Oh Ah, Chavez no se va!!

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As you probably know, the Venezuelan elections are next Monday, December 3rd. Hugo Chavez, the current president is fighting to get elected for the 3rd time... to go for a record stretch of 12 years of ´elected´presidency. The Venezuelan constitution maaay have been altered a little bit (by the HC himself) to allow this to happen, but to his supporters, this is just a little bump in the road, nothing serious.
There are 3 types of people I´ve met in regards to how they plan on tackling this election...

Tipo#1:The Chavez Supporter
This person is usually of a poorer background. He/She sees Chavez as the leader of the Revolución contra el Capitalismo- the Revolution against Capitalism that started 8 years ago when Chavez was first elected. Now, if you ask his supporters, they´d never call themselves Communists... they believe in Socialism; a government from the people, for the people. Chavez´s slogan, ¨Con Chavez, Manda el Pueblo¨(with Chavez, the Town/Village is in control)... Chavez has earned their support from taking the massive amounts of oil revenue that Venezuela earns, and has distributed it amoung the people in the form of education, free medical clinics for everyone, even the people in the barrios (really poor neighbourhoods), and public infrastructure like roads and parks and buildings for the arts etc.
My new friend and guide, Luis is a strong example of the type 1 Chavez lovers. His parents were extremely poor while he was growing up... he lost his father at the age of 12, and his mom worked as a janitor in a school for 25 years. When she retired she was told she would receive a pension. Meagre, but enough to put food on the table for herself and her 4 children. This was 10 years ago... for the first 2 entire years she never received a single pension cheque, eventhough she went each month to look for it. The bosses just brushed her aside and sent her packing, along with the rest of her friends who had retired. 3 of them died of illnesses that could have been prevented with the medicines that they were unable to buy. Then Chavez took power 8 years ago... one of the first things he did was find all the people who were owed money through the pension plans and he repaid them every cent - back pay for the 2 years, and even interest. Even the families of the deceased women received compensation for their lost loved ones.

Needless to say, Luis thinks pretty highly of Chavez and his Socialist policies. HC came from a lower class of society and realizes that he only has a certain percentage of the people who support him... another of his slogans is ¨Por los 10 Millones¨ (for the 10 million people). Now, Venezuela has a population of 26 million... but only 18 million can vote, and HC figures he has a guaranteed 10 million votes, enough to win with a majority, and then some.
As well, the petrol companies that used to control the entire reserve of Venezuelan oil (which is the 4th highest in the world... but many say it´s the #1 in location because of its proximity to the US, as the other grand petrol producers are mostly located in the Middle East) were rewarded highly when the price of oil went up. Each employee, from the CEOs to the janitors, would take a percentage wage increase every time the price of a barrel of oil rose. Now, according to Chavez supporters, all of that money goes back to the people, as opposed to only a very very small fraction of the people.
Here´s where we come to the 2nd type of Venezolaño...

Tipo#2: Contra Chavez: The Opposition.
The candidate Manuel Rosales is Chavez´s biggest opponent. His slogan takes a different approach: Por Los 26 Milliones de Venezuela. (for all 26 million Venezuelans). Personally I think this is a little more effective than only trying to appeal to a fraction of the population... but who knows?!?!
Most of the Rosales campaign is putting out anti-Chavez propaganda. These MR supporter have a LOT of money, they´re the people who own big business, those who still have some control over the petrol, the owners of factories and land owners. Needless to say, these people are VERY interested in NOT having Chavez in power for another 4 years. They spend hoardes of cash on advertising through a mountain of mediums (not to say that HC doesn´t, as you can´t miss his flyers and banners, painted walls and decorated cars driving around in alllll sorts of places). They are also in control of many of the radio and TV stations as well as the newspapers, and use these mediums to send their anti-Chavez sentiments around the world.
They emphasize that HC is extremely corrupt... that he has numerous personal Swiss bank accounts with a fat wad of cash stashed away for the ´rainy day´that will come when he´s finally ousted from office.
The woman I met on the plane, Mónica, and her husband, Eduardo, were VERY #2. It´s not hard to see why, Eduardo works for a multinational oil company and was just returning from business in the States. They have a LOT of money invested in the petrol of Venezuela, and with Chavez they stand to lose much, if not all.

It´s hard to look at both sides and not feel for each. Chavez talks the talk, but it´s hard to believe that everything he´s doing isn´t somehow tainted with corruption, as so often happens when there is such wealth to be made... but at the same time, I´ve seen with my own eyes the new medical clinics he´s set up, the work crews out fixing and creating roads, and very poor children going to school in new uniforms.

Now we come to the last type of people...

Tipo#3: The Non-Voter
It´s hard to group all the people who aren´t going to vote into one category, it´s not really fair as some are doing is consciously, and others are doing it out of laziness. But for the sake of simplicity, I´ll just call them all non-voters.
Carlos, one of the guides who took us to Los Llanos, refuses to vote. He comes from a very rich family; his father owns 2 businesses and a massive house in Caracas, an entire fleet of trucks, and a few stores (ahah, much to his chagrin, his oldest son is a pot-smoking Rastafarian with dreadlocks and a contempt for anything material, who is dating a (gasp) Indigenous woman... ahhhh!!! Inter-racial dating, WHAT will those crazy kids come up with next?!?!)...
So with Carlos he feels the plight of the poor through his work and his girlfriend, but there is still some upper-class attitude in the boy, whether he likes it or not.
He refuses to vote as he believes both sides are so riddled with corruption that there´s no point wasting his time on an already decided election (he believes that everyone will cheat as hard as they can, and it really wont matter which way he votes!).
The same is with Maryolga, the 32 year old, 5 months pregnant woman I´ve been spending the last few days with (and her French husband, Xavier), she will vote, but will purposefully ruin her ballot just to prove her contempt for both sides.

It´s really hard to say how the election will go. I´d put my money on Chavez, just because he appears to appeal to the majority of the population here... but you never know.

I´ll keep you posted.
Sorry if this is a little less interesting than the other entries, but I figured I´d try and get a little educational material into this blog-business. Can´t hurt, right?
I´d love to hear your opinions on this... and I apologize if anything here offends anyone, all of the above information was compiled through talking with real Venezuelan people and wasn´t from any peer-review articles, so it may not be 100% accurate. Don´t hate!

Much love to all!!! I´m off on another looooong bus ride tonight, wish me luck! Next entry will be from the beach, so enjoy the SNOW!!!!

Callie

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Comments

[Theresa]

iiiiiinteresting!
Hey Callie, I have to admit I don't really know anything about Government, not even ours let alone Venezuelan!! So I thought it was really neat that you wrote something about what is going on, I'm really trying to pay attention to things and become more interested in Politics, actually if you or anyone comes across a 'Politics for Dummies' book let me know haha. Anyways, good luck on the bus trip, hope it goes smoother than the last one! Take care. Love ya