Understanding the Venezuelan election: Two vital perspectives

[Catherina]

Understanding the Venezuelan election: Two vital perspectives
April 19, 2013 — Sabina Becker


“Don’t worry, Nicolás, don’t worry, Venezuela — we already know where the coups come from.”

The commentariat at Aporrea is full of theories and denunciations about how the hell Henrique “Majunche” Capriles Radonski could have picked up, or picked off, so many votes in such a short time, despite the commanding lead Nicolás Maduro had going in. I’ve found a couple of articles that resonated especially with me. Here’s the first, from Antonio Aponte’s regular column, Un Grano de Maíz (A Kernel of Corn):

Keys to Understanding What’s Going On

The reality, already difficult in itself to decipher, is becoming all the more so through the work of the media who, far from being a means of communication, have transformed themselves into veritable cannons in this war that our country is now suffering.

The first key: The oligarchy has a weak leadership. Capriles, we all know, as it has been proven, does not defend the votes; he is afraid of getting deeply involved. They received the orders of the gringo embassy to “not recognize” the result and they have not been able to justify the pretension. It is evident that the ballot-box thing is an excuse, and now they dare to ask for a new election. If the CNE audits all the ballots, they will look for another alibi to continue with their destabilization plans.

Second key: The counterrevolution is not homogeneous. Several different tendencies are united by foreign orders and allowances, by hatred of Chavismo, and a deep disdain for the lowly. They show descrepancies over how to truncate the Revolution, never in the necessity for doing so. They diverge over the timing of aggression, not over aggression itself.

Third key: The Caprilistas have a great contradiction. They want to sail the seas of sensitivity and at the same time they are splashing around in the miasmas of fascist aggression. If Nicolás (Maduro) stands up to them, they’ll run in terror seeking shelter in the Constitution; if they see a sign of weakness in us, they’ll advance.

...

The TV screen functions as intermediary between the directors and the people. The organization presents itself as an instrument of true communication, so that the masses hypnotized by the screen substitute for organized society, the basis of true human communication: looking each other in the eyes, speaking face to face, receiving a message directly from the leaders. Technology seeks to substitute itself for the genuine communication of the soul.

...

Snip of this article which conjectures that the day on election day, CANTV [Venezuela's national telephone service], came under attack probably from a satellite and it is possible that intelligence agencies from overseas conducted a cyber attack against their machines to tamper with the electronic results but they miscalculated how many Capriles would need to 'win') .... "Should this plan fail, there would still be Plan B: crying “fraud."

...

So now we have a clearer picture of what’s going on. It’s much the same as what happened 11 years ago, almost to the day, with the exception that the president the oligarchy and its imperial overlords tried to topple then, is now physically gone (due to “natural” causes, or something plausibly deniable as such), and the circumstance to be shrouded in chaos and confusion is an election, rather than an anti-government protest come to a bloody and sudden head. But the players, with a few exceptions are the same: We have the putschist Capriles, then mayor of Baruta, now governor of Miranda, who stormed the Cuban embassy then, and is storming the electoral authority now. In both instances, he’s claiming that the Cubans are hiding some illegitimacy or other on the part of the Bolivarian government; then, it was Chavista officials, now, allegedly, it’s ballot boxes full of evidence of supposed fraud. The fact that there is no illegitimacy and no fraud is being obscured by hacking, by violence, and by murder.

The excuse, then as now, is that the opposition members who are committing the crimes, have been “driven” to it by an illegitimate defeat. Of course, that’s a lie. And while the opposition keeps shifting the goalposts, the ball has a funny way of still finding its own way in. The people know what happened; they know who they voted for, and it’s not the Majunche. They know full well what his real plan is, and all his tap-dancing and pretending to be more Chavista than Chávez, more Bolivarian than Bolívar, can’t hide the fact that he is an arch-conservative privatizer, an imperial puppet, and a corporatist stooge. He will not do what the people want; he will do what foreign capital wants.

...

The empire thought that with Chávez out of the way, it would be easy sailing, but Maduro proved that to be bullshit. Loyalty is rock-solid among Chavistas, and it is highly unlikely that any of them would have voluntarily turncoated to the same man their beloved president called a coward, a majunche and a pig just a few months ago. I call bullshit on any analysis that claims he ran a strong campaign. His campaign was weak sauce. He could not win their votes by pretending to suddenly be a better Chavista than Chávez himself, or a better Bolivarian than Bolívar. So he relied, predictably, on the tools of empire, and they came through, partway.

...

And in the meantime, among the people, the cordura counselled by Aponte and Coa will prevail. The provocations, as severe and murderous as they are, will not budge the Bolivarians. They’ve been through it all before, many times, and they know the pattern as well as any schoolchild knows a fire drill. Even the growing pile of martyrs from this latest assault — eight, so far — will only serve to strengthen their resolve. They may seem poor, but they are many…and they are seasoned fighters, intelligent and loyal. If anyone in the oligarchy, the international corporatocracy, or the imperial State Dept. thinks that they can steamroll the will of these people, they are in for one hell of a shock.

http://www.sabinabecker.com/2013/04/understanding-the-venezuelan-election-two-vital-perspectives.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. Thanks to Sabina Becker for her hard work, and thanks, Catherina, for yours. n/t