DIVISIONS AND DISSENT IN CHAVISMO

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 05 CARACAS 001468

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

HQSOUTHCOM ALSO FOR POLAD
FOR FRC LAMBERT

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/28/2026
TAGS: PGOV VE
SUBJECT: DIVISIONS AND DISSENT IN CHAVISMO

REF: A. CARACAS 00078

B. 05 CARACAS 03261

C. CARACAS 00839

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Classified By: ACTING POLITICAL COUNSELOR MARK A. WELLS FOR 1.4 (D)

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Summary
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1. (C) The diversity of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez'
"Bolivarian Revolution" often makes it appear divided. For
example, differences have emerged between the movement's
civilians and soldiers, its democrats and dictators, and its
ideologues and crooks. Nonetheless, these disputes have been
isolated; they have not divided Chavez' movement. Because
all Chavista officials ultimately depend on Chavez for
influence, machinations among pro-BRV groups have had little
impact on the stability of the administration. Government
officials even have an interest in "staging" differences
within the ruling party to try to establish that the branches
of government are independent.


2. (C) Pro-Chavez Venezuelans protest regularly throughout
the country over government failures to provide services, pay
public employees, and carry out entitlement programs.
Demonstrations have been especially common in Chavez' home
state of Barinas, where two pro-BRV state government factions
came to blows. Chavez has adeptly silenced internal
wrangling in his government for the time being. In the long
run, divisions within Chavismo will become more apparent in
the absence of a unifying opposition threat. We can not rule
out the possibility that the aforementioned fault lines in
the party could become more serious; indeed, given the
incapacity of the current opposition, the most likely source
for a viable political counterpart to Hugo Chavez is a
breakaway faction within Chavismo. SEPTEL examines Chavez'
strategy for handling the divisions and dissent. End
summary.

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Fault Lines: Extant or Exaggerated?
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3. (C) The "Bolivarian Revolution" of Venezuelan President
Hugo Chavez suffers from divisions and dissent, yet Chavez
has thus far remained firmly in control. In addition to the
festering morale issues in the Venezuelan Armed Forces and
the Foreign Ministry reported in REFS A and B, splinters
within the BRV have appeared throughout the country. Public
disputes among pro-Chavez leaders and frequent Chavista-led
protests against the government have led to speculation among
Embassy contacts and the media about the causes and extent of
the divisions, in particular those between civilian and
military officials. We do not want to overplay these
fissures; Chavismo as a whole does appear solid. That said,
there is something here. This cable attempts to distinguish
between the wishful thinking by Chavez opponents and the true
weaknesses of the revolution.


4. (C) The ruling Movimiento Quinta Republica (MVR) party
is not the source of Chavez' power. Rather, the party
depends on the President for influence and resources. MVR
National Assembly deputy Luis Tascon told us last year that
the MVR had no weight other than what Chavez lent it, and its
leaders had no independent support. MVR deputy Roberto
Quintero told poloff in August 2005 that without Chavez, the
MVR would disintegrate. Because party members lack their own
power bases, the importance of intra-MVR disputes can be
overplayed. MVR differences are settled when Chavez
intervenes. Chavez wields almost unquestioned authority over

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other pro-Chavez political parties, as well, despite their
trying to maintain a separate identity from the MVR.

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Finding the Fault Lines Complicated
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5. (C) Battle lines do not extend across Chavismo on any
particular issue. As such, issue-specific interpretations of
disputes within the government tend to be
oversimplifications. The MVR is a chaotic party organized
around personalities, business deals, institutions, and old
alliances, MVR deputy Quintero asserted. Presidential
"pre-candidate" Teodoro Petkoff added during an August 2005
meeting that the MVR lacked solid organizational structures
and was racked with personal divisions. Although these
competing sources of authority and personality conflicts
rarely come to light, they all contribute to intra-party
friction. Tascon, whom the MVR's National Tactical Command
temporarily suspended last year for commenting publicly about
internal party machinations, told us that internal clashes
were naked disputes over power. Given the separate and
diffuse power centers, individual disputes are not
necessarily representative of broad trends. None of the
differences examined below permeate the movement.


