By Luis Beaton on December 10, 2017
With significant turnout, Venezuelans elected Sunday 335 mayors and the governor of the State of Zulia in a show of open democracy and peace, in which the ruling United Socialist Party (PSUV) won over 300 posts.
Venezuelans return to the polls today in the 23rd elections in 18 years, something that can be interpreted as just another electoral exercise, although it will bring the winners closer to the population heading for the 2018 presidential elections.
Researcher for the Latin American Geopolitical Strategic Center, Alejandro Fierro, points out that these municipal elections in Venezuela are a reverse plebiscite, in reference to proposals from the right-wing opposition that consider each election as a referendum on the permanence of Chavism in the country.
On Sunday, December 10, Venezuelans go back to the polls less than two months after the elections to regional governors to elect the mayors of 335 municipalities.
The Venezuelan right and its powerful connection to the national and international mass media present each campaign as a key moment that would define the fate of Chavism.
According to their view – with more echo abroad than inside the country – a positive result would precipitate the fall of Nicolas Maduro and, with him, all of the Bolivarian Revolution, an impossible one against the popular muscle of Chavism, Fierro points out.
However, he adds, reality began to contradict this hypothesis on the first test it had. In the municipal elections of December 2013, just eight months after Maduro’s narrow victory, Chavism rose with an incontestable triumph with a nine point advantage -almost a million votes apart- and two thirds of the mayoralties were supporters of the Bolivarian Revolution.
Opposition leader Henrique Capriles, rival of Maduro in those presidential elections and who was the most determined leader in positioning the elections in a plebiscite, was greatly eroded.
In 2015 the right won the parliamentary elections, it was the first and only victory of which they can brag about, but that did not lead to any fall of the government, instead they spent any political capital they gained in devisive and violent actions.
The rest is known, two defeats in 2017 with the National Constituent Assembly and the elections for governors, where they were crushed by a rise in support for Chavism.
Now things do not look good for those who are running in the municipal elections against the left parties, whose highest representative, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) is predicted to win a large majority.
On Sunday, the opponents wheather they abstain or participate, should not jeopardize the victory of the majority of the left candidates.
It can be assured that the return to the polls will not mean a plebiscite, it will not be a vote of punishment against Chavism, and even less will it be just another exercise, especially because the winners will be closer to the people, to the vote that will decide the presidential elections of 2018.
Some commentators are trying to diminish the significance of this round of elections by saying there is not much at stake. Never the less what is at stake in this election is that it will be measurement of the mobilizing capacity of the parties in the presidential election that could happen in the first half of 2018 and not in the second as it is scheduled.
According to Fierro and statistics, the right lost in the regional elections in October, three months after the new cycle of protests, 2.8 million voted with respect to parliamentary elections two years ago.
There is a coincidence with Fierro’s analysis, ‘In any case, on Monday, December 11, little or nothing will have changed in Venezuela in terms of the balance of power. Everyone knows that this is not a decisive electoral round. The real battle will be the presidential elections of 2018. ‘
While that is true there is also some truth in what Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza states, ‘Municipalities are the governmental office that is closest to the people, and if we want to give power to the people, this election is fundamental.’
Source: Prensa Latina