Miami Herald Logo

Venezuela presidential race begins amid personal attacks and tension | Miami Herald

×
  • E-edition
  • Home
    • Site Information
    • Contact Us
    • About Us
    • Herald Store
    • RSS Feeds
    • Special Sections
    • Advertise
    • Advertise with Us
    • Media Kit
    • Mobile
    • Mobile Apps & eReaders
    • Newsletters
    • Social
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Google+
    • Instagram
    • YouTube

    • Sections
    • News
    • South Florida
    • Miami-Dade
    • Broward
    • Florida Keys
    • Florida
    • Politics
    • Weird News
    • Weather
    • National & World
    • Colombia
    • National
    • World
    • Americas
    • Cuba
    • Guantánamo
    • Haiti
    • Venezuela
    • Local Issues
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Health Care
    • In Depth
    • Issues & Ideas
    • Traffic
    • Sections
    • Sports
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Pro & College
    • Miami Dolphins
    • Miami Heat
    • Miami Marlins
    • Florida Panthers
    • College Sports
    • University of Miami
    • Florida International
    • University of Florida
    • Florida State University
    • More Sports
    • High School Sports
    • Auto Racing
    • Fighting
    • Golf
    • Horse Racing
    • Outdoors
    • Soccer
    • Tennis
    • Youth Sports
    • Other Sports
    • Politics
    • Elections
    • The Florida Influencer Series
    • Sections
    • Business
    • Business Monday
    • Banking
    • International Business
    • National Business
    • Personal Finance
    • Real Estate News
    • Small Business
    • Technology
    • Tourism & Cruises
    • Workplace
    • Business Plan Challenge
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Cindy Krischer Goodman
    • The Starting Gate
    • Work/Life Balancing Act
    • Movers
    • Sections
    • Living
    • Advice
    • Fashion
    • Food & Drink
    • Health & Fitness
    • Home & Garden
    • Pets
    • Recipes
    • Travel
    • Wine
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Dave Barry
    • Ana Veciana-Suarez
    • Flashback Miami
    • More Living
    • LGBTQ South Florida
    • Palette Magazine
    • Indulge Magazine
    • South Florida Album
    • Broward Album
    • Sections
    • Entertainment
    • Books
    • Comics
    • Games & Puzzles
    • Horoscopes
    • Movies
    • Music & Nightlife
    • People
    • Performing Arts
    • Restaurants
    • TV
    • Visual Arts
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Jose Lambiet
    • Lesley Abravanel
    • More Entertainment
    • Events Calendar
    • Miami.com
    • Contests & Promotions
    • Sections
    • All Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Op-Ed
    • Editorial Cartoons
    • Jim Morin
    • Letters to the Editor
    • From Our Inbox
    • Speak Up
    • Submit a Letter
    • Meet the Editorial Board
    • Influencers Opinion
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Blog Directory
    • Columnist Directory
    • Andres Oppenheimer
    • Carl Hiaasen
    • Leonard Pitts Jr.
    • Fabiola Santiago
    • Obituaries
    • Obituaries in the News
    • Place an Obituary

    • Place an ad
    • All Classifieds
    • Announcements
    • Apartments
    • Auctions/Sales
    • Automotive
    • Commercial Real Estate
    • Employment
    • Garage Sales
    • Legals
    • Merchandise
    • Obituaries
    • Pets
    • Public Notices
    • Real Estate
    • Services
  • Public Notices
  • Cars
  • Jobs
  • Moonlighting
  • Real Estate
  • Mobile & Apps

  • el Nuevo Herald
  • Miami.com
  • Indulge

Latest News

Venezuela presidential race begins amid personal attacks and tension

By Jim Wyss

    ORDER REPRINT →

April 01, 2013 07:46 PM

Drugs, lies and murder plots. Venezuela’s compressed presidential campaign officially begins Tuesday in a race that will determine the future of the Andean nation after the death of President Hugo Chávez, who led the country for 14 years. But the accusations and innuendos being hurled between the two main candidates are threatening to turn this into one of the uglier races in recent memory.

At stake is Chávez’s legacy and the future of his socialist policies that have helped reduce poverty and close the income gap even as draconian measures have led to food shortages, runaway inflation and eroding civil liberties.

Acting President Nicolás Maduro, 50, has vowed to win the April 14 vote as a tribute to his ex-boss and advance his “Bolivarian Revolution.” And most polls give him a solid lead, as he rides the wave of sympathy generated by Chávez’s death on March 5.

His contender, Henrique Capriles, the 40-year-old governor of Miranda state, is hoping he can harness a demoralized opposition and attract one-time Chávez supporters who have become disillusioned by soaring crime, a stagnant economy and political polarization.

Sign Up and Save

Get six months of free digital access to the Miami Herald

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

#ReadLocal

While Maduro and Capriles are fighting each other, they’re also struggling to hold their parties together, said George Ciccariello-Maher, a professor of history and politics at Drexel University, and the author of the recently-released “We Created Chavez: A People’s History of the Venezuelan Revolution.”

Those internal divisions — both in the opposition and the administration — are forcing the candidate into rhetoric designed to shore-up their political base.

“Maduro and Capriles both need to prove themselves,” he said, “and show that they are the aggressive representatives of their base.”

Initially, both candidates said they would begin their campaigns in Barinas state, Chávez hometown. But over the weekend, Capriles said he would shift his kick-off to the northern state of Monagas to avoid a confrontation.

Passions have been running high as presidential policy debates seem to be taking a backseat to personal attacks.

In the days leading up to the campaign, Maduro and his allies suggested that Capriles is a homosexual drug addict who is going to put the nation’s oil wealth in the hands of the United States. They’ve also accused former U.S. diplomats of plotting to kill Capriles in hopes of destabilizing the country.

