WHY THE OPPOSITION WITHDRAWAL SURPRISED OBSERVERS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 CARACAS 003713

SIPDIS

HQSOUTHCOM ALSO FOR POLAD
FOR FRC LAMBERT

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/09/2020
TAGS: PGOV KDEM VE
SUBJECT: WHY THE OPPOSITION WITHDRAWAL SURPRISED OBSERVERS

Classified By: POLITICAL COUNSELOR ROBERT R. DOWNES FOR 1.4 (D)

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Summary
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1. (C) Five of six major Venezuelan opposition parties
withdrew from the December 4 National Assembly elections in a
move that surprised political experts and international
observers. The pullout was also unplanned by the parties
themselves. Eleventh-hour cooperation by the National
Electoral Council (CNE) ironically discouraged the opposition
from participating by allowing them to see technical problems
that could have jeopardized vote secrecy. In another ironic
twist, a decision by opposition party Primero Justicia (PJ)
to participate may have provoked other parties into
withdrawing from the race. Although many party leaders
favored participation, they caved to a surge of grassroots
criticism after Accion Democratica pulled out November 28.
The grassroots view appears to have been based on an
assumption that the voting process was not secret. President
Hugo Chavez said December 4 the pullout could make the
parties "illegal," but it is not clear to us what this means.
The election results may benefit Venezuela in the long run.
The resultant one-party legislature makes Chavez appear more
dictatorial while reducing the power of the most ineffective
elements of the opposition. End summary.


2. (C) The eleventh-hour pullout of five of the six major
Venezuelan opposition parties from the National Assembly
elections during November 28 - December 3 surprised most
political observers. EU observation mission leader Jose
Albino Peneda called the pullout a "profound surprise" at a
press conference December 6. IRI and NDI officials have also
told us they had no advance indication of the withdrawal.
The opposition parties' lack of unity and a coherent grand
strategy contributed to their pullout. Rather than planning
the withdrawal, they merely reacted to events out of their
control. The bickering, unprepared opposition coalition's
handling of two incidents triggered a shift of internal party
influence and external party tactics. Post offers below what
it regards as factors contributing to the opposition's
decisionmaking process.

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Incident #1: The CNE Cooperates
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3. (C) Concessions by the National Electoral Council (CNE)
became the catalyst that launched the opposition down the
road toward withdrawal.

-- First, international and domestic observers convinced the
CNE to allow opposition parties access to voting software and
machinery. In a critical development on November 23,
opposition technicians proved to the observers their
long-held belief that it was possible to cross data from
fingerprint and voting machines to determine each person's
vote. They also highlighted other possibilities of using the
voting machines to detect how people voted. The opposition
reacted with outrage because its worst fears were proven.

-- After initially rebuffing opposition demands, the CNE
agreed November 28 to take the fingerprint machines off-line,
although it said they would be used in future elections.
Some opposition members convincingly argue that the removal
of the fingerprint machines was a good thing, but that there
were a number of other methods of triangulating data from the
voting machines to discover how people voted, particularly
since it was proven that the voting machines retained vote
sequence in its flash memory.
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Incident #2: Primero Justicia Announces it Will Run
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4. (C) Shortly after the CNE decision to take the
fingerprint machines off-line November 28, Primero Justicia
(PJ) secretary general Gerardo Blyde called the decision a
victory for the opposition--effectively claiming credit for
forcing the CNE's hand--and said his party would participate
in the elections. That night, the OAS electoral observation
mission issued a press release congratulating the opposition
and CNE for working together to guarantee transparency.
Minutes later, Globovision announced Accion Democratica (AD)
planned to withdraw from the election. (Embassy note: PJ's
unilateral decision appears to have angered the other
parties, and their disjointed reaction snowballed into the
withdrawal of most of the opposition. Officials from other
parties have often complained to us that PJ is an
opportunistic media darling; they are also jealous that PJ
continues to receive campaign funds while their own party
coffers shrink.)

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Power Shift: Accion Democratica Precedent Empowers Parties'
Rank-and-File
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5. (C) With the exception of a few minor parties and
groupings, most opposition parties were still planning to run
as of late November, although some elements of each party
favored non-participation. Most party leaders, especially in
"traditional" parties like AD and the Christian Democrats
(COPEI),probably advocated participation because they stood
to give up strong chances of winning legislative seats. A
few party leaders opposed abstention on strategic grounds.
Incorrectly suspecting that Washington favored a pullout by
opposition parties, COPEI international relations secretary
Sadio Garavini lectured poloff November 22 that
non-participation never worked.


