By Stephen Johnson
Sunday, February 12, Venezuela’s political opposition holds primaries to see who will face President Hugo Chávez in the general election scheduled for October. Although one hopes their effort will not be in vain, no one should place any bets. President Chávez has been assuring followers that he does not plan on leaving power, and he should be taken at his word.
As in the past, Chávez has a monopoly on state media and censorship laws he can use to muzzle opposition candidates. And he can threaten government employees with dismissal for aiding opponent campaigns even on their own time. He has government vehicles to transport his own loyal voters to polling places. And he has the power of the purse to distribute extra welfare benefits just before the election. If that doesn’t work, it may be possible to tinker with the tallies of some electronic voting machines—it would not take much as Chávez has a solid base of support of as much as 40 percent of the electorate.
But should the loss be too big to cover up, or in case of incapacitation related to the president’s cancer, a military takeover could be the ultimate backup plan. Critical to making that work is the presence of confidantes and compromised officers who might suffer a reversal of fortune if the current government leaves power. Think dismissal, jail, or even extradition.
Topping the list of those in key places is General Henry Rangel Silva, named defense minister this January. As a Colonel, Rangel Silva served as a liaison between the government and Colombia’s FARC guerrillas. In 2008, he was implicated in a scheme to cover up an $800,000 alleged campaign contribution to the campaign of Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. At the same time, the U.S. Treasury Department added him to its Specially Designated Narcotics Traffickers (kingpin) list for allegedly helping the FARC smuggle cocaine into Venezuela for transshipment to the United States and Europe. Last year, alleged drug trafficker Walid Makled named him as a contact while in custody in Colombia.
Rangel Silva reportedly participated in Chávez’s 1992 coup attempt along with newly appointed Air Force commander General José Gregorio Pérez Escalona and army commander General Euclides Amador Campos Aponte. Another top officer, General Cliver Alcala Cordones was named in September to the U.S. Treasury kingpin list for allegedly establishing a drugs-for-guns exchange with Colombian guerrillas.
In a newspaper interview in 2010, Rangel Silva remarked that the election of an opposition government would sell out the country and that the armed forces was “not going to accept that.” Well, maybe not all of the military. But officers like Rangel Silva would be fiercely loyal to Chávez, such that in case of his defeat or incapacitation, a military coup d’état or show of force could prevent an opposition government from taking power. In those circumstances, soldiers wouldn’t be the only ones in the streets. Paramilitary reserves and children trained in handling weapons could be expected to join them.
Sounds far-fetched? In January, Venezuela’s Interior Minister Tarek El Aissami announced a plan to disarm most civilians by closing commercial gun shops and restricting distribution of firearms and ammunition to the government. Subsequently, photos of children in red shirts brandishing automatic rifles showed up on the Facebook page of a pro-regime collective, creating a small scandal. Although President Chávez repudiated the images, it seems clear that he is determined to see himself, or his regime, stay in office by force if necessary.
Stephen Johnson is senior fellow and director of the CSIS Americas Program.
By Mark Dietzen
As expected, Josefina Vázquez Mota (JVM) easily won Sunday´s poll for the PAN leadership. The diminutive lady from Mexico City, formerly Minister of Social Development under Vicente Fox and Education Minister under Felipe Calderón, overcame opposition from Santiago Creel and Ernesto Cordero to win the nomination. It is particularly important that she was able to overcome Cordero, a former Finance Minister in the Calderón administration, as he was commonly seen as the preferred candidate of the current president. Calderón has made little pretense of his favoritism for Cordero, although this has mystified political analysts and jeopardized the party's attempts to convince voters that, unlike the PRD and the PRI, it is following an entirely democratic process to choose its candidate. With almost 90 percent of the votes counted, JVM took 55 percent, Cordero 38 percent, and Creel 6 percent. Cordero's numbers were surprisingly high, showing that Calderón's support provided a boost for Cordero.