Ongoing Destabilisation Attempts in Venezuela ahead of December Elections

Millions of Venezuelans will go to the polls on 8 December to elect 335 Mayors. This will be another opportunity for Venezuelans to express themselves at the ballot box as they have done in 17 elections, all declared free and fair, since Hugo Chavez opened up a new political era in Venezuela in 1999. However, there are fears that extremists in Venezuela's right-wing opposition coalition are planning to use these elections as a focal point for further destabilisation against the government of Nicolas Maduro, elected in April following the death of Hugo Chavez. Destabilisation attempts were used repeatedly against Hugo Chavez to try and unseat his democratically elected government.

Opposition Violence at the April 2013 Presidential Election

December's elections are the first since a wave of violence and destabilisation was unleashed in April by sections of Venezuela’s right-wing opposition in response to Nicolas Maduro winning the Presidential election. This was an attempt by sections of the opposition to unseat Maduro even before he was sworn into office and to exploit the new political context following the death of Hugo Chavez.

Following a close but decisive election result, with Nicolas Maduro winning by 260,000 votes (51-49%), the opposition immediately alleged fraud despite providing no evidence and having themselves signed off more than a dozen audits of the voting system prior to the election. They continued to make these baseless allegations even after a 100% recount, that they had demanded, confirmed the results. The spurious claims continued even after governments across the political spectrum in Latin America and those in the UK, France, Spain and others in the EU recognised the results.

Opposition leader Henrique Capriles used these baseless claims of fraud as a pretext to encourage opposition supporters to “vent their anger”. A wave of opposition led political violence followed resulting in the death of 11 innocent people with dozens injured as well as petrol bombings and arson attacks on government funded health centres, National Electoral Council buildings and the headquarters of parties supporting Nicolas Maduro.

The Opposition’s Record of Rejecting the Will of the People

This refusal to accept the legitimate election results in April is totally consistent with past refusals of extremists in the Venezuelan opposition to abide by Venezuela’s democratically approved constitution. On numerous occasions they have attempted to directly oust the elected government. At other times they have sought to generate crises that would see the elected government forced from office, despite its constitutional mandate.

The most renowned example is the short-lived military coup against the democratically-elected Chavez government in 2002 which saw widespread bloodshed and the abolition of all democratic institutions until the coup was overturned by popular demonstrations. In 2003, they unleashed a 64-day oil industry lock-out that saw the economy collapse by a third with the declared aim of ousting President Chavez. The right-wing opposition coalition then claimed fraud at the 2004 recall referendum on whether Hugo Chávez would continue as President. Hugo Chavez won with 59% and the results were ratified by various bodies including the Carter Centre. The opposition promised to provide evidence of fraud but, a decade later, have yet to do so underlining that this was nothing more than a cynical attempt to sabotage the electoral system and provoke a constitutional crisis. Likewise, in 2005, faced with certain defeat, they decided to boycott the parliamentary elections to try to undermine the results, a move publically opposed by the Organisation of American States.

In contrast, the opposition coalition has been quick to accept the results of elections that it has won. It accepted the results of a constitutional referendum in 2007 when it won by 51%-49% and of the seats won at the 2010 parliamentary elections and at the 2008 and 2012 state governor elections.

Venezuela’s Free and Fair Elections

Despite the recent politically motivated allegations made against the electoral system and attempts to de-legitimise the Maduro government, there is clear evidence that Venezuela has a free and fair electoral system. Every set of elections since Hugo Chavez was elected President in 1999 has been declared free and fair including by international bodies such as the EU and the Organisation of American States (OAS). Jimmy Carter, former US President and a Nobel Prize winner for his work on democracy said last year: "of the 92 elections that we've monitored, I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.”

Continued Destabilisation Attempts

Approaching December's elections, destabilisation attempts appear to be ongoing with the aim of replacing the legitimately elected Maduro government. Leopold Lopez, a senior opposition politician and campaign manager for presidential candidate Henrique Capriles, told the press in November that the opposition sought regime change.

