Venezuelan presidential election, 1998
Encyclopedia
In the Venezuelan presidential election of 1998, Hugo Chávez
Hugo Chávez
Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías is the 56th and current President of Venezuela, having held that position since 1999. He was formerly the leader of the Fifth Republic Movement political party from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when he became the leader of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela...

 was elected to his first term as President of Venezuela with the largest percentage of the popular vote (56.2%) in four decades. He had run on an anti-corruption
Political corruption
Political corruption is the use of legislated powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption. Neither are illegal acts by...

 and anti-poverty
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...

 platform, condemning the two major parties that had dominated Venezuelan politics since 1958.

Background

In the early 1990s the Venezuelan government's economic strength and political legitimacy was declining, with two coup attempts in 1992 and the impeachment for corruption of President Carlos Andrés Pérez
Carlos Andrés Pérez
Carlos Andrés Pérez Rodríguez , also known as CAP and often referred to as El Gocho , was a Venezuelan politician, President of Venezuela from 1974 to 1979 and again from 1989 to 1993. His first presidency was known as the Saudi Venezuela due to its economic and social prosperity thanks to...

. The result was a turn against the traditional Punto Fijo parties (Democratic Action
Democratic Action
Democratic Action is a centrist Venezuelan political party established in 1941. The party and its antecedents played an important role in the early years of Venezuelan democracy, and led the government during Venezuela's first democratic period...

 and COPEI
COPEI
Copei – Social Christian Party of Venezuela is a third way political party in Venezuela. The name stands for Comité de Organización Política Electoral Independiente...

) in the 1993 elections
Venezuelan presidential election, 1993
General elections were held in Venezuela on 5 December 1993. The presidential elections were won by Rafael Caldera of National Convergence, who received 30.5% of the vote. Democratic Action remained the largest party in the Chamber of Deputies and Senate, which were elected on separate ballots for...

: Rafael Caldera
Rafael Caldera
Rafael Antonio Caldera Rodríguez was president of Venezuela from 1969 to 1974 and again from 1994 to 1999.Caldera taught sociology and law at various universities before entering politics. He was a founding member of COPEI, Venezuela's Christian Democratic party...

's victory in 1993 was the first time in Venezuela's democratic history that a President had been elected without the support of either of the two major parties. It was symptomatic that Caldera's election platform included pardoning those who had participated in the coup attempts, and he did so in 1994. Hugo Chávez
Hugo Chávez
Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías is the 56th and current President of Venezuela, having held that position since 1999. He was formerly the leader of the Fifth Republic Movement political party from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when he became the leader of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela...

, imprisoned for his role in the February 1992 attempt, was among those released.

By 1998, the economic crisis had grown even worse. Per capita
Per capita
Per capita is a Latin prepositional phrase: per and capita . The phrase thus means "by heads" or "for each head", i.e. per individual or per person...

 GDP was at the same level as 1963, down a third from its 1978 peak; the purchasing power of the average salary was a third of its 1978 level.

Chávez' participation

For a number of years after his 1994 release from prison, Chávez maintained a position against participation in elections, believing them a fixed game which merely legitimated the established order. This led to a split with his colleague Francisco Arias Cárdenas
Francisco Arias Cárdenas
Francisco Javier Arias Cárdenas is a Venezuelan politician and career military officer. He participated in Hugo Chávez' unsuccessful February 1992 coup attempt, being pardoned in 1994 by Rafael Caldera, along with the other conspirators...

, who left the MBR-200. In the early years after his release, Chávez considered the possibility of another coup attempt, but with the prospects appearing slim, some advisers, notably Luis Miquilena
Luis Miquilena
Luis Manuel Miquilena Hernández is a Venezuelan politician. He was born on July 29, 1919 in Santa Ana de Coro, Falcón State. He was involved in politics in the 1940s, and again after the 1958 restoration of democracy, but retired from politics in 1964 until the early 1990s, pursuing a career in...

, urged him to reconsider his scepticism of the elections, arguing that Chávez could potentially win so convincingly that the establishment would not be able to deny him victory. To find out whether this was the case, Chávez set up teams of psychologists, sociologists, university professors and students to carry out a survey. With their support, grassroots members of the Bolivarian movement polled tens of thousands of people across the country. The results showed that 70% of respondents supported Chávez running for the presidency - and 57% said they would vote for him. Support for the electoral route was strengthened when Arias Cárdenas, as a candidate for Radical Cause
Radical Cause
The Radical Cause is a working class political party in Venezuela, part of the Venezuelan opposition to president Hugo Chavez...

