US embassy cable - 05CARACAS3713

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 CARACAS 003713 
 
SIPDIS 
 
HQSOUTHCOM ALSO FOR POLAD 
FOR FRC LAMBERT 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/09/2020 
TAGS: PGOV, KDEM, VE 
SUBJECT: WHY THE OPPOSITION WITHDRAWAL SURPRISED OBSERVERS 
 
Classified By: POLITICAL COUNSELOR ROBERT R. DOWNES FOR 1.4 (D) 
 
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Summary 
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1.  (C)  Five of six major Venezuelan opposition parties 
withdrew from the December 4 National Assembly elections in a 
move that surprised political experts and international 
observers.  The pullout was also unplanned by the parties 
themselves.  Eleventh-hour cooperation by the National 
Electoral Council (CNE) ironically discouraged the opposition 
from participating by allowing them to see technical problems 
that could have jeopardized vote secrecy.  In another ironic 
twist, a decision by opposition party Primero Justicia (PJ) 
to participate may have provoked other parties into 
withdrawing from the race.  Although many party leaders 
favored participation, they caved to a surge of grassroots 
criticism after Accion Democratica pulled out November 28. 
The grassroots view appears to have been based on an 
assumption that the voting process was not secret.  President 
Hugo Chavez said December 4 the pullout could make the 
parties "illegal," but it is not clear to us what this means. 
 The election results may benefit Venezuela in the long run. 
The resultant one-party legislature makes Chavez appear more 
dictatorial while reducing the power of the most ineffective 
elements of the opposition.  End summary. 
 
2.  (C)  The eleventh-hour pullout of five of the six major 
Venezuelan opposition parties from the National Assembly 
elections during November 28 - December 3 surprised most 
political observers.  EU observation mission leader Jose 
Albino Peneda called the pullout a "profound surprise" at a 
press conference December 6.  IRI and NDI officials have also 
told us they had no advance indication of the withdrawal. 
The opposition parties' lack of unity and a coherent grand 
strategy contributed to their pullout.  Rather than planning 
the withdrawal, they merely reacted to events out of their 
control.  The bickering, unprepared opposition coalition's 
handling of two incidents triggered a shift of internal party 
influence and external party tactics.  Post offers below what 
it regards as factors contributing to the opposition's 
decisionmaking process. 
 
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Incident #1:  The CNE Cooperates 
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3.  (C)  Concessions by the National Electoral Council (CNE) 
became the catalyst that launched the opposition down the 
road toward withdrawal. 
 
-- First, international and domestic observers convinced the 
CNE to allow opposition parties access to voting software and 
machinery.  In a critical development on November 23, 
opposition technicians proved to the observers their 
long-held belief that it was possible to cross data from 
fingerprint and voting machines to determine each person's 
vote.  They also highlighted other possibilities of using the 
voting machines to detect how people voted.  The opposition 
reacted with outrage because its worst fears were proven. 
 
-- After initially rebuffing opposition demands, the CNE 
agreed November 28 to take the fingerprint machines off-line, 
although it said they would be used in future elections. 
Some opposition members convincingly argue that the removal 
of the fingerprint machines was a good thing, but that there 
were a number of other methods of triangulating data from the 
voting machines to discover how people voted, particularly 
since it was proven that the voting machines retained vote 
sequence in its flash memory. 
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Incident #2:  Primero Justicia Announces it Will Run 
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4.  (C)  Shortly after the CNE decision to take the 
fingerprint machines off-line November 28, Primero Justicia 
(PJ) secretary general Gerardo Blyde called the decision a 
victory for the opposition--effectively claiming credit for 
forcing the CNE's hand--and said his party would participate 
in the elections.  That night, the OAS electoral observation 
mission issued a press release congratulating the opposition 
and CNE for working together to guarantee transparency. 
Minutes later, Globovision announced Accion Democratica (AD) 
planned to withdraw from the election.  (Embassy note:  PJ's 
unilateral decision appears to have angered the other 
parties, and their disjointed reaction snowballed into the 
withdrawal of most of the opposition.  Officials from other 
parties have often complained to us that PJ is an 
opportunistic media darling; they are also jealous that PJ 
continues to receive campaign funds while their own party 
coffers shrink.) 
 
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Power Shift:  Accion Democratica Precedent Empowers Parties' 
Rank-and-File 
--------------------------------------------- --------------- 
 
5.  (C)  With the exception of a few minor parties and 
groupings, most opposition parties were still planning to run 
as of late November, although some elements of each party 
favored non-participation.  Most party leaders, especially in 
"traditional" parties like AD and the Christian Democrats 
(COPEI), probably advocated participation because they stood 
to give up strong chances of winning legislative seats.  A 
few party leaders opposed abstention on strategic grounds. 
Incorrectly suspecting that Washington favored a pullout by 
opposition parties, COPEI international relations secretary 
Sadio Garavini lectured poloff November 22 that 
non-participation never worked. 
 
