, Capriles Radonski abruptly cancelled an
opposition rally because he was told that the Chavistas would sow agent
provocateurs to incite confrontations as a pretext for repression.

Building on a strong campaign performance, Capriles Radonski's
cool-headed management of the post-election crisis contrasts sharply
with Maduro's polarizing rhetoric and violent repression. As evidence of
fraud and Cuban interference is made public, Maduro's illegitimacy and
incompetence may make it impossible for him to manage the country's
myriad economic and security problems.

Even Chavistas — many of whom already are offended by Havana's
heavy-handed role in managing the post-Chávez succession — may look to
Capriles Radonski as the man Venezuelans chose to save the country.

Roger F. Noriega, a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise
Institute, served as assistant secretary of State for Western Hemisphere
affairs and as ambassador to the Organization of American States in the
administration of President George W. Bush.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/05/05/v-fullstory/3381857/venezuelas-cubanochavista-electoral.html