Voters who kept Hugo Chavez in office for 14 years decide on Sunday whether to elect the devoted lieutenant he chose to carry on the revolution that endeared him to the poor but that many Venezuelans believe is ruining the nation.
Nicolas Maduro sought to ride Chavez’s endorsement to victory with a campaign nearly bereft of promises but freighted with personal attacks that was otherwise little more than an unflagging tribute to the polarising leader who died of cancer March 5.
The 50-year-old long time Chavez foreign minister pinned his hopes on the immense loyalty for his boss among millions of poor beneficiaries of a socialist government’s largesse and the heft of a state apparatus that Chavez skilfully consolidated.
The governing United Socialist Party of Venezuela deployed a well-worn, get-out-the-vote machine spearheaded by loyal state employees. It also enjoyed a pervasive state media apparatus as part of a near monopoly on institutional power.
Challenger Henrique Capriles’ aides accused Chavez loyalists in the judiciary of putting them at glaring disadvantage. Prosecutors and state regulators impoverished the campaign and opposition broadcast media by targeting them with unwarranted fines and prosecutions, they said
Mr. Capriles’ main campaign weapon was thus jujutsu — To simply point out “the incompetence of the state,” as he put it to reporters in a news conference Saturday night.
Mr. Maduro was still favoured, but his early big lead in opinion polls halved over the past two weeks in a country struggling with the legacy of Chavez’s management of the world’s largest oil reserves. Many Venezuelans believe his confederates not only squandered but plundered much of the $1 trillion in oil revenues during his time in office.
People are fed up with chronic power outages, crumbling infrastructure, unfinished public works projects, double-digit inflation, food and medicine shortages and rampant crime that has given Venezuela among the world’s highest homicide and kidnapping rates.
Mr. Capriles is a 40-year-old state governor who lost to Chavez in October’s presidential election by a nearly 11-point margin, the best showing ever by a challenger to the long time president. He showed for Mr. Maduro none of the respect he accorded Chavez. Mr. Maduro hit back hard, at one point calling Mr. Capriles’ backers “heirs of Hitler.” It was an odd accusation considering that Mr. Capriles is the grandson of Holocaust survivors from Poland.
“Capriles ran a remarkable campaign that shows he has creativity, tenacity and disposition to play political hardball,” said David Smilde, an analyst with the Washington Office on Latin America think tank.
At his campaign rallies, Mr. Capriles would read out a list of unfinished road, bridge and rail projects. Then he asked people what goods were scarce on store shelves. The opposition contends Chavez emptied the treasury last year to buy re-election with government largesse.
Mr. Maduro, a former union activist and bus driver with close ties to Cuba’s leaders, constantly alleged that Mr. Capriles was conspiring with U.S. putschists to destabilise Venezuela and even suggested Washington had somehow infected Chavez with the cancer that killed him.
But mainly he focused his campaign message on the simple theme of his mentor’s October campaign — “I am Chavez. We are all Chavez.”
Mr. Maduro promised to expand anti-poverty programmes, but without explaining how he’d pay for them.
On Saturday evening, Mr. Maduro met with members of Venezuela’s 125,000-strong citizen militias outside the museum that holds Chavez’s remains to mark a poignant anniversary — Eleven years since Chavez was triumphantly restored to power after a failed coup initially recognized by the U.S. government.
Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank said Mr. Maduro campaigned “ineptly,” trying too hard to “replay the Chavez script” and alienating moderate Chavistas.
Whoever wins on Sunday will face no end of hard choices.
Many Venezuelan factories operate at half capacity because strict currency controls make it hard for them to pay for imported parts and materials. Business leaders say some companies are on verging on bankruptcy because they are unable to extend lines of credit with foreign suppliers.
Mr. Chavez imposed currency controls a decade ago trying to stem capital flight as his government expropriated large land parcels and dozens of businesses. Now, dollars sell on the black market at three times the official exchange rate and Mr. Maduro has had to devalue Venezuela’s currency, the bolivar, twice this year.
Meanwhile, consumers grumble that stores are short of milk, butter, corn flour and other food staples. The government blames hoarding, while the opposition points at the price controls imposed by Chavez in an attempt to bring down double-digit inflation.
Mr. Capriles said he will reverse land expropriations, which he says have ruined many farms and forced Venezuela to import food after previously being a net exporter of beef, rice, coffee and other foods. But even Mr. Capriles said currency and price controls cannot be immediately scrapped without triggering a disastrous run on the bolivar.
But critics say the government has misused the oil industry, ordering the state oil company PDVSA into food distribution and financing of social programs while neglecting needed investment that has caused production and refining to drop.
Venezuela’s oil revenue is down from $5.6 billion five years ago to $3.8 billion in 2012, and PDVSA’s debt climbed to $40 billion last year. The country even imports 100,000 barrels a day of gasoline from the United States.
