With just five days left before the Venezuelan presidential elections the capital city of Caracas seems to be holding its breath. People carry on with their daily lives but with a large degree of uncertainty as to who will be the next president of Venezuela. Law prohibits campaigning and polling the week before the elections so the supporters of both sides are in a kind of wait and see mode. The most recent private polls put the opposition candidate Manuel Rosales narrowly ahead of Hugo Chavez. However organizers for Chavez’s main political party Movimiento Quinta Republica, or Fifth Republic Movement claim that the polls have been falsified and will be used as a reason to cry fraud when Chavez wins the election.
On Saturday Rosales closed his campaign in the capital with a tri-color march which organizers claim drew 1.4 million people. Rosales supporters such as Pedro Rodriquez claim "Chavez is destroying our country, now there are long lines at the gas pumps and delinquents are being allowed to run rampant. We need a change. Dare to change!" Other supporters are attracted to Rosales either because they are unhappy with the socialist policies of Hugo Chavez or by Rosales’ rhetoric and the "mi negra" debit card plan. Rosales’ campaign claims that they have already distributed over 2 million of these debit cards. Rosales promises to activate these cards the day after the election and from there forward use them to distribute a sum of $470 per month to the poor and lower middle classes. However, Rosales detractors wonder how Rosales even if elected will be able to activate these cards and distribute this enormous quantity of money the day after the elections when the handover of power would not happen until February of 2007.
On Sunday Hugo Chavez closed his campaign in the capital with a concentration that practically filled the city with a sea of red, the color of Chavez’s revolution. The private media have not found it necessary to report how many people they believe attended what was by all accounts a much larger concentration of people than the Rosales march. The private daily newspaper "El Mundo" reports "while Rosales’ march was composed only of residents of Caracas, Chavez was forced to bring in hundreds of busloads of people from all across the country in order to make people believe that there is truly majority support for his revolution." With the city still colored majority red every day of the week it is difficult to believe that a gathering which easily drew 2 million or more people is not representative of the true feelings of the cities inhabitants.
One of the city’s long time inhabitants and social activists is Jose Manuel Iglesias, director of the city government funded community television, Avila TV. He says "we rest easy knowing that Chavez will be victorious the true question is what the margin of victory will be. If the margin is large I believe Rosales will concede defeat but if it is 10% or less Rosales and his supporters are sure to cry fraud and take to the streets. As we saw on Saturday he does have a substantial following and civic unrest would not be out of question." Nearby Iglesias’ office the throng of people lined up in the Plaza Bolivar to sign up for an identification card demonstrating their support for Chavez is jubilant. These supporters of the socialist revolution consistently break out into songs in support of Hugo Chavez and their revolution and have no doubt that Chavez will win the elections by a wide popular margin.
However, some activists are less sure. Noemi Jepez a director at the state owned community information based Vive TV station seems uneasy when asked for her opinion on the outcome of the election. "Chavez is not going to lose" she says but than ads that if he does "we will continue in the struggle towards social justice but we cannot forget what happened during the 48 hour coup government in 2002 of which Manuel Rosales was a part. All state and community medias in the city were immediately shut down and activists were beginning to be hunted down. Considering that, what more could we expect from such a politician if he were to be legitimately elected." It seems that most people cannot even imagine the idea of what they have built over the last seven years crashing down around them but as Mauricio Mendoza a communications expert at the Autonomous Institute of Caracas for Young People says "at this point we are in a holding pattern, we just have to wait and see."
Wait and see is the theme here in the week before D-3 or Sunday, December third. Both sides seem sure of their victory and until the people make their choice the future of Venezuelan politics and the leadership of leftist movements in Latin America is largely up in the air.
Sean Kriletich reports for www.UpsideDownWorld.org from Venezuela.