OPPOSITION STILL DIVIDED ON MOST STATE AND LOCAL

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 CARACAS 001000 SIPDIS HQSOUTHCOM ALSO FOR POLAD DEPARTMENT PASS TO AID/OTI (RPORTER) E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/17/2018 TAGS: PGOV KDEM VE SUBJECT: OPPOSITION STILL DIVIDED ON MOST STATE AND LOCAL CANDIDATES CARACAS 00001000 001.2 OF 002 Classified By: ACTING POLITICAL COUNSELOR DANIEL LAWTON, REASON 1.4 (D) ¶1. (C) Summary. Mainstream opposition parties announced consensus candidates for only seven of 22 gubernatorial races in November in a July 15 press conference. While predicting they would announce many more consensus gubernatorial and mayoral candidates before registration begins August 5, opposition leaders have fallen well short of their goal of naming consensus candidates in most races by July 15. Moreover, the local media is giving prominent attention to public squabbling between opposition party leaders and candidates. The opposition is having considerably less success achieving consensus in races it has the best chances to win, a trend that appears to be undermining opposition candidates' prospects for success in the November state and local elections. President Chavez's PSUV party is also having difficulty achieving internal unity, but Chavez appears to have a clear edge over the opposition in his ability to impose pro-government consensus. End Summary. -------------- Partial Unity -------------- ¶2. (SBU) Un Nuevo Tiempo (UNT) President Omar Barboza, flanked by dour-faced mainstream opposition leaders, held a July 15 press conference to announce consensus opposition candidates for seven of 22 gubernatorial races. Only four of the nine opposition parties that originally signed the January 23 opposition "Unity Pact" sent representatives to the press conference. Barboza said the opposition intends to name 11 additional consensus gubernatorial candidates soon based on recent polling and consensus candidates in over 100 mayoral races by July 22. He added that opposition parties are trying to reach agreement among themselves on four other states. ¶3. (C) Nueva Esparta Governor Morel Rodriguez was named the opposition's consensus candidate one day after the National Assembly announced it would investigate the governor for alleged misappropriation of social welfare funds. He is the only opposition gubernatorial candidate running for re-election. Pablo Perez, Governor Manuel Rosales' protQgQ in Zulia, was named the consensus candidate in Zula and also spoke at the opposition press conference. Saady Bijani, the Christian Democrat (COPEI) mayor of the second-largest municipality in Zulia State, subsequently declared that he will still run for governor as an independent, despite COPEI threats to expel him from the party. Bijani's candidacy could seriously undermine the opposition's prospects of retaining the Zulia governorship. ¶4. (C) Local media have given prominent attention to public sniping between the leaders of Accion Democratica (AD) and COPEI in the run-up to the press conference. UNT Political Director Luis Emilio Rondon told Poloff July 15 that opposition parties were regrettably making partisan assertions to the press in an effort to bolster their parties' positions in ongoing internal negotiations over candidacies. Rondon also lamented that opposition party leaders are trying to divide up the electoral map "like a cake," rather than honor their commitments to support the most electable local candidate. So far, opposition consensus has generally been hardest to achieve in areas in which the opposition had the best chance of winning. -------------- Where Have All the Parties Gone? -------------- ¶5. (C) The opposition gubernatorial candidates named so far, with the exception of Pablo Perez in Zulia, are dominated by well-known political personalities rather than emerging young leaders of renovated opposition parties. Henrique Salas Feo is a former governor of Carabobo; he and his father lead their own political party, Project Venezuela. Nueva Esparta Governor Morel Rodriguez is running for re-election as an independent. Eduardo Morales Gil is a former governor of Sucre running as an independent. Vargas gubernatorial candidate Roberto Smith was a former 2006 presidential pre-candidate and runs his own party, Venezuela First. Miriam de Montilla in Apure is the wife of a former three-time governor of that state. Datos' 2008 Second Quarter polling shows only 13 percent of Venezuelan express CARACAS 00001000 002.2 OF 002 confidence in political parties. ¶6. (C) Prominent pollster Alfredo Keller told A/DCM July 18 that opposition leaders are too inclined to assert their parochial interests at expense of building a national political alternative to Chavez that appeals to most Venezuelans. He said that he thought the opposition had a chance to win some 16 governorships in January; he now estimates as few as four. Keller lamented that opposition party leaders are using independent polls as tools of "political manipulation" instead of as the ostensibly agreed-upon means to reach consensus on the best candidates. Keller noted that an opposition candidate for the mayor of San Cristobal, the capital of Tachira State, even ran a falsified Keller poll in a complicit local newspaper to promote his candidacy. When Keller wrote a letter complaining that he never conducted such a poll, the candidate claimed Keller's letter was a forgery. -------------- The Proxy War -------------- ¶7. (C) There is widespread concern within the opposition that a growing rivalry between Zulia Governor Manuel Rosales and Chacao Mayor Leopoldo Lopez is futher undermining opposition unity. Although both belong to the same UNT party, Lopez is supporting Emilio Grateron, a Chacao Councilman, to replace him as mayor over the UNT-endorsed candidate, Liliana Hernandez. Pollster Alfredo Keller tells us that Lopez is more popular in public opinion polls than Rosales, but notes that most people still perceive Rosales as the de facto opposition leader. Lopez is running for the Caracas mayorship, but according to the Comptroller General's administrative sanction, he is ineligible to run for public office for several years. Most opposition activists, including many UNT leaders, express private concern that Rosales is diminishing his national status by running for the Maracaibo mayorship. -------------- Comment -------------- ¶8. (C) President Chavez's PSUV party is also experiencing problems in forging pro-government consensus candidates, and small allied parties like Patria Para Todos and the Communist Party continue to complain that the PSUV continues to give them short shrift. Nevertheless, Chavez has far more carrots and sticks at his disposal than the disparate opposition parties to foster pro-government consensus on state and local candidates. According to the polling firm Datos, Chavez's personal endorsement of a local candidate can lift that candidate by at least 30 percent in opinion polls, thus giving the Venezuelan president the power to marginalize pro-government dissidents and independents. DUDDY