“They robbed us!” Exclaims Jenny as she waits for a swarm of cars, cargo trucks to burst with people and motorcycles to begin the caravan to close the opposition campaign in Barinas, the home state of the late President Hugo Chávez.
There, on Sunday, he will vote once more for governor following the cancellation of an election in which the counts gave an advantage, a small one, but an advantage following all, to the main opposition candidate.
“One feels bad, because we were winning and they robbed us,” Jenny Avendaño, a 40-year-old woman from Barinas, told AFP, suffering from the crisis in Venezuela, a poisonous cocktail of inflation and recession that poisoned the economy. One of his three children emigrated to Peru.
Being the cradle of Chávez was not an antidote for this livestock and agricultural region of 870,000 inhabitants that the government of the socialist Nicolás Maduro assumes as a bastion, but which has severe problems with public services such as electricity and water, as well as a shortage of fuel.
“I milk my cows, I take out the milk, I make the cheese and I don’t have enough left to buy gasoline,” says Ángel Gil, a 52-year-old farmer. “They are like the Caribs (piranhas), they only eat by themselves,” he concludes.
Fear of retaliation
According to December polls by the private polling company Delphos, 75% of Barinese consider the situation in this state negative, governed since 1998 by relatives of the late Socialist president.
And amid that discontent, there is fear of retaliation. “Don’t record me, I have my little farm and then they are looking for one,” a farmer asks the AFP team.
Between the roar of the music and the blast of horns from the caravan that traveled through the city of Barinas – the state capital – on Thursday, Jenny says that she earns $ 10 a week that is “not enough for anything” as a receptionist in a hotel, with shifts of 12 hours a day.
Shortly following, Sergio Garrido arrives on a motorcycle at the starting point, who on Sunday will face Jorge Arreaza, former vice president, former foreign minister and … ex-husband of a daughter of Chávez, with whom he had the first of the ex-president’s grandchildren. Neither Garrido nor Arreaza were nominated in the November 21 regional elections.
That day, the Chavismo dynasty in the governorate was threatened.
The opponent Freddy Superlano commanded the count and claimed victory when the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) ordered a repeat of the elections, alleging that the leader was disqualified by judicial investigations.
The ruling recognized that the projections gave 37.60% of the votes to Superlano and 37.21% to Argenis Chávez, brother of the former president and candidate for reelection, who resigned following the debacle.
Almighty?
“Barinas gets up with Sergio Garrido”, a song sounds through the speakers in the caravan, although the outlook is difficult, Garrido himself acknowledges.
“The Chávez and the PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela) believe they are the owners of Barinas, which is their farm,” says this 54-year-old man in an interview with AFP, in which he denounces the “use and abuse” of State resources to favor Arreaza.
A few meters from the starting point of the opposition caravan, a giant stage in the style of a rock concert receives the closing of the Chavista campaign.
Everything has been worth it in the official campaign: Arreaza dispatches from the government headquarters and went on to inaugurate public works.
The opposition launched his wife, Aurora Silva, to replace Superlano, but she was also disqualified. The next person on the list suffered the same fate, his partner Julio César Reyes. Garrido, elected to the local Legislative Council, was the fourth option.
The director of Delphos, Felix Seijas, stresses that a victory for the opposition is uphill and that what happened in November might “inhibit” its voters.
“The government is doing everything possible to win Barinas” in a year in which the opposition might aspire to a referendum to revoke Maduro’s mandate.
“They cannot allow an opposition victory in a very important state for Chavismo, because it would feed a narrative that Chavismo is not all-powerful.”