There is growing concern over the use of economic sabotage to exploit and create genuine difficulties in the Venezuelan economy and damage key infrastructure, similar to the previously mentioned oil lock-out of 2003. Fears have been expressed that this echoes US President Nixon’s strategy to "make the economy scream" initially used to try to overthrow the progressive government of Salvador Allende in Chile in the 1970s. Government investigations have recently concluded that an enormous fire at a major oil refinery in 2012 was the result of sabotage as was a nationwide electricity blackout this September.

In this context, a statement in October by 45 Venezuelan retired military officers, including a dozen generals and admirals, and a former defence minister, supporting a military intervention to replace the Maduro government is particularly worrying.

Election Day Protests: the opposition have called for demonstrations immediately after voting ends on 8 December. Whilst the right to peaceful protest is a vital part of democratic freedoms and is enshrined in the Venezuelan Constitution, there are concerns about the real intention of such protests, especially as April's political violence took place with the pretext of a call for protest. Likewise in 2002, the right-wing opposition used protests to generate large scale physical confrontation, with snipers shooting on the crowds. This opposition-organised bloodshed was used as the justification for the army to oust the elected Chavez government and suspend democracy.

Comments by opposition leaders have added to the fears that protests may have unconstitutional motives. For example, Maria Corina Machado, a leading opposition spokesperson said in November that Nicolas Maduro's period of office will not be determined by the constitution but will be “determined on the streets”. Machado was a signatory to the 2002 coup and earlier this year was widely reported to have signed a petition calling on “the Venezuelan ...Armed Forces to restore the Constitution” and “take charge”.

Unconstitutional Arguments

Some in the opposition are characterising the mayoral elections as a plebiscite against the Maduro government. They are seeking to popularise the idea that if Nicolas Maduro does not win a majority in the mayoral elections this must lead to the creation of a new government. Election day protests by opposition supporters are being described as an opportunity to show the world that a majority wants Nicolas Maduro to go. Of course, local elections have no relevance to the legitimacy of the elected national government. Furthermore parties aligned to Nicolas Maduro have a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly, hold 20 out of 23 state governorships and 22 of 23 local state assemblies. Additionally, polls give Maduro approval ratings of almost 60%, significantly higher than many governments across the world.

Most importantly this line of argument runs contrary to Venezuela's constitution which states that the President will serve a six-year presidential term. Thus Maduro is the constitutional president of Venezuela until 2019. The opposition should respect that democratic mandate even if it would have preferred a different outcome.

US Support for the Opposition

The US government has very close relations with the Venezuelan opposition. In contrast governmental relations have never recovered after the US backed the 2002 military coup against Hugo Chavez and are continually undermined by the millions of dollars of direct funding to opposition groups that the US government provides via bodies including the National Endowment for Democracy. Indeed funding for Venezuela's main opposition party, Primera Justicia, has come from this source. Wikileaks revelations that the US' strategy is to isolate the Venezuelan government appear to explain its purpose.

Venezuela's opposition has been emboldened by remarks from influential US politicians such as US Assistant Secretary of State, Roberta Jackson, who claimed earlier this year that it would be "difficult" to have "open, fair and transparent elections" in Venezuela. This was widely regarded as a political intervention given that Latin American and European governments have regularly accepted Venezuela’s elections as free and fair. Such support from the US does nothing to discourage the opposition parties from engaging in destabilisation and from feeling that it can operate outside of Venezuela's constitution.

Conclusion

Venezuela has a robust democracy with more elections held in the past 15 years than in the previous 40 years. All have been declared free and fair. However, extremists in the Venezuelan opposition have never accepted the legitimacy of the new constitution, endorsed by a nationwide referendum in 1999. Various attempts to oust Venezuela’s elected governments have been attempted and, following the death of Hugo Chavez, appear to be intensifying. Defenders of democracy across the world can best serve the democratic process in Venezuela by calling on the opposition parties to accept the will of the Venezuelan people and to abide by the country’s democratically approved constitution.