6. (C) CIVILIAN vs. MILITARY. Former opposition legislator
Pedro Diaz Blum, now an alternate member of the National
Electoral Council who remains plugged in with Chavistas,
makes much of civilian-military tensions. According to Diaz
Blum, one example is Carabobo Governor Luis Felipe Acosta
Carles, who has irritated the local MVR by packing his staff
with soldiers and bringing in some competent opposition party
officials to keep the state running. There is much
speculation as well over the civil and military factions in
the National Assembly, led by National Assembly president
Nicolas Maduro and former president Francisco Ameliach,
respectively. Such strains exist; the pet holdovers and
fellow coup-plotters from Chavez' military days probably do
arouse some resentment. Nevertheless, Chavez opponents
exaggerate the splits to try to condemn Chavez for the
"militarization" of Venezuelan society and to assure U.S.
interlocutors that their cause is not lost. According to MVR
deputy Quintero, the civilian-military divide is not the
defining axis of division.


7. (C) IDEOLOGY vs. VENALITY. Reporters attempt to discern
divisions by hyping differences in Chavista officials'
character traits. Chavismo contains, for example, officials
who appear extremely ideological, such as firebrand deputy
Iris Varela, former human rights lawyer Governor Tarek
William Saab, and mob leader "comandante" Lina Ron. It also
includes less reactionary officials who appear to be devoting
considerable energies into getting rich, such as Miranda
Governor Diosdado Cabello and Interior Minister Jesse Chacon.
All of these politicians have had public disputes with other
pro-Chavez officials, but no evidence exists that corrupt
officials are aligning against the "true believers" or vice
versa. On the other hand, it appears that as Chavez
prioritizes the fight against corruption, Chavistas are
attempting to undermine their personal enemies in the
revolution by accusing them of graft (REF C).


8. (U) DEMOCRATS vs. "TALIBANES." Experiments with
internal democracy have caused some disenchantment in the
party. Media headlines have suggested a war between
"democratic" Chavistas and hard-line "Talibanes" who impose
electoral candidates from above. Yet, none of the splits
exposed by elections have cut across the entire movement,
either. For instance, MVR primaries held in April 2005 to
determine candidates for the August parochial elections

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touched off disputes over candidacies, but all appeared to be
isolated instances. In perhaps the most notorious example,
Chavez silenced a public row between Caracas metropolitan
mayor Juan Barreto and the city's Libertador municipality
mayor Freddy Bernal over candidacies. The nature of the
insults swapped suggested the two may have harbored personal
grudges before the elections. In other isolated examples,
the MVR expelled Trujillo State Governor Gilmer Viloria and
two Portuguesa State mayors from the party for promoting
unsanctioned candidates for the December 2005 National
Assembly elections.


9. (C) DIVISIONS AMONG CHAVISTA PARTIES. Divisions between
the MVR and other pro-Chavez political parties are perhaps
the only ones that Chavistas themselves have an interest in
hyping. Following Chavez' sweep of the National Assembly
elections in December 2005, BRV representatives publicly
rattled off a laundry list of pro-Chavez parties with seats
to try to show that the legislature remained an independent
branch of government. These parties' public and private
statements, however, indicate their firm loyalty to Chavez.
Pro-Chavez parties Podemos and Patria Para Todos (PPT)
announced in early May 2006 that they backed Chavez' threat
to hold a referendum asking voters to allow him to remain in
office until 2031. Although Podemos and PPT announced they
would form a legislative "opinion bloc," they assured
reporters they did not seek to compete with the MVR. PPT
secretary general Jose Albornoz told poloff in March that the

SIPDIS
PPT would criticize inefficiencies in the revolution but
would always remain a part of it.


10. (U) The resolution of a few highly public rifts between
Chavista parties have displayed the cohesion of the Chavez
movement. The PPT and Podemos parties' annoyance over the
MVR's failure to consult with them over National Assembly
leadership positions appeared to end quickly. A dispute
between the PPT and the MVR over candidates for the Amazonas
State gubernatorial elections in August 2005 appeared to
fizzle once the parties conducted a poll and settled on the
incumbent PPT candidate. Implicated in human rights abuses
in his states, PPT Governor of Guarico State Eduardo Manuitt
emerged from a National Assembly interior politics committee
inquiry with no more punishment than a declaration of
"political responsibility." National Assembly president
Nicolas Maduro effectively silenced MVR critics of Manuitt
when he demanded an inquiry into whether their "political
enmity" motivated the committee's report.

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Discontent Among Chavista Voters
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11. (C) Elements of Chavez' support base--Venezuelans
reliant on government services--protest regularly throughout
the country. During the first week of May, the press
recorded 11 demonstrations in several states over poor
government service provision and various labor disputes, nine
of which blocked traffic. Anti-Chavez peasant association
leader Manuel Gomez told us in mid-2005 that the dismal state
of health care and government services in the Caracas suburbs
where he lived was approaching a boiling point. He noted
that government development bank BANDES was having difficulty
handling all of the people requesting grants. Indeed,
delayed government disbursements have been the source of many
Chavista protests. In particular, radical pro-government
website articles and our opposition and Chavista contacts
have begun to report breakdowns in the BRV social missions'
ability to reach the people.


