Most Venezuelans want a leftist nation, polls find

Being right-wing is not fashionable; trend is toward socialism, studies show

By Luis Hernández Navarro

From the Mexican newspaper La Jornada

CARACAS – In today’s Venezuela, it is not fashionable to be a rightist. The walls along Caracas streets are covered with posters with pictures of the businessman and political leader Henrique Capriles, the opposition’s candidate for president of the republic.

The images show him wearing a baseball cap decorated with the country’s flag. The candidate smiles broadly, as if advertising a brand of toothpaste. Atop the posters there’s the slogan “Below and to the left.”

[Translator’s Note: On the ballot for the Oct. 7 presidential election, Capriles’ candidacy appears at the bottom and to the left.]

The poster is not a tropical eccentricity but part of the strategy of the opposition bloc. Although a right-wing businessman, Capriles presents himself repeatedly to the public as a progressive man, as a politician who, according to pollster Germán Campos, wants to assume Chávez’s discourse but from across the street.

The curious irony is that, for the first time in a many decades, the Venezuelan bourgeoisie has a candidate from within, a man of ancient lineage. His background can be seen from miles away. Capriles, a lawyer, co-founded the conservative party Primero Justicia [Justice First]. To form his organization, he received – before Hugo Chávez became president – financing from the government’s oil company. His candidacy has the support of the main private communications media.

The candidate of the Mesa de Unificación Nacional [National Unification Board] was born in the bosom of two families that owned media outlets. His adversaries accuse him of being a member of the ultra-right group Tradition, Family and Property. He was an active participant in the coup d’état against Chávez in 2001 and led the attacks on the Cuban Embassy in Caracas. For that reason, the Attorney General’s Office in 2004 charged him with violating international principles. But now he promotes himself as the candidate from “below and to the left.”

This political transvestism, where the right presents itself as a progressive force, is not senseless. Various opinion studies conducted by firms such as 30.11 Consultores e Hinterlaces show that a new political culture has appeared in Venezuela, where the socialist ideal has a high degree of acceptance. Swimming against the current is difficult. Half the population favors the construction of a socialist nation, against 29 percent that opposes it.

The citizens associate that socialism with inclusion, solidarity, cooperation, equal opportunity, organization, participation and, recently, efficiency. Two of every three respondents prioritize the social and political content of democracy above procedural issues. Socialism is linked to democracy and equal opportunity.

This massive adherence to the socialist cause is a relatively new development. During the 1960s and ’70s, it was a rejected and demonized concept among most of the Venezuelan people, pollster Campos says. But that changed radically in the presidential campaign of 2005, when President Chávez went from Bolivarianism, nationalism and anti-imperalism to socialism.

According to Campos, who admits he’s a lifelong leftist, this phenomenon can be explained as a product of the collapse of the old political culture and the emergence of a new culture characterized by a newly politicized society. The key to this situation, he says, can be found in five pivotal moments that explain why the Venezuelans have changed.

The first was the devaluation of the currency in Feb. 18, 1983, which smashed the image that Venezuela was a rich country with a stable economic situation. The second was the caracazo of Feb. 27, 1989, the social explosion in which the poor people in Caracas took to the streets to demonstrate, without organization or political direction, against the policies of adjustment. The demonstrations cracked the illusion of a social equality.

The third was the military uprising in 1992, led by Chávez, which changed among the people the perception of military men as Prætorian guards, a perception created in 1989 during the repression that followed the caracazo. Exemplifying this new situation is the fact that the costume worn by most children during the Carnaval that followed the caracazo was Chávez wearing a red beret.

The fourth piece in this puzzle was [Rafael] Caldera’s triumph in the 1993 election, outside the traditional pairing of Acción Popular and Comité de Organización Política Electoral Independiente (COPEI) and the emergence of a leftist electoral force (Causa R), which presumably got a majority of the votes, which were not recognized and finally were negotiated by candidate Andrés Velázquez, who today is in the opposition. Caldera’s victory broke the traditional two-party balance and rendered impossible a rebuilding of the old political system.

Finally, this transformation in the political culture ended in 1999, with Chávez in the presidency, and a massive popular participation in the drafting of the Constitutional Referendum, where the citizens formulated more than 6 millions proposals and became actively involved in the definition of their own destiny.

According to Oscar Schmell of Hinterlaces, Venezuelan society has become enormously involved in the public agenda. Venezuela is going through a process of social inclusion, he says, and the people support the model that has been instituted.

The enormous weight of this new political culture and the strength of the social conquests of the Bolivarian government make things very difficult for Capriles. He doesn’t know what to do. He cannot publicly oppose those achievements, lest he lose any possibility of success. He cannot speak clearly of his political and economic plans because he would be rejected.

That is why, throughout his campaign, he has been forced to say (as he did on Sept. 6 while touring Lara) that “the missions, the social programs […] must be managed by the government because that’s its obligation.”

Chavism has enabled Chávez to represent a vision of the country with a high consensus; two thirds of the population see him as the future. In addition, Schmell says, Chávez’s emotional speeches, as part of his political discourse, have been very important to reach the deepest feelings of the homeless. Especially in the poorer areas, where daily life has many limitations, the president’s loving speeches, his charismatic-religious leadership have built a very powerful and influential discourse.

That is why he can confess, as he did yesterday to the crowds, unhesitatingly, that “at one point I thought that I might have to leave the political arena, but, thank God, here I am – recovered.”

To be socialist in Venezuela is what’s happening today, even for those on the right. Therein lies part of the tragedy of Henrique Carriles and his allies. Therein lies Chávez’s strength.