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<h1 class="title">Dialogue or Coups</h1>
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<p class="byline"> <span class="date">February 19th 2014</span> </p>
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<p>The main question in Venezuela isn’t about any lack of democracy in
this country, nor restrictions on freedom of expression.</p>
<p>Regarding the supposed “democratic deficit of the Venezuelan
regime”, the facts speak for themselves. Since 1998 there have been
four national plebiscites, four presidential elections, and eleven
parliamentary, regional, and municipal elections. Venezuela is the
Latin American country with the highest number of elections and it also
has an automatic electoral system (much more modern than Chile’s one), <a
href="http://www.globalatlanta.com/article/25788/carter-praises-venezuela-scolds-us-on-electoral-processes">described</a>
by Jimmy Carter, who has observed 92 elections in all continents, as
“the best system in the world”.</p>
<p>Then on the second argument that is being constantly repeated, the
supposed lack of freedom of expression and press in Venezuela, once
again the numbers speak for themselves. 80% of the media is private.
The three national newspapers (El Universal, El Nacional and Ultimos
Noticias) are opposed to the government, especially the first two, and
they bring together 90% of the readership. Of the four television
channels with national coverage, three of them (Venevision,
Globovision, and Televen) are opposition, and likewise bring together
90% of the audience, according to information provided by the company
AGB. In that sense, and according to the criteria of the United
Nations, freedom of information in Venezuela is, without a doubt,
greater and better than in Chile, as in the Caribbean country the
diversity of property, the diversity of types of media (public,
commercial, community) and of discourse – which are the three main
criteria that UNESCO measures – is superior to Chile. Anyone who
objectively compares, that is, with data (indicators, measurements,
scales, etc), the Chilean media reality with the Venezuelan one, will
see that our country [Chile] is in a much more precarious situation and
not very democratic.</p>
<p>What is currently at stake is the type of opposition that the
Venezuelan right wing (grouped into the MUD) will be over the next few
years. What relation the MUD have with the government of President
Maduro after the elections in December, is not at all clear yet, and
that has provoked internal tensions that explain, largely, the violent
mobilisations over the last few days.</p>
<p>To understand the current situation it’s important to remember that
ten weeks ago (8 December), <em>Chavismo</em> achieved a strong
electoral victory in the municipal elections. Despite a voluntary vote
and the historical tendency of abstention in local elections, there was
60% participation. Chavismo got 10 percentage points more votes than
the MUD and won 242 mayoralties, while the right got 75 mayoralties.
These unexpected results for the opposition meant the failure of their
strategy that begun in April 2013, of not recognising the legitimacy of
President Nicolas Maduro.</p>
<p>The MUD didn’t manage to dispute electoral hegemony, or even
question the legitimacy of the government, as they had made this event
a plebiscite and they clearly lost it.</p>
<p>Shortly after this election President Maduro convoked all the mayors
of the opposition to a dialogue in the presidential palace, two times.
Even the right wing leader, Henrique Capriles, governor of Miranda
state, showed up at the second meeting, and he and Maduro shook hands
and the photo was passed around the whole world. This handshake
symbolised a mutual recognition of each other, in that way ending the
strategy of questioning legitimacy of the president, a strategy that
Capriles himself had promoted and lead in 2013.</p>
<p>The possibility of starting a new and unprecedented phase of
opposition-government dialogue remained. Actually, the majority of
opposition mayors and governors had begun dialogue, participating in,
for example, the mission for citizen security, or coordinating
activities with the internal affairs minister, involving themselves in
quadrants as part of the Secure Homeland Plan. All this mutual effort
of dialogue and coming together provoked tensions with the far right
wing of the MUD that isn’t open to dialogue, nor to accepting the fact
that the Venezuelan people vote in their majority, again and again, in
favour of a government which questions the capitalist model.</p>
<p>It’s about a similar situation that the Christian Democratic Party
faced during the government of Salvador Allende. On the inside, the
positions in favour of dialogue with president Allende (lead by Tomic
and Leigthon) clashed with those who openly supported a coup style exit
(lead by Aylwin and Frei).</p>
<p>In that sense, what we are seeing today is largely the manifestation
of an internal problem of the Venezuelan opposition whose most extreme
wing, with the clear support of the United States and the media chains,
is trying to make any attempt to build a new relationship between the
opposition and the government fail. Because in a year like this, which,
unusually, is a year without elections, the scenario for this new
relationship was very favourable.</p>
<p><em>Pedro Santander is the head of the Communication Observatory,
Pontificial Catholic University of Valparaiso, Chile.</em></p>
<em>Translated for Venezuelanalysis by Tamara Pearson.</em>
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