6.  (C)  Nonetheless, these parties appear to have been in a 
reactive mode rather than following any formulated strategy. 
Although opposition party leaders tend to rule by decree, in 
this case they appear to have had their hands forced by an 
avalanche of internal pressure.  AD secretary general Henry 
Ramos Allup appears to have judged, based on internal AD 
dynamics as well as the broader picture, that he could not 
politically afford to be upstaged by Primero Justicia.  In 
early November, he blocked a challenger from running for AD 
secretary general.  Ramos Allup already had a reputation 
 
SIPDIS 
among some grassroots party elements of being willing to 
negotiate with Chavismo.  In addition, some members of AD's 
National Executive Council had begun advocating 
non-participation, an assistant to former Coordinadora 
Democratica leader Enrique Mendoza told us November 29. 
 
7.  (C)  After AD's pullout, other parties were similarly 
embarrassed into withdrawing.  Some held impromptu 
closed-door strategy sessions.  Others overturned announced 
decisions to stay in the race. 
 
--  Zulia State's opposition Governor Manuel Rosales was well 
positioned in his state.  He held a march in support of 
Zulian electoral candidates November 30 and declared his Un 
Nuevo Tiempo party's plans to participate.  He then set 
himself apart from the pack somewhat by delivering a 
compromise position advocating reconciliation.  Rosales 
demanded December 1 that elections be postponed and a 
high-level commission be established to seek a solution to 
the "crisis."  President Hugo Chavez rejected the offer the 
same day, calling Rosales a "coward" and "coup plotter."  A 
local television host and member of Rosales' coalition told 
us Rosales was confronting strong internal party pressure to 
withdraw.  Faced with the possibility of winning in Zulia but 
losing the national popularity he would need next year as a 
possible presidential candidate, Rosales announced his 
party's withdrawal December 3. 
 
--  In another unexpected turn of events, PJ reversed its 
decision to participate on November 30.  PJ is one of the few 
parties with strategic goals, including that of 
distinguishing itself from its discredited fellow opposition 
parties.  Still, PJ pulled out the day after crowds gathered 
around the offices of PJ mayor Leopoldo Lopez shouting, 
"withdraw!" 
 
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Tactical Shift:  Parties Left With No One to Blame 
--------------------------------------------- ----- 
 
8.  (C)  The parties probably recognized they would either 
have to pull out or face losing with no one to blame but 
themselves.  If the CNE had not made the election day 
concessions, these parties could have once again participated 
and then cried foul after losing.  Instead, they remained 
determined to wash their hands of their performance up to the 
last minute.  Party statements justifying withdrawal 
continued to cite technical problems even though the CNE had 
agreed to remove both fingerprint machines and electronic 
notebooks from the polls.  Many members remained deeply 
disturbed, however, by the fact that evidence suggested the 
GOV could monitor how people voted. 
 
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What Next? 
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9.  (SBU)  Chavez warned on election day that parties could 
be branded illegal as well as illegitimate.  The legal basis 
for that claim is not clear to us.  According to a 1964 law 
on political parties, parties can not be dissolved without 
the consent of their members unless they fail to participate 
in two consecutive elections.  Nonetheless, if parties do not 
receive at least one percent of the vote in "national 
elections," they have to reregister during the following 
calendar year by collecting signatures of 0.5 percent of the 
electoral registry.  (Embassy note:  Unregistered parties may 
be hard pressed to get signatures.  Many citizens already 
fear persecution for appearing on the "Tascon list" for 
signing the presidential recall petition and on the "Maisanta 
program" for having voted against Chavez.)  The law is not 
clear which elections the parties can count to present their 
results.  If parties are allowed to use vote totals from the 
August 2005 municipal elections, Post calculates that AD, 
COPEI, PJ, and Movimiento al Socialismo will make the cut. 
Proyecto Venezuela and UNT will not. 
 
10.  (SBU)  Chavez, however, could avoid trouble by applying 
the law selectively or by disavowing it entirely as a relic 
of the Fourth Republic.  (One PJ official said he "hoped to 
God" Chavez outlawed his party, which he thought would paint 
Chavez as even more autocratic.)  As of December 8, press 
reports speculated that the GOV had not yet released the 
final election results because several GOV-aligned parties 
did not receive the votes needed to remain registered. 
According to preliminary results released by the CNE, only 
six of the 17 Chavez-aligned parties announced to have won 
seats received at least two percent of the vote.  Similarly, 
only six pro-GOV parties received more than one percent in 
August. 
 
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Comment 
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11.  (C)  In sum, the opposition pullout, like most 
opposition decisions, appears to have been both uncoordinated 
and unplanned.  This does not mean, however, that some 
members of the opposition were not pushing for 
non-participation all along.  The opposition parties' policy 
reversals apparent in a chronology drafted by Post further 
show that the opposition was ill prepared to react to the 
unfolding events.  Governor Rosales said this development 
"suits neither the government nor the opposition nor anyone." 
 He is right on two scores.  First, with the Chavez 
administration in control of all seats, it will look to 
outside observers more like Cuba or Saddam's Iraq than a 
functioning democracy.  Second, this may be the deathblow for 
a number of opposition parties, which were already running on 
financial fumes.  Who, then, is the big winner here?  If this 
incident marginalizes the opposition's leadership dinosaurs 
and the grassroots retains its voice, Venezuela may be, at 
least in the long run. 
 
12.  (U)  Post will fax chronology separately to department. 
 
 
 
BROWNFIELD