CATHOLIC RECTOR SAYS OPPOSITION MUST PLAY CHAVEZ'

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 CARACAS 000337

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/03/2021
TAGS: PGOV PHUM KIRF KDEM VE
SUBJECT: CATHOLIC RECTOR SAYS OPPOSITION MUST PLAY CHAVEZ'
ELECTORAL GAME

REF: A. 05 CARACAS 2549


B. CARACAS 00123

Classified By: Mark Wells, Acting Political Counselor,
for Reason 1.4(b).

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Summary
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1. (C) Catholic University Rector Luis Ugalde told A/Polcouns
February 7 the opposition must see the presidential elections
through despite the obstacles President Hugo Chavez is sure
to throw up. Ugalde said Chavez' recent dialogues with the
church and private sector are an obvious ruse designed to
make Chavez appear more conciliatory to the electorate. With
the United States, however, Chavez plans to polarize
relations in an effort to paint all Chavez opponents as
agents of imperialism, the Rector said. Ugalde
optimistically predicted a single candidate would emerge by
July -- probably Teodoro Petkoff. Petkoff's left-of-center
message may dig significantly into the Chavez base, he said,
which is increasingly frustrated with the failures of the
revolution. Chavez will concede to a new National Electoral
Council (CNE) board, but the electoral registry is the prime
concern, he added, noting that several universities are
gearing up to assist the NGO Sumate in an independent audit
of corrupted voter rolls. Ugalde's insightful analysis
suggests the opposition has a ray of hope this year despite
serious and substantive obstacles. End summary.


2. (C) Poloff met on February 7 with Father Luis Ugalde,
Rector of the conservative Andres Bello Catholic University
(UCAB) in Caracas. Ugalde, an outspoken critic of Chavez and
regular public opinion columnist, is the senior Jesuit in
Venezuela and president of the association of Jesuit
universities in Latin America (ref a).

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It's A Game, But They Have To Play It
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3. (C) Ugalde said the opposition's principal weakness is
uncertainty over whether to participate in elections. Some
opposition groups, he said, are only half-heartedly calling
for reforms at the National Electoral Council (CNE) with the
hope of repeating the December 2005 opposition boycott. He
commended retired Cardinal Rosalio Castillo Lara for speaking
his mind in calling for persons to engage in civil
disobedience (re article 350 of the constitution),but
faulted the prelate for not having a clear end state in mind.
Castillo and other groups, he said, are unwisely betting on
some kind of military coup to save them from Chavez. This
strategy will only serve Chavez, Ugalde warned, by convincing
a significant portion of opposition voters to abstain from
voting. He predicted that Chavez will continue to provoke
and outrage possible abstentionists, as he did when CNE
President Jorge Rodriguez, the supposed arbiter of the
presidential race, attended the February 4 Chavez rally and
applauded when Chavez crowed about getting 10 million votes.
Ugalde asserted that widespread opposition abstention will
only discredit the opposition in the eyes of the
international community, which is a potential brake on
Chavez' electoral excesses. It's all Chavez' game, Ugalde
concluded, but it's a game the opposition has to play to the
end.

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Dialogue With Church, Business, a Red Herring
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4. (C) Ugalde said the President's recent dialogues with some
social groups is an electoral show for Chavez to appear more
open and reasonable to voters. Regarding Chavez' recent
discussion with the Catholic Church, Ugalde said, both sides
have no delusions about anything useful coming out of it.
Ugalde said the Church's ostensibly conciliatory tone is
tactical only, designed to gain credibility in the event of a
major political crisis. He dismissed any public perception
of divisions among Catholic bishops regarding Chavez'
creeping authoritarianism, noting that the bishops issued a
unanimous condemnation of the government during its January
meeting (ref b). Ugalde said the Vatican, too, understood
the dire political situation in Venezuela but moved to
replace its Nuncio in Venezuela to maintain possible lines of
communication with the Bolivarians. Ugalde noted that Chavez
had embarked on a dialogue with the business confederation
FEDECAMARAS for similar reasons.

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Make All Chavez Opponents U.S. Lackeys
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5. (C) The one exception to Chavez' dialogue scheme, Ugalde
said, is Venezuela's newly-charged aggression against the
United States. Ugalde posited that Cuban President Fidel
Castro had advised Chavez to whip up fears of a U.S. invasion
to the point of considering Venezuela to be in a de facto
state of war. This would make any opposition presidential
candidate, or anyone who opposed Chavez, by definition a
traitor to Venezuela and ally of the United States. Ugalde
expected Chavez to continue pestering the United States with
the hope of eliciting reactions that would justify his
invasion alert. In reality, Ugalde said, most Venezuelans
remain friendly toward the United States and would probably
not be swayed by Chavez' bellicose rhetoric.