6. (C) Nonetheless, these parties appear to have been in a
reactive mode rather than following any formulated strategy.
Although opposition party leaders tend to rule by decree, in
this case they appear to have had their hands forced by an
avalanche of internal pressure. AD secretary general Henry
Ramos Allup appears to have judged, based on internal AD
dynamics as well as the broader picture, that he could not
politically afford to be upstaged by Primero Justicia. In
early November, he blocked a challenger from running for AD
secretary general. Ramos Allup already had a reputation

SIPDIS
among some grassroots party elements of being willing to
negotiate with Chavismo. In addition, some members of AD's
National Executive Council had begun advocating
non-participation, an assistant to former Coordinadora
Democratica leader Enrique Mendoza told us November 29.


7. (C) After AD's pullout, other parties were similarly
embarrassed into withdrawing. Some held impromptu
closed-door strategy sessions. Others overturned announced
decisions to stay in the race.

-- Zulia State's opposition Governor Manuel Rosales was well
positioned in his state. He held a march in support of
Zulian electoral candidates November 30 and declared his Un
Nuevo Tiempo party's plans to participate. He then set
himself apart from the pack somewhat by delivering a
compromise position advocating reconciliation. Rosales
demanded December 1 that elections be postponed and a
high-level commission be established to seek a solution to
the "crisis." President Hugo Chavez rejected the offer the
same day, calling Rosales a "coward" and "coup plotter." A
local television host and member of Rosales' coalition told
us Rosales was confronting strong internal party pressure to
withdraw. Faced with the possibility of winning in Zulia but
losing the national popularity he would need next year as a
possible presidential candidate, Rosales announced his
party's withdrawal December 3.

-- In another unexpected turn of events, PJ reversed its
decision to participate on November 30. PJ is one of the few
parties with strategic goals, including that of
distinguishing itself from its discredited fellow opposition
parties. Still, PJ pulled out the day after crowds gathered
around the offices of PJ mayor Leopoldo Lopez shouting,
"withdraw!"

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Tactical Shift: Parties Left With No One to Blame
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8. (C) The parties probably recognized they would either
have to pull out or face losing with no one to blame but
themselves. If the CNE had not made the election day
concessions, these parties could have once again participated
and then cried foul after losing. Instead, they remained
determined to wash their hands of their performance up to the
last minute. Party statements justifying withdrawal
continued to cite technical problems even though the CNE had
agreed to remove both fingerprint machines and electronic
notebooks from the polls. Many members remained deeply
disturbed, however, by the fact that evidence suggested the
GOV could monitor how people voted.

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What Next?
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9. (SBU) Chavez warned on election day that parties could
be branded illegal as well as illegitimate. The legal basis
for that claim is not clear to us. According to a 1964 law
on political parties, parties can not be dissolved without
the consent of their members unless they fail to participate
in two consecutive elections. Nonetheless, if parties do not
receive at least one percent of the vote in "national
elections," they have to reregister during the following
calendar year by collecting signatures of 0.5 percent of the
electoral registry. (Embassy note: Unregistered parties may
be hard pressed to get signatures. Many citizens already
fear persecution for appearing on the "Tascon list" for
signing the presidential recall petition and on the "Maisanta
program" for having voted against Chavez.) The law is not
clear which elections the parties can count to present their
results. If parties are allowed to use vote totals from the
August 2005 municipal elections, Post calculates that AD,
COPEI, PJ, and Movimiento al Socialismo will make the cut.
Proyecto Venezuela and UNT will not.


10. (SBU) Chavez, however, could avoid trouble by applying
the law selectively or by disavowing it entirely as a relic
of the Fourth Republic. (One PJ official said he "hoped to
God" Chavez outlawed his party, which he thought would paint
Chavez as even more autocratic.) As of December 8, press
reports speculated that the GOV had not yet released the
final election results because several GOV-aligned parties
did not receive the votes needed to remain registered.
According to preliminary results released by the CNE, only
six of the 17 Chavez-aligned parties announced to have won
seats received at least two percent of the vote. Similarly,
only six pro-GOV parties received more than one percent in
August.

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Comment
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11. (C) In sum, the opposition pullout, like most
opposition decisions, appears to have been both uncoordinated
and unplanned. This does not mean, however, that some
members of the opposition were not pushing for
non-participation all along. The opposition parties' policy
reversals apparent in a chronology drafted by Post further
show that the opposition was ill prepared to react to the
unfolding events. Governor Rosales said this development
"suits neither the government nor the opposition nor anyone."
He is right on two scores. First, with the Chavez
administration in control of all seats, it will look to
outside observers more like Cuba or Saddam's Iraq than a
functioning democracy. Second, this may be the deathblow for
a number of opposition parties, which were already running on
financial fumes. Who, then, is the big winner here? If this
incident marginalizes the opposition's leadership dinosaurs
and the grassroots retains its voice, Venezuela may be, at
least in the long run.


12. (U) Post will fax chronology separately to department.



BROWNFIELD