Elecciones en Venezuela? Si, pero condicionadas.

UPDATE 8 de octubre 2012: el nuevo mapa electoral está aqui. 

Londres 3 de marzo de 2012 | Luego de la ultima elección presidencial, el mapa electoral de Venezuela lucía rojo. Rojito. De los 73.129 electores registrados en el estado Amazonas, el 78% votó por Chavez. De los 785.924 registrados en Bolivar, el 68,8% votó por Chavez. Del 1.960.118 maracuchos registrados, 51,5% votó por Chavez. Y del 1.452.985 caraqueños, el 63% votó por el caudillo moribundo. Ver el mapa es cagante, y por ello, por lo menos yo, me preocupo, arrechamente, de lo que puede pasar en Octubre. Eljuri acaba de anunciar los resultados del nuevo censo: 27.150.095 venezolanos censados. De esos, 18.197.344 están registrados en el REP. Es decir, aproximadamente el 67% de los venezolanos pueden votar.

¿Cuándo fue la última vez que se le hizo una auditoría independiente al REP? ¿Cómo saber que, ciertamente, esos 18 millones y pico, son personas de carne y hueso, que viven donde sus datos en el REP indican?

Mi esposa, que raramente opina sobre asuntos políticos, me dijo en estos días: "eso que escribiste sobre la futilidad de las primarias es una irresponsabilidad. Hay que votar por quien quiera que sea el candidato de oposición. Cualquiera es mejor que Chavez." Ella tiene razón, y aun cuando admito que me fui de palos en decir que no votaría ni en las primarias, ni en Octubre, igual le expliqué el por qué de mi posición.

En la última elección presidencial en el 2006, la oposición no tuvo testigos de mesa en el 40% de los centros. Me lo dijo Leopoldo López, días después de la elección en una reunión que tuvimos en su oficina, con Benigno Alarcón. Eso equivalía, en aquel entonces, a unas 12.000 mesas en las cuales no hubo presencia de representantes de la oposición. 12.000 mesas en las cuales no se sabe a ciencia cierta si lo reportado por el ministerio de elecciones chavista era  fiel reflejo de la realidad. Hay quienes creen las cifras publicadas por el CNE. Hay quienes quieren creer las cifras publicadas por el CNE. Yo no pertenezco a ninguno de esos campos. Preferiría que los resultados, todos, a nivel nacional, fuesen avalados por testigos de ambas partes, y así todos contentos.

Parroquia Francisco Aniseto Lugo: 99,7% de los electores votaron por Chavez en el 2006. Manuel Renaud: 96%. Santa Rita de Manapire: 91,5% votaron por Chavez. Florida (Edo Portuguesa): 92,7% pro Chavez. San Miguel, en Boconó: 93,9%. Tuñame en Trujillo: 90,6%... Ya escucho el argumento de algunos: "pero eso es monte y culebra, allí votan tres gatos..." Si, tres gatos allí, tres más allá, y de repente Chavez saca 7 millones de votos. Lo jodido es que ni siquiera sabemos si esos tres gatos existen, o si verdaderamente votaron por Chavez. Y eso me preocupa. A la Venezuela rural los candidatos de oposición no le paran mucha bola. Ya sabemos que en las ciudades más pobladas Chavez la va a tener bien pelua para robarse unas elecciones (recordemos el 2007 y las parlamentarias). Pero, y allá, ¿en dizque territorio "monte y culebra"?

Ahí está el meollo del asunto. Hasta tanto no vea a la MUD, anunciando quiénes (nombre y apellido por favor) estarán a cargo de velar por la integridad y fiabilidad de los resultados electorales en zonas rurales no estaré tranquilo. Y ni hablar de los votos de los miles de venezolanos que viven en el exterior: nuestros votos ni siquiera son contabilizados.

Por ello, resumo mi posición: ¿elecciones? Como no, pero condicionadas, no como borregos al matadero. Condicionadas. Sabiendo que el estado está en contra nuestra, de forma absolutista. Condicionadas. Asegurandonos de tener presencia de testigos en todas las mesas de votación a nivel nacional. En todas.  La Venezuela rural, la del sur, monte y culebra, que nadie cuida y que ninguno de los políticos caraqueños, maracuchos, o carabobeños le paran bola, contiene, votos más, votos menos, 7 millones de votos. Y me viene a la mente Alejandro Toledo, quien se enfrento en circunstancias similares a las de la oposición a una administración casi tan criminal como la de Chavez. Y ganó. Forzó el juego. Obligó a Fujimori a que básicamente se robara las elecciones, y con ello logró que la OEA lo declarara dictador, ilegitimo.

La misma hay que aplicarle al moribundo, si es que llega a Octubre. Las elecciones se pueden ganar. Pero para ganarlas se necesita mucho más que desearlo. Hay que trabajar, y el trabajo que no se nos puede impedir, es el de cuidar los votos, en todas partes. Solo así podremos saber si Chavez gana, o si se roba las elecciones.

