US embassy cable - 04CARACAS2309

C O N F I D E N T I A L  CARACAS 002309 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
NSC FOR C. BARTON 
USSOUTHCOM ALSO FOR POLAD 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/08/2013 
TAGS: PGOV, PHUM, KDEM, VE 
SUBJECT: LACK OF FUNDING WORRIES VENEZUELAN OPPOSITION 
 
 
Classified By: A/DCM Abelardo A. Arias for reason 1.4 (d). 
 
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SUMMARY 
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1.  (C) Coordinadora Democratica (CD) leaders worry they have 
insufficient funding and time before the recall referendum 
against President Hugo Chavez scheduled for August 15 to 
counter Chavez's campaign.  CD advisor Jorge Casado told 
A/DCM July 18 that Chavez appears to be succeeding in 
projecting the image of a winner, with polls showing him 
gaining strength.  The prime effect on the opposition is that 
businessmen are reluctant to give money, Casado said, which 
has limited the Coordinadora's campaign publicity and 
hampered their ability to mobilize people and show public 
support.  Casado said the political parties and NGOs in the 
Coordinadora are working at the grassroots, people-to-people, 
but the fear is that the effort will pale in contrast to 
Chavez's flood of money and publicity.  MAS President told 
Charge July 20 that, though there appears to be a void in 
Caracas, opposition leaders such as himself have full 
schedules, addressing groups usually ranging from 300 to 
1,000 people in the interior.  Mujica confirmed the 
opposition's money woes, but suggested that Chavez's flood of 
spending could backfire on the President. End Summary. 
 
2.  (C) Coordinadora Democratica advisor Jorge Casado told 
A/DCM that the Coordinadora's leadership is worried about how 
well President Hugo Chavez's campaign is doing.  Casado said 
he had just come from a meeting with Coordinadora chief 
Miranda State Governor Enrique Mendoza in which they 
discussed recent poll results.  They show: 
--a 12% increase among Chavez sympathizers in willingness to 
participate in the August 15 vote (attributed to a response 
to Chavez's call to participate in the electoral battle); 
--a 4% increase in Chavez's core supporters, apparently in 
direct correlation to a decrease in the undecided "Ni-Nis"; 
and 
--a 5% lead by those who are going to participate in the 
referendum "to give the government a chance (32%) over those 
who are doing so to get rid of Chavez (27.4%). 
 
3.  (C) Casado noted it is not just the polls that give the 
sense that Chavez is rising.  He said the ubiquitous red 
T-shirts worn by Chavez supporters catch the eye as the 
campaign workers work neighborhoods, and the red-and-white 
posters with the single word "NO" are pervasive in contrast 
to the lack of "SI" posters.  Casado asserted that the 
Government was paying for strategic, highly visible places to 
hang posters where the spot was not necessarily controlled by 
a Chavez sympathizer.  Casado said they had also learned that 
Chavez supporters were paying up to one million Bolivares 
($520) to bus operators to keep units idle rather than rent 
them to the opposition.  Meeting with Charge and A/DCM July 
20, Movement to Socialism (MAS) President and Coordinadora 
negotiator Felipe Mujica was not so convinced of the 
advantage that the polls appeared to give Chavez.  Mujica 
said he believes that the poll results are skewed because 
respondents believe the information they give will go to the 
government, and cited as examples the polls in Chile and 
Nicaragua giving the governments there the advantage prior to 
key electoral contests. 
 
4.  (C) The prime effect of Chavez's apparent winning tactics 
on the opposition, according to Casado, is that businessmen 
are reluctant to donate money and those that do donate, do so 
in lesser amounts.  Casado speculated that the businessmen, 
unconvinced that there will be a change, do not want to be 
identified with the opposition should the referendum fail to 
oust Chavez.  He noted, too, that Chavez has attempted to 
co-opt some business by bringing them into public appearances 
with him. 
 
5.  (C) The lack of financial support has the Coordinadora 
worried, Casado said.  The trend they see is Chavez on the 
upswing using all the resources of the state available to 
him, with the Coordinadora flat or on a decline for lack of 
resources. With four weeks to go before the vote, he said, 
more funding is essential to heat up the Coordinadora's 
campaign.  Already, Casado said, some events are suffering 
 
such as a rally that he is coordinating in Barinas State, the 
heart of Chavez country, this weekend.  They have had to 
scale it back by half because of lack of money. 
 
6.  (C) A/DCM asked Casado what toll the lack of funding was 
taking on the individual campaign work of the political 
parties and NGOs that makeup the Coordinadora.  Casado said 
COPEI, Accion Democratica, MAS, Proyecto Venezuela were all 
working diligently.  He said Sumate had fallen behind by some 
four days because of problems preparing their contact 
information. 
 
7.  (C) Mujica confirmed that donors, for a variety of 
reasons, have been reluctant to come forward with financial 
support.  Acknowledging that Chavez is outspending the 
opposition and can continue to do so, Mujica suggested that 
the flood of spending could eventually backfire on the 
President.  He also asserted that the government's 
triumphalism could work against it--both because it can turn 
people off and because it can lead to political mistakes that 
can be to the opposition's advantage.  Mujica noted that 
people do sense a void in the opposition's efforts because of 
inactivity in Caracas.  Opposition leaders have their agendas 
full, however, outside the capital, he said.  In his own 
case, he had addressed groups ranging in size from 300 to 
1,000 people nearly every during the past week.  He predicted 
that both sides' campaigns "would get red hot" the after 
August 8. 
 
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COMMENT 
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8.  (C) The contrast between Chavez's campaign and the 
opposition's is indeed striking.  The President dominates the 
airwaves, using the mandated link-up of all radio and 
television stations in the country (cadenas) almost daily, 
and advertisements highlighting his government's programs, at 
times indistinguishable from advertisements sponsored by his 
campaign, appear in practically every newspaper.  Meanwhile, 
a Coordinadora representatives appears on one of the 
country's most highly rated television news-talk shows to 
inform Chavez opponents about how they can enter a webpage to 
find material they can individually print at their own 
expense and distribute.  An influx of funds to counter the 
Chavez campaign trove seems unlikely.  The test for the 
opposition will be how well they can do on the proverbial 
shoe string and how much strength the "people power" they 
have enjoyed to date can be sustained. 
McFarland 
 
 
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      2004CARACA02309 - CONFIDENTIAL