, won the Governorship of Zulia
Zulia
Zulia State is one of the 23 states of Venezuela. The state capital is Maracaibo. In June 30, 2010, it had an estimated population of 3,821,068, giving it the largest population among Venezuela's states. It is located in the northwestern part of the country...

 State in the December 1995 regional elections. Despite this, the MBR-200 remained divided over electoral participation, and spent a year debating the issue in local, regional and national assemblies. A national congress on 19 April 1997 took from 9 am until 2 am the next day to reach a conclusion, ultimately deciding to launch Chávez' candidacy. Some members of the movement resigned in protest, holding too much at stake. In July 1997 Chávez registered the new Fifth Republic Movement
Fifth Republic Movement
The Fifth Republic Movement was a left-wing, Socialist political party in Venezuela. It was founded in July 1997, following a national congress of the Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200, to support the candidacy of Hugo Chávez, the current President of Venezuela, in the Venezuelan presidential...

 with the National Electoral Council (the name had to be changed as Venezuelan law did not permit parties to use Simón Bolívar
Simón Bolívar
Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Yeiter, commonly known as Simón Bolívar was a Venezuelan military and political leader...

's name). The international media took little interest, citing opinion polls showing 8% support for Chávez.

Electoral process

The 1998 elections were the first to be carried out with a non-partisan National Electoral Council
National Electoral Council (Venezuela)
The National Electoral Council is one of the five independent branches of government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. It is the institution that oversees and guarantees the transparency of all elections and referendums in Venezuela at the local, regional, and national levels...

. Traditionally poll workers had been provided by the parties, but in this election "a lottery was set up to draft 300,000 registered voters as poll workers". The elections also saw "the world's first automated voting system, which featured a single integrated electronic network that was supposed to transmit the results from the polling stations to central headquarters within minutes." Whilst Venezuela had traditionally provided election observers to other Latin American countries, the uncertainty of the new system and the possibility of handover to a non-traditional party raised the stakes in terms of demonstrating that the elections would be fair, and Venezuela invited international election observers for the first time. The Organization of American States
Organization of American States
The Organization of American States is a regional international organization, headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States...

, European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

, Carter Center
Carter Center
The Carter Center is a nongovernmental, not-for-profit organization founded in 1982 by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn Carter. In partnership with Emory University, The Carter Center works to advance human rights and alleviate human suffering...

 and International Republican Institute
International Republican Institute
Founded in 1983, the International Republican Institute is an organization, funded by the United States government, that conducts international political programs, sometimes labeled 'democratization programs'....

 all sent delegations.

The automated vote system enabled the Electoral Council to announce the results within 2.5 hours of the polls closing. After corroborating the results with the Carter Center, the losing candidate conceded several hours later.

Campaign

The campaign was dominated by independent candidates, as the electorate completed the turn against the establishment parties begun in 1993. In the final poll of the year in December 1997 Irene Sáez, a former beauty queen (Miss Universe
Miss Universe
Miss Universe is an annual international beauty contest that is run by the Miss Universe Organization. The pageant is the most publicized beauty contest in the world with 600 million viewers....

 1981) and mayor of the Caracas
Caracas
Caracas , officially Santiago de León de Caracas, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela; natives or residents are known as Caraquenians in English . It is located in the northern part of the country, following the contours of the narrow Caracas Valley on the Venezuelan coastal mountain range...

 district of Chacao, reached almost 70% as an independent candidate. However despite spending millions of dollars on publicity, she fell below 15% within six months, as the public became increasingly sceptical of her readiness for the Presidency, and as she lost credibility as an anti-establishment candidate after accepting the endorsement of COPEI. The other early leading candidate, the former Democratic Action leader Claudio Fermín
Claudio Fermín
Claudio Eloy Fermín Maldonado is a Venezuelan politician. He was deputy minister of youth under Jaime Lusinchi, and subsequently Mayor of Libertador municipality, Caracas for Acción Democrática, narrowly missing out on re-election to La Causa Radical's Aristóbulo Istúriz...

, reached 35% in December 1997, but fell to 6% by April 1998.