Venezuela opposition primary: an exercise in futility

"We need volunteers!" "Will you be my witness?" "Will you help organise the primaries in London?"

Those kinds of comments have been arriving in my inbox for a while now. Having organised and set up my share of Venezuela-related, political events in London in the past, everyone sort of expects that this time too I would be involved in organising things.

Though I am not. While my fellow Venezuelan bloggers have all gone into publishing who will they vote for, and why, I will rather say that I am not going to vote, not on Sunday, not come October, and I shall explain why Sunday's primary will not be the watershed moment every one is "predicting".

No amount of wishful thinking and closed-door politicking will defeat Venezuela's best, wealthiest, and most powerful politico. There's no point, IMO, of beating around the bush on this one. Regardless of whether on Sunday the opposition candidate gets 1.5, 2.5, 3.5 or 5 million votes, Chavez will win, again, in October.

It is utter nonsense, IMO, to even consider that the opposition stands a chance come the presidential race -unless the caudillo dies in the interim- while the electoral power continues to be but Hugo Chavez's Election's Ministry.

The opposition, old and new, is doomed. It is pretty difficult for me, to get all worked up for Henrique Capriles Radonski, when very close relatives of his are up to their ears in gargantuan corruption rackets and, effectively, run Chavez's most efficient propaganda outlets.

And wasting time talking about whether they are center-left, or center-right, or whether they are like Lula or Uribe, is pointless. They should be planning instead how to man every last polling station in the country, especially those in rural Venezuela, where thousands of phantom voters keep giving Chavez 100% of the vote. They should be ensuring that whatever the CNE announces is a true reflection of the people's vote, and not an unaudited, cooked result of CNE-controlled Smartmatics that only a fool like Jimmy Carter would vouch for. Until that happens, none of them stands a chance, and to think otherwise is foolish. Lula isn't the icon figure they should be taking cues from, but rather Alejandro Toledo, the humble cholo who defeated, arguably, South America's first post modern dictator: Alberto Fujimori.

Williams F1 invoices PDVSA £29.4 million for 2012 season

LaPatilla.com has published an invoice sent by Williams F1 to PDVSA, on 12 September 2011, so that pay-driver Pastor Maldonado could continue with the team in 2012.

The amount requested for 2012 is £29,400,000, payable to Williams Grand Prix Engineering Limited's Barclay's bank account no. 00968277, sort code 20-01-09. Details of Williams VAT registration no. (GB 100 1901 88) and company no. (1297497) included in the invoice are correct.

According to Williams F1 profit & loss account made up to end 2010, the company had a turnover of some £91 millions, while reporting a profit of some £6 millions. Williams F1 carries losses of some £88 millions. Against these numbers, the £29.4 millions gotten from PDVSA seem like Williams F1 best deal ever, that's roughly a third of 2010's turnover right there. The amount shown in the invoice -payable for 2012- corresponds with the one detailed in the sponsorship contract between Williams F1 and PDVSA.

Gregory Wilpert's full disclosure

So finally, after having hidden it for years, until information published in this blog was picked up by the New York Times, Gregory Wilpert of Venezuelanalysis is signing his opinion pieces with the following disclosure:

Full disclosure: Gregory Wilpert has been married to Carol Delgado since 1998, who since 2008 is the Consul General of Venezuela in New York.

Well, I must congratulate Greg. Though I do not remember having ever read, until today, such candid admission on his part about marital connections to the Chavez regime -which came public only after I revealed them following a tip from a friend in New York, it is a welcome departure from previous dishonest stance, of his being this scholar that was simply "studying" the chavista revolution, and happened to write articles about it.

We now know that Wilpert married his chavista wife in 1998, the year Chavez won his first presidential election. So why did it took Wilpert 14 years to disclose his connections? Will it take him another 14 years to admit he's nothing but a propagandist on Chavez's payroll? Will it take him another 14 years to admit that his opinions -as husband of a chavista diplomat and benefitting from Chavez's largesse- are totally biased and anything but objective?

Debunking myth of Venezuela's primary

As usual, there are many myths floating around when it comes to Venezuela. It's the land of realismo mágico. Just the other day, I was reading a story in El Universal, where Chavez was basically saying that thanks to him, presumably, Venezuela's GDP has increased three fold. At this point, it is futile to call Chavez on his BS: the poor man is so deranged that he does believe his own lies. Worryingly, apart from notable exceptions coming from the usual suspects, no one in Venezuela's MSM, or abroad, seems to have picked up on the news and ridiculed the caudillo on such spurious economic 'accomplishment'.

But now we have the issue of the primaries, just around the corner. On 12 February, Venezuelans will vote in primaries geared at electing the opposition unity candidate that shall face Chavez in October 2012 presidential race. There are six candidates gunning for position in these primaries: an acting Congresswoman (Maria Corina Machado), a former diplomat (Diego Arria), a former Congressman (Pablo Medina), two current governors (Miranda's Henrique Capriles Radonsky and Zulia's Pablo Perez), and a former mayor (Leopoldo Lopez).