12. (C) BARINAS DIVISIONS AND DEMONSTRATIONS. Both
divisions among pro-BRV politicians and local Chavista

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protests have plagued Chavez' rural home state of Barinas.
Rafael Simon Jimenez, a former National Assembly deputy from
Barinas who attempted to remain a member of both the
opposition party MAS and its pro-Chavez offshoot Podemos,
identified for poloff rival political factions that came to
physical blows during Barinas marches on May 1, 2006.
Jimenez said that one faction backed the President's family:
Governor Hugo de los Reyes Chavez (the President's father)
and secretary of state Argenis Chavez (the President's
brother),whom Jimenez called the power behind the throne.
National Assembly deputy Pedro Carreno, who leads the
legislature's investigation of the USD millions stolen from
Barinas's BRV sugar mill construction project, headed the
other camp, supported by Barinas city mayor Julio Cesar
Reyes.


13. (C) Discontent among Barinas residents erupted into
regular demonstrations in March 2006. According to press
reports, Governor de los Reyes Chavez reacted by issuing a
decree prohibiting protests on public roads after 15 marches
took place in less than a month. In another example of
Chavista political divisions, several pro-BRV state
legislators claimed the decree was illegal. Two of these
marches trapped the Governor in his residence. Protests
arose over issues such as road conditions, public housing
construction, and problems with BRV social missions.
Government workers' demands for back payments have also been
a theme of Barinas demonstrations. In mid-March, a
pro-Chavez oil workers' union took over a Barinas rig to
demand raises promised them in 2005. Two weeks later,
education workers picketing the offices of the
Governor--himself a former teacher--demanded nearly USD 50
million in delayed payments of bank-held trust funds, which
the government has commonly used to hold employees' wages and
retirement plans.


14. (C) Protests have also been common in other
MVR-governed states throughout the country. Some of the most
notable have occurred in:

--ANZOATEGUI. Marches over water supply, education, trash,
and political differences among Chavistas with Governor Saab.


--BOLIVAR. Protests over housing, health care, security,
employment, mining rights, and back payment demands for
public workers. Demonstrations blocked so many local traffic
arteries in September 2005 that they disrupted Chavez' trip
to the state.

--CARABOBO. Roads blocked to demand the construction of
low-income housing. (Note: Governor Acosta Carles faces
dissent for action as well as inaction, according to former
deputy Diaz Blum. Powerful pro-Chavez interests have opposed
his expropriations of land for public works projects, Diaz
Blum says.) People also take to the streets regularly in
Carabobo over delays in government compensation for damages
caused by the flooding of Lake Valencia.

--MIRANDA and the FEDERAL DISTRICT. Most of the problems
mentioned above have triggered demonstrations in greater
Caracas. In addition, insecurity drives both Chavez
opponents and poor Chavistas--who suffer most from crime--to
the streets. Popular leftist tabloid Ultimas Noticias, which
is sympathetic to President Chavez, reports daily on
discontent with the lack of security and government services
in metro Caracas.

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Comment
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15. (C) Without question, Hugo Chavez is in control of his
movement. Disciplinary actions enacted by Chavez through the
MVR last year appear to have silenced those officials
challenging authority for the time being (SEPTEL). Because
Chavez is his movement's only electoral candidate this year,
wrangling over political positions is less likely to surface
in the near term. On the contrary, Chavez appears to have
channeled his followers toward the singular goal of getting
him 10 million votes.


16. (C) Despite Chavez' current firm hold, in the long run,
internal divisions and dissent are likely to become more
apparent. Failure to meet popular expectations, particularly
breakdowns in government service provision, consititute
Chavez' biggest political vulnerability. We cannot discard
the possibility that the fault lines mentioned above could
eventually span the entire Chavez movement. Now that Chavez
lacks an opposition to blame, he is probably relying too much
on the favored tactic of blaming the United States.
Eventually, he may be driven to find more scapegoats in his
own government. Moreover, Chavez' subordinates may be more
likely to turn on each other in the absence of a common
opposition threat. Because of the incompetence of the
current opposition, the most likely source for a viable
political counterpart to Chavez is a breakaway faction within
Chavismo.
BROWNFIELD