Capriles has called Maduro a lackey of Cuba’s Castro brothers, and says he has hijacked state resources and twisted the constitution to hold onto a seat that he doesn’t deserve. He’s also accused Maduro of lying about Chávez’s health and death in order to maximize political gain. On Monday, Capriles said his team had uncovered a government plot to illegally use the military to get out the vote on election day.

“Everyone knows that [Maduro] has no leadership,” Capriles said. “That’s why he needs all the power of the state.”

Capriles lost the presidency to Chávez in October by 11 points, and recent polls suggest he has a tough road ahead against Maduro. A poll late last month by Datanalisis, considered one of the more independent firms, gives Maduro a 14-point lead over Capriles.

A poll released Monday by GIS XXI, which is run by a former Chávez cabinet member, gives Maduro 55.3 percent of the vote versus Capriles’ 44.7 percent. GIS founder Jesse Chacón told VTV television that Maduro’s lead had widened since the beginning of the year. Other polls also give Maduro a double-digit lead.

When Chávez died after an 18-month battle with cancer, it triggered snap elections with tight time frames. This campaign will run for just 10 days.

That leaves Capriles with little time to woo voters, said José Antonio Gil with Datanalisis.

“It’s going to be hard to turn his numbers around in 15 days,” he said. “But in politics anything can happen.”

Many of the allegations the candidates and their supporters are tossing at each other are recycled from past campaigns, others are more sinister. Last month, Foreign Minister Elias Jaua said two former U.S. diplomats — Roger Noriega and Otto Reich — were working with the CIA to recruit “mercenaries” in Central America to kill Capriles.

Jaua said the plot was intended to generate violence in Venezuela to justify a “foreign invasion like they did in Libya and like they have wanted to do in our sister Republic of Syria.”

Capriles has said that if anything happens to him it would be Maduro’s fault, and both Noriega and Reich have ridiculed the allegations.

“Maduro’s latest hateful fabrication is part of a cynical strategy aimed at distracting Venezuela from the man-made disaster of his party’s 14-year ‘socialist’ rule,” Reich, the former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela and a longtime Chávez critic, wrote in an open letter. “Since Maduro could not win the election by offering the Venezuelans bread, because bread is just one of the many foodstuffs missing from store shelves, he offers circuses.”

During his 14 years in power, Chávez perfected the art of name calling, said Gil with Datanalisis. Chávez regularly referred to the opposition as “the squalid ones” and “corrupt oligarchs” and called Capriles “a mediocre bootlicker.”

But the invective in this campaign is reaching new heights, he said.

“Personal attacks are nothing new,” he said. “What is new is their intensity.”

  Comments  

Videos

Miami Marlins have ‘exciting’ ideas for Sergio Romo

The Parkland Hearts Art Project at Pine Trails Park in Parkland

View More Video

Trending Stories

Haiti is once again on edge, and humanitarian aid groups debate whether to go or cancel

February 14, 2019 07:24 PM

He was robbed while mowing a lawn. He talked. Then 40 bullets were fired into his house

February 14, 2019 08:45 AM

Here’s Jimmy Johnson’s multi-step guide as the Dolphins begin their rebuilding program

February 14, 2019 03:05 PM

Hearts are heavy, attendance is light at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School

February 14, 2019 09:05 AM

A new ‘freedom caravan’ of primarily Cuban migrants is trying to reach U.S.

February 14, 2019 04:04 PM

Read Next

It’s a spring of uncertainty as the Marlins continue their rebuild. This is what’s next

Miami Marlins

It’s a spring of uncertainty as the Marlins continue their rebuild. This is what’s next

By Clark Spencer

    ORDER REPRINT →

February 15, 2019 12:26 PM

Some spots on the Miami Marlins’ 25-man roster are locked up as the MLB professional baseball team kicks off spring training. But others are up for grabs as Derek Jeter’s franchise builds for the future.

KEEP READING

Sign Up and Save

#ReadLocal

Get six months of free digital access to the Miami Herald

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

MORE LATEST NEWS

Kidnap victim, mobile home, retail game-changer: The many lives of a shopping cart

South Florida

Kidnap victim, mobile home, retail game-changer: The many lives of a shopping cart

February 15, 2019 09:41 AM

Education

Following pitch for ‘equal opportunity scholarships,’ Gov. DeSantis visits Miami school

February 15, 2019 02:17 PM
Top aide of Jeffrey Epstein prosecutor Acosta: We acted with integrity

Politics

Top aide of Jeffrey Epstein prosecutor Acosta: We acted with integrity

February 15, 2019 12:17 PM
Debbie Mucarsel-Powell can’t get GOP support for a Venezuela humanitarian aid plan

Politics

Debbie Mucarsel-Powell can’t get GOP support for a Venezuela humanitarian aid plan

February 15, 2019 12:25 PM
South Florida cop sold police-issued semi-automatic weapons to pawn shop, report says

Crime

South Florida cop sold police-issued semi-automatic weapons to pawn shop, report says

February 15, 2019 01:36 PM
Want to go on a cruise with Cardi B and Post Malone? DJ Khaled is making it happen

News

Want to go on a cruise with Cardi B and Post Malone? DJ Khaled is making it happen

February 15, 2019 01:24 PM
Take Us With You

Real-time updates and all local stories you want right in the palm of your hand.

Icon for mobile apps

Miami Herald App

View Newsletters

Subscriptions
  • Start a Subscription
  • Customer Service
  • eEdition
  • Vacation Hold
  • Pay Your Bill
  • Rewards
Learn More
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletters
  • News in Education
  • Public Insight Network
  • Reader Panel
Advertising
  • Place a Classified
  • Media Kit
  • Commercial Printing
  • Public Notices
Copyright
Commenting Policy
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service


Back to Story