In the course of 1998, it then became increasingly clear that the campaign was a race between Henrique Salas Römer
Henrique Salas Römer
Henrique Salas Römer is a Venezuelan capitalist economist , politically active in Venezuela since 1983.-Biography:He was the governor of Carabobo , being succeeded by his son, Henrique Salas Feo...

 and Hugo Chávez
Hugo Chávez
Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías is the 56th and current President of Venezuela, having held that position since 1999. He was formerly the leader of the Fifth Republic Movement political party from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when he became the leader of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela...

. Salas Römer, the governor of Carabobo
Carabobo
Carabobo State is one of the 23 states of Venezuela, located in the north of the country, about two hours by car from Caracas. The capital city of this state is Valencia, which is also the country's main industrial center. The state's area is 4,650 km² and had an estimated population of...

 and leader of the new Proyecto Venezuela party, appeared a credible candidate as Saez lost ground, and reached 21% in the polls in August 1998. However at the same time, Chávez's own campaign gained ground as he established himself with the electorate. From around 5% in September 1997 to over 10% in late February 1998, Chávez registered 30% in polls taken in May 1998; by August he was registering 39%.

The Chávez platform comprised three basic pledges. First, Chávez promised that he would begin his presidency by abolishing Venezuela's old puntofijismo political system of two-party patronage
Patronage
Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows to another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings or popes have provided to musicians, painters, and sculptors...

, and opening up political power to independent and third parties. Second, Chávez promised to end corruption. Third, Chávez promised to eradicate poverty in Venezuela. In working to gain the trust of voters, Chávez drafted an agenda that drew heavily on his interpretation of Bolivarianism. Chávez also utilized his charisma
Charismatic authority
The sociologist Max Weber defined charismatic authority as "resting on devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual person, and of the normative patterns or order revealed or ordained by him." Charismatic authority is one of three forms of authority laid out...

 and flamboyant public speaking style—noted for its abundance of colloquialism
Colloquialism
A colloquialism is a word or phrase that is common in everyday, unconstrained conversation rather than in formal speech, academic writing, or paralinguistics. Dictionaries often display colloquial words and phrases with the abbreviation colloq. as an identifier...

s and ribald
Ribaldry
Ribaldry is humorous entertainment that ranges from bordering on indelicacy to gross indecency. It is also referred to as "bawdiness", "gaminess" or "bawdry"....

 manner—on the campaign trail to help win the trust and favor of a primarily poor and working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...

 following.

The two traditional main parties hoped that the 8 November legislative
Venezuelan parliamentary election, 1998
Parliamentary elections were held in Venezuela on 8 November 1998. Democratic Action won a plurality of seats, winning 61 of the 207 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 21 of the 54 seats in the Senate. Voter turnout was 54.5% in the Senate elections and 52.7% in the Chamber...

 and regional elections would give them a boost, a month ahead of the 8 December presidential election, but the poll remained a two-horse race. At this point polls generally showed Chávez with a 6-12 point lead over Salas Römer's approximately 38% poll numbers, though in some polls he exceeded that margin. Both COPEI and Democratic Action now sought to endorse Salas Römer (he was reluctant to accept). COPEI persuaded its candidate (Saez) to resign, but Democratic Action's candidate, Alfaro Ucero, refused to do so, triggering an electoral crisis as the National Electoral Council had to rule on whether the Democratic Action ballot slot belonged to the party or the candidate. Salas Römer agreed to accept the endorsement of COPEI and Democratic Action regional and local parties, and sought to maintain a distance to the parties' national leadership. In the end, it was not enough, and Chávez won a substantial majority, and won 20 of 23 states.

Results

Participation was 63.76% (6,988,291 out of 10,959,530 registered voters)

See also

  • Politics of Venezuela
    Politics of Venezuela
    |The politics of Venezuela occurs in a framework explained in Government of Venezuela.There are currently two major blocs of political parties in Venezuela: the incumbent leftist bloc United Socialist Party of Venezuela , its major allies Fatherland for All and the Communist Party of Venezuela ,...

  • List of political parties in Venezuela
  • Venezuelan presidential election, 2000
    Venezuelan presidential election, 2000
    A presidential election was held in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela on July 30, 2000. This was the first election held under Venezuela's newly adopted 1999 constitution.-Results:...


External links

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