A week before the presidential elections, a glance out the window will tell you that the northeastern region of Venezuela is adamantly pro-Chavez.
Yes, there are huge billboards with photos of the opposition candidate Manuel Rosales and his slogan "dare to change", but there are very few small signs and banners of the type that ordinary citizens hang up to show their support for Rosales. There are however signs on nearly ever other house, lamppost, and wall in support of Hugo Chavez. The reason behind this is clear, although the major local periodicals are all anti-Chavez, the people here tend to live a much more impoverished life than in other parts of the country.
Oil is scarce here and the main industries are fishing, sugar cane and cacao. The vast majority of the population lives in small colorfully painted cement block structures along sinuous coastal roads. Transportation to and from the major cities in the region is difficult due to the mountainous terrain but the Chavez government is changing that. Construction of the four-lane Jose Antonio de Sucre Highway is well under way with construction crews working seven days a week in an effort to complete the project by mid 2007. Improved transportation is just a tiny part of the change that the Chavez government has brought to this part of Venezuela.
The Mercal program now services tiny towns that never before had a store. In these villages the program, which the government refers to as plan for stable and sovereign food supply, consists of little more than a kiosk of less than 120 square feet which carries basic food necessities. This may not seem like much, but for the rural population for which transportation is difficult, not just because of the roads but also because less than 10% of families own a car, these small stores make life much easier.
Wilfredo Iglesias a 40-year-old cacao farmer who lives with his 84-year-old father, as well as his younger brother and adolescent sister, said that "we try to live self sufficiently but there are some things that we need that we used to have to travel 40 kilometers to get, now we can by them in the local Mercal just a 5 minute walk up the road." The Iglesias family’s degree of self-sufficiency is incredibly evident. Not only do they cultivate cacao and coffee for sale to companies in the nearby city of Rio Caribe but they also grow oranges, lemons and pineapple for personal use. Chickens scamper around their cement block house and two new litters of puppies with their eyes not yet open squeak as Wilfredo scampers up a 30-foot-tall Guaima tree to provide us with a taste of the cotton candy like insides of the green 18 inch long seed pods that hang from its upper branches. Earlier in the day we picked him up carrying a heavy bag of yumo, a large South American tuber.
A few miles down the road we dropped him off and he completed the delivery of this sweet root that he cultivates in a valley that lies half a mile from his house over a steep densely vegetated ridge. During the ride we passed by a few of the scarce houses that bear signs supporting Manuel Rosales. Wilfredo tells us that "my whole family is Chavista" and when asked why some of his neighbors support Rosales he says "those families are to proud to accept any help from the government." This begs the question of whether or not these families know that Rosales’ plan is to give families such as theirs a handout of twice the minimum wage in the form of a debit card referred to as Mi Negra.
Another service that the Chavez government has brought to the "Orient of Venezuela" is socialized medicine. Medical clinics are up and running in the medium sized towns and the larger cities of Carupano, Cumana, Barcelona and Puerto La Cruz have large public hospitals. The mission for socialized medicine called "Barrio Adentro," or inside the neighborhood, has been implemented throughout the country. But here in the northeast, where one road accesses the majority of the population, the program seems to be even more evident than in other areas.
Of course the Chavez government has not helped everyone in this area. While dilapidated fishing vessels populate small coves every day of the week, their crews resting before another night of deep-sea fishing, amazingly luxurious yachts come out on the weekends. This mountainous coastal region, which holds in its secluded folds some of the most beautiful beaches in the world, is not only home to the very poor but also the incredibly wealthy. These people with their $50 whisky bottles and megawatt sound systems aboard multimillion dollar boats are in no need of socialized medicine or help from the government of any kind. They would like nothing better than for the government to return to the status quo that dominated Venezuelan politics for the 40 years before Chavez. This small portion of the population is concerned about talk of socialist land reform that might give pieces of their large cacao and coffee plantations to the farmers that work them.
In short, only the wealthy minority and a few small farmers yearn for the victory of Manuel Rosales and a return to politics as usual while the vast majority of the population of this northeastern region of Venezuela has been helped immensely by the Chavez government and plans to give their vote to a government that they feel is of by and for the people.