Venezuelan Opposition Group Súmate Won’t Organize Primary Vote

Súmate directors Alejandro Plaz and Maria Corina Machado
Credit: El Universal

Caracas, Venezuela, June 28, 2006—The Venezuelan opposition NGO Súmate announced yesterday that due to a lack of agreement among opposition presidential candidates, the group will not have sufficient time to organize a primary as it had intended for early August. Several opposition candidates lamented the decision, while government spokespersons argued it was a good move for the opposition and for Venezuela.

Súmate’s spokespersons, Alejandro Plaz and Maria Corina Machado explained that the group was forced to cancel plans for the primary because opposition candidates did not agree in time to participate in a vote to select a single candidate to confront President Chavez in the December 3, 2006 presidential elections. “Súmate announces to all citizens that it can no longer be held responsible for holding primary elections,” said Plaz.

According to Plaz, Súmate would need at least six weeks to prepare such a primary and if the vote was to take place in August, when presidential candidates must be registered, then, as of last Sunday, there was insufficient time to hold the primary. At least 50,000 volunteers would have to be mobilized, material produced and distributed, and technology developed, said the Súmate representatives.

Despite this decision, Plaz and Machado assured that Súmate would continue its work to make sure that the opposition is united and that the presidential elections will be clean. Súmate “will continue to do everything in its power to promote a platform of national unity, for the undeniable democratic struggle for clean elections,” said Plaz.

Practically all opposition candidates for president agree that the opposition should nominate a single candidate to confront Chavez in the December vote, but they disagree on the method for choosing such a candidate. Venezuela’s constitution does not require a run-off vote for the presidency, should no candidate achieve an absolute majority, which means that if the opposition splits its vote among several candidates, Chavez could still win, even if he does not have over 50% of the vote. However, recent opposition polls show that Chavez currently enjoys the support of at least 60% of the population.

Venezuelan Vice-President José Vicente Rangel practically congratulated Súmate, saying that Súmate is, “burying a corpse, which has been dead for quite some time.” According to Rangel, “this decision favors those sectors that want to democratically participate in the electoral process.”

Similarly, the Minister of Communication and Information, William Lara, said, “One of the best pieces of news today is that the non-violent opposition in the country is liberating itself from Súmate, which is a Trojan horse of the Bush administration.” “We are contented because a factor of intervention of the United States in Venezuela’s internal politics has recognized its rejection,” he added.

Súmate, which was the main organization behind the mobilization for the August 2004 recall referendum against President Chavez, has received several hundred thousand dollars from the US Agency for International Development and from the National Endowment for Democracy, both of which are financed by the U.S. Congress.

Several opposition presidential candidates lamented the decision, but blamed their fellow candidates for not supporting the primary process. Former Supreme Court judge Cecilia Sosa, who is one of the candidates, released a statement saying that her party, the Republican Federal Party, “strongly condemns the attitude of those pre-candidates who do not unequivocally support the holding of primaries.” Sosa’s party’s statement went on to say that it would “not support any mechanism for choosing a single candidate that does not correspond to the principles of transparency, democracy, and participation…”

Julio Borges, who is a candidate of the conservative Justice First party, issued a statement saying, “I issue a call to all pre-candidates that have stated objections to the method of primaries that they understand the historical importance of these elections. …I commit myself before the country that we register a single name for the presidential elections of December.”

Other opposition candidates, such Teodoro Petkoff, who once was a presidential candidate of the party Movement towards Socialism, have proposed to organize an opinion poll instead of a primary. “The other mechanisms [for selecting a candidate’] continue their validity and the conversations [with other presidential candidates] are advancing well,” said Petkoff. “Súmate threw in the towel; its decision is respectable, but if it is necessary to have primaries, if the men that want and have the capacity to take the reins of the country … cannot reach an agreement [on a single candidate], then we will have primaries,” he added.

The difference between the two procedures boils down to which procedure would favor what kind of candidate. A primary vote tends to favor more conservative candidate because only opposition supporters would vote. An opinion poll, on the other hand, tends to favor more moderate candidates because a broader spectrum of citizens would probably be consulted.

According to Súmate, the primary needs to take place in the first week of August, two weeks before the deadline for registering presidential candidates. If organizing the primary takes six weeks, the deadline for starting the process passed last Sunday.

Oppositon candidates Friolan Barrios and Sergio Omar Calderon, suggested that the primary could be held later, if all candidates officially register, but then all except the primary winner withdraws.