Chavez's Ministry of Elections, otherwise know as Venezuela's Electoral Council (CNE), will run the election of the opposition candidate. Nationwide. Venezuelans abroad, opposition leaning in the vast majority, will, presumably, vote in Venezuelan embassies and consulates. As in previous electoral occasions, none of these votes will reach its intended destination, and that's not a myth.

The myth that needs debunking today, is Francisco Toro's article in Foreign Policy, "A real race in Caracas". Toro, a political scientist and long time blogger who really should know better, informs his readers that what's happening in Caracas is pretty much the same than what's taking place in the US, among GOP candidates. It is rather difficult to imagine in what kind of framework can the two primaries be compared.

In the US, GOP candidates raise their own money; travel around the country facing each other out in elections that take place in different dates; in elections organised and run by state and local governments; are free, and engage frequently, in searing attacks to undermine one another; are free to decide their own policy and communication strategy vis-a-vis the primaries; in sum, it's a very competitive race, marked by individualism, where communication strategy and policy are decided by the candidates and appointed strategists and spending power depends on fundraising abilities, where credibility among the party faithful, more than connections, can win the day.

Compare that to Venezuela, a "real race" according to Toro, where rules of engagement for all willing to participate in primaries were "agreed upon" by an unelected bunch of old school politicos -the same ones who when Toro disagrees with calls "politically toxic", but when in agreement he describes as "oracles": "…other pundits I read, but Teodoro Petkoff I follow..." No wonder then that Venezuela's opposition primary has been "remarkably free of personal attacks" as Toro argues.

Petkoff is presumably working with the same cabal of unelected politicos in charge of electing the last opposition candidate to confront Chavez in 2006, Manuel Rosales. I shadowed Rosales in that campaign. I witnessed the power that Teodoro exerts over Caracas' political 'intelligentsia'. But it must be remembered: Rosales was defeated, yet Teodoro, and his ilk, are back at it, "directing" opposition policy, and imposing their will over all candidates. Those in disagreement, are, in the words of Toro, "politically toxic". Those that would like to see Chavez tried for his crimes, are "hard right, extremists, radicals". That line, Teodoro's line, is toed by Toro, and other members of the lefty "neo-intelligentsia". And it's worth bearing in mind: Petkoff and his fellow 'strategists' from the old guard are yet to beat Chavez in an election.

Petkoff, needs to be said, edits a paper called Tal Cual, partly owned by Miguel Angel Capriles Lopez, cousin of Henrique Capriles Radonsky. Capriles Lopez owns, in addition, Venezuela's largest newspaper, the one Chavez supporters read avidly: Ultimas Noticias.

In that framework, Foreign Policy's Transition's blog publishes Toro's botched job at painting Venezuela's coming presidential election as a "real race". Reality, in that context, is running a primary under the ominous and almost absolute control of Chavez. For on 13 February, Chavez will know with great precision, thanks to his Ministry of Elections, what's the number, and name, and location, of hardcore opposition voters: those that vote in primaries. He then has seven months, and unlimited amounts of money, to prepare for what will be, almost certainly, his third presidential election victory, if cancer doesn't get the best of him first.

Toro is writing for a progressive and liberal audience. Leftists. By drawing comparisons, where no parallels can possibly be used, Toro is doing a disservice to Venezuela's future, and consolidating the myth that Venezuela is a democracy. For make no mistake: that country is nowhere near to having a free and fair election, or a "real race", which is one of the many premises that define functional democracies. A race where one candidate uses the State's power, without a minimum of even cursory checks, can not be called "real". Not even in the rarefied and utterly surreal atmosphere of effete progressives.

Toro fancies Capriles Randonsky as primary winner. He has every right to publish  hagiography for the candidate of his choice. But a "real race"? That's a sick joke. Attacks on other candidates, the ones he describes as "hard right", such as Maria Corina Machado, are completely gratuitous, misplaced and false. The reality is all six candidates, unlike GOP candidates up north, are faced with the same likely prospect: 6 more years of Chavez. In that context, some, like Capriles Radonsky, have adopted populist discourses aimed at winning over chavistas -an impossible goal if you ask me- and are promising to keep everything pretty much as is, while knowing that such irresponsible way of governing has brought the country to the brink of bankruptcy. The ones that are defining their campaigns along the lines of clear breaks with the much hated past, after 13 years the past is chavismo, are derided as radicals. The others, read Capriles, Perez and Lopez, are described as centrists by Toro. What unsubstantiated nonsense. Capriles and Perez are, clearly and historically, leftists, and populists at that, openly admitting willingness to carry on with the welfare state, while Lopez just can't be described as anything other than right wing.

There's no meaningful competition in Venezuela, when the candidates are gagged by rules in whose imposition some of them weren't even allowed to participate. What we see with the MUD (opposition coalition), is a mirror of chavismo: the only difference is that in chavismo only one voice barks orders, whereas on the opposition side an unelected group of obscure back room dealers get to impose "what's best" for all.