Andean Group - November 2013 (ISSN 1741-4466)

The ruling Partido Unido Socialista de Venezuela (PSUV) swept the 16 December 2012 regional elections, winning 20 of the 23 states, up from 17 in 2008, and consolidating its almost total grip on power in Venezuela less than two months after the late president Hugo Chávez (1999-2013) was re-elected with a thumping 11 percentage point margin for a fourth consecutive term. He died just three months later, on 5 March 2013, and his handpicked successor Nicolás Maduro was barely elected to replace him in April in an election still being contested before international instances by the Venezuelan opposition, which alleged fraud. This year’s municipals, on 8 December next, represent a big test for the Bolivarian Revolution.

The PSUV also swept the last municipal elections (23 November 2008, held consecutively with state elections), winning 267 (81%) of the 335 municipal governments. This was an improvement on 2004, when parties supporting Chávez won 226 municipalities. In all five states won by opposition candidates, the PSUV won control of the majority of the municipalities. The PSUV also won the most important of the five municipalities in the metropolitan district of Caracas - Libertador, the capital city proper - as well as 18 state capitals.

However the opposition won the mayoralty of Greater Caracas with Antonio Ledezma. In addition, it also won four of the five municipalities in Caracas: previously it controlled only the three wealthiest - Chacao, Baruta, and El Hatillo. In a very symbolic blow to Chávez, it added Sucre. Sucre was a Chavista stronghold: it includes the Petare slum, home to nearly one-third of the capital's residents. Here, Jesse Chacón, a close associate of Chávez, was turfed out of office by a young opposition leader, Carlos Ocariz, who capitalised on Chacón's unpopularity and by promising to reduce violent crime.

Sucre apart, the opposition suffered a reverse in the 2008 municipal elections. It only managed to win 57 municipalities, down from 85 in 2004: Acción Democrática won the most, 19, with Copei taking nine. As expected, Manuel Rosales, who Chávez threatened to have thrown in jail during the electoral campaign, won in Maracaibo, the state capital of Zulia and second most populous city in Venezuela.

Dissident Chavista parties were annihilated in 2008. They lost the three states they held and failed to make an impression in a six further states they contested. Podemos, which in 2004 had won 52 municipalities and two states - Aragua and Sucre, was left with just two municipalities. Patria para Todos fared little better, winning four municipalities.

In true form, Chávez later undercut the opposition’s gains. First (on 30 April 2009), the national assembly passed a Capital District Law transferring most functions, funding and personnel from the metropolitan mayor of Caracas to a new ‘Capital District’, headed by Jaqueline Faría, a loyalist handpicked by Chávez. Ledezma was helpless to contest the decision, which was given legal sanction by the Chavista-dominant judiciary. Chávez supporters described the move as an act of justice for Libertador. Manuel Rosales was also run out of town after he was charged with corruption (also in April 2009). He fled to Peru, where he was granted political asylum and was replaced in his post by his wife, Eveling Trejo de Rosales.

The map in Venezuela is thus almost totally red, but that conceals some real differences at the local level, both between the ruling PSUV and its allies and also within the party itself. These differences threatened to rear their ugly heads ahead of the December 2012 state elections. Again, the ailing Chávez intervened, directly replacing some weaker official candidates with nominees handpicked by himself and the PSUV leadership, often imposing these over the heads of local party bases. They included former cabinet ministers and several military associates of the president. They all won – testament to the top down power of the PSUV, which successfully demanded nothing less than 100% unity in the face of the recurrence of Chávez’s cancer and his return to Cuba for further treatment on 10 December – just days before the regional polls.

• Turnout

The turnout in the December 2012 regional elections was just 54%, compared with 81% in the October presidential elections. The opposition MUD won 44% of the national vote, to 56% for the PSUV, almost identical to its performance in October. In absolute terms, it won 3.83m votes nationwide, compared with 4.85m for the PSUV, a difference of about 1m; in October Capriles took 6.5m votes to 8.1m for Chávez. In the regional elections in 2008, the MUD won fractionally more votes (3.93m); the PSUV 600,000 fewer. In the April 2013 presidential election, turnout was 79% of 18.8m registered voters. Maduro got about 7.5m votes and Capriles 7.3m; Maduro’s winning margin was roughly 234,000 votes.