PSUV HOLDS "TRANSPARENT" INTERNAL ELECTIONS, BUT REFUSES TO

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 CARACAS 001477

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E.O. 12958: DECL: 2019/11/20
TAGS: PGOV KDEM VE
SUBJECT: PSUV HOLDS "TRANSPARENT" INTERNAL ELECTIONS, BUT REFUSES TO
PUBLISH RESULTS

CLASSIFIED BY: Robin D. Meyer, Political Counselor, DOS, POL; REASON:
1.4(B),(D)


1. (C) Summary: President Chavez's United Socialist Party of
Venezuela (PSUV) held nationwide elections on a rainy November 15
for its party congress (reftel). Despite repeatedly trumpeting the
balloting as a display of transparency and democracy that the
opposition lacks, the PSUV abruptly changed its tune the evening of
the vote and refused to release the results - presumably due to
widespread abstentionism. The following day, PSUV leaders said the
voting statistics were private information that only the parties
and Chavez had the "sovereign right" to know. An electoral expert
assessed to POLOFF that the low turnout was indicative of internal
party schisms, poor organization of the base, and weak leadership.
Nevertheless, he said it does not represent a break between the
party faithful and Chavez himself. End Summary.



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PSUV FAITHFUL STAY HOME ON ELECTION DAY

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2. (SBU) The PSUV held elections November 15 to select 772
delegates to its party congress; the party had announced previously
its decision to grant Chavez the authority to hand-pick the
remaining 228 delegates. Throughout the voting day, PSUV
spokespeople pledged that the National Electoral Council (CNE)
would release the results within several hours after the closure of
the polls. However, the poll closing was eventually pushed from
5pm to 7pm - presumably to receive stragglers - and the CNE did not
disclose the results as promised. Media reporting from all over
Venezuela the next day indicate that only 40 to 50 percent of the 2
million party members registered with the PSUV had voted. (Note:
By way of comparison, Chavez won the February 2009 referendum with
6 million votes. End Note.) Vanessa Davies, the PSUV's press
coordinator, announced November 16 that "there is no reason to know
the [turnout] results, they are figures for the party and for
Comandante Chavez. The party leadership is holding them, it's
their sovereign right, just like for any political organization."
CNE President Tibisay Lucena claimed to be keeping the results "a
state secret." Jaqueline Farias, the executive-appointed Vice
President of the Caracas Federal District, said that the election
was a "duty" for party members to vote and asserted that they
should vote in "as many [electoral] processes as we convoke."




3. (SBU) In the run-up to the election, PSUV spokespeople had
lauded the balloting as evidence of the party's democratic and
transparent internal selection process and repeatedly lambasted the
"Fourth Republic" opposition for being "anti-democratic" structures
that did not consult with their base. After Chavez cast his
ballot, he told the press that the PSUV elections were an example
of "bottom-up democracy" that "crushes the old politics of the
elites, the false democracy where the people only were consulted
once every five years." Chavez added that the opposition parties
"are incapable of doing something similar to this. I challenge
them to call an election with their base. Who is going to vote?
Nobody, because they have no platform, no plan, discourse,
leadership, nothing. What they have is hate." In the midst of the
controversy over the non-disclosure of the PSUV results, Davies
announced November 16 that opposition parties Accion Democratica
and COPEI "are ashamed to have elections of their base and not
continue to impose their representatives." She added that the
"great winner of the November 15 electoral process is the
Bolivarian revolution, which delivered a strong blow to the
national and international rightwing, which has been left without
words with this show of democracy that deepens the revolutionary
process." She noted that the PSUV was reopening its registry to
incorporate new "patrols."

CARACAS 00001477 002 OF 002


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ABSTENTIONISM UNDERSCORES PSUV WEAKNESSES?

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4. (C) Journalist and electoral expert Eugenio Martinez opined to
Poloff November 17 that the PSUV's decision not to release the
voting statistics was due to low turn-out, which is indicative of
weak internal leadership, poor organization of the party's base,
and internal schisms within Chavismo. PSUV officials and even
Chavez had also expressed concern during the election day over the
impact of the rain on voter turn-out. Nevertheless, he warned that
the abstentionism did not represent a rejection of Chavez himself.
Martinez noted that Chavez has claimed that the PSUV has 7.2
million supporters - about the number of votes he received in his
2006 reelection. However, only about 100,000 "socialist patrols"
("patrullas socialistas") have been constituted, made up of some
2.4 million party members. According to Martinez, of these
patrols, only 64 percent nominated delegates to the party congress.
As a result, only about 1.5 million of the party faithful were both
eligible to vote and had participated in the nomination process,
indicating that the failure was in organization in the run-up to
the election.




5. (C) Martinez went on to highlight that "Chavez was not one of
the voting options" nor did he personally endorse the candidates up
for vote on November 15, since the PSUV had granted him the right
to appoint his favored candidates to the remaining 20 percent of
the seats. Martinez opined that without Chavez's direct
involvement, the patrol members had no incentive to vote for
candidates which might not represent their interests. He noted
that this mistrust among the patrols - which should, in theory, be
comprised of the most militant Chavistas - is indicative of
competing factions within the PSUV which are largely
regionally-based. Martinez warned that this could prove
particularly problematic for the PSUV in selecting candidates for
the 2010 National Assembly elections, and he predicted that Chavez
would have to personally and directly endorse those candidates
"like never before." Martinez suggested that the PSUV would
undergo a major internal purge following this election disaster in
order to counter the perception that Chavez's claims of party
membership were outright fabrications. He added that the
experience should be a warning to the opposition parties about the
necessity of creating a real electoral base of supporters.



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COMMENT

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6. (C) The November 15 election flub is embarrassing for the
PSUV, but is unlikely to be tied directly to Chavez given his
limited public participation in its organization. It will likely
rouse Chavez and the PSUV to intensify their organizational efforts
before the 2010 elections. The PSUV party congress will also
likely continue to be used as a rhetorical weapon to undercut the
legitimacy of the opposition parties, which lack transparent
mechanisms to select party leaders or candidates. End Comment.
DUDDY