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Unified Candidate By Summer
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6. (C) Ugalde believed a single opposition candidate will
ultimately emerge from the field of three: Julio Borges,
Teodoro Petkoff, and Zulia Governor Manuel Rosales. Ugalde
said he is close to Borges, a UCAB graduate, but admitted
that the Primero Justicia (PJ) leader lacks passion and comes
off like an "Oxford professor" with the people. Borges'
candidacy is important, Ugalde said, to consolidate the
splintered PJ party, but would not capture the excitement of
the majority of Venezuelans. In contrast,he said, Petkoff
had both the passion and message. Ugalde said he urged
Petkoff to announce his candidacy as soon as possible. He
said Petkoff needs to take his scathing and powerful
criticism of Chavez out of the pages of his Caracas daily Tal
Cual to the more effective medium of television. Petkoff
worries, he added, of being branded a tool of the Venezuelan
right by his traditional leftist allies (Petkoff was a
minister under the center-right Caldera administration) and
will try to maintain a progressive socialist tack during the
campaign. Regarding Rosales, Ugalde presumed the Zulia
Governor would run as Petkoff's unofficial running mate,
which would allow him to keep his governorship if Chavez
wins. Ugalde said he has been at meetings between Borges and
Petkoff, and was confident that by July both candidates would
assess their position and agree to support the strongest
contender.

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Chavez Is Vulnerable This Year
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7. (C) Ugalde noted that Chavez' recent launch of new

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economic initiatives, designed to pour money into the lowest
sectors of society, will fail, and fail soon. Ugalde, whose
university administers numerous Catholic-based social
programs, said poor Venezuelans are becoming increasingly
disenchanted with Chavez and his failure to improve living
conditions in seven years. He specifically cited the Mission
Barrio Adentro medical program for the poor as a failure,
reaching far fewer people with quality medical treatment than
the government lets on. (Note: UCAB's Santa Ines free
hospital was so effective in the adjacent barrio of Antimano,
university officials have told us, that several Barrio
Adentro offices were shuttered for lack of business.) Ugalde
quipped that support for Chavez is so shallow that half of
the million-plus crowd that participated in the government's
February 4 march (septel) would probably vote for Chavez'
opponent in December.

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Electoral Conditions: There's the Rub
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8. (C) Ugalde said the Bolivarian Government will have to
replace the five-person board of the CNE, if for no other
reason than to put a good face on the elections to outsiders.
Ugalde said the new board would be as subservient to Chavez
as the current one, however, an unavoidable effect of Chavez'
domination of the other branches of government. Ugalde said
the bloated and non-transparent electoral registry was
perhaps the greatest challenge facing the opposition, and he
was certain the CNE would not open the suspect rolls to a
proper audit. Revolutions hold elections, he remarked, but
they do not lose them. Ugalde said the opposition would have
to rely on the NGO Sumate to battle the CNE on this point.
He said several universities (Universidad Central de
Venezuela, Universidad Metropolitana, Universidad Los Andes,
and his own UCAB) were preparing to assist Sumate in a
USG-funded independent audit of the registry.


9. (C) Ugalde was also hopeful that international observation
would help even the playing field for the opposition, and
expressed confidence that the European Union and OAS would,
as with the parliamentary elections, send observation
missions. He said the government had invited the EU and OAS
last year in hopes of legitimizing its victory, but the
opposition boycott laid bare many of the Bolivarians'
electoral antics. However, the return of international
observers, he noted, would require credible assurances from
the opposition that they would indeed see the elections
through to the end.

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Comment
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10. (C) Ugalde is a sober and informed observer of the
Venezuelan political scene, though he may be overly
optimistic about the opposition candidates' willingness to
back an early front-runner by the summer. Ugalde borders on
being positive on the opposition's chances in the
presidential elections, though he stressed several times that
there are pitfalls. Opposition worries over vote secrecy may
hand Chavez an easy win as happened last December.
Government abuse of state resources in the elections and CNE
cheating/manipulation are also virtual certainties that could
suffocate the opposition's chances.

BROWNFIELD