Party Or State? As Venezuelan Election Looms, The Distinction Is Blurry

Caracas, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 13th Mar, 2024) Venezuela's state machinery has kicked into full gear as Nicolas Maduro readies to seek a third presidential term, vowing to provide everything from mattresses and shoes to building materials to a crisis-weary electorate.

In a country under sanctions over election interference and authoritarian rule, there is little distinction between the state and the PSUV party that runs it, with Maduro at the helm of both since 2013.

Despite low poll numbers, the incumbent appears well-set for reelection for another six-year term with no serious rival on the horizon since his main challenger, opposition Primary winner Maria Corina Machado, was declared ineligible by a Maduro-aligned court.

Taking no chances, Maduro is already out wooing voters in a country from which millions have fled as the economy has plummeted in recent years.

Last week, he promised to deliver 70 public works projects by July 28 -- a symbolic number matching the birthday his much-more-popular predecessor Hugo Chavez would have celebrated on election day.

He called it the "Gran Mision Hugo Chavez," a project to confront the "horrific and sad inequality" he blamed, as usual, on international sanctions and "economic war."

Maduro often invokes Chavez -- still widely hailed as a revolutionary hero -- as he seeks to capitalize on his deceased predecessor's cult-like popularity.

The "Gran Mision" is an ambitious project that will require considerable expenditure, though no figure was given.

Maduro promised it would deliver 6.2 million pairs of shoes and a million mattresses while also "solving the problems that exist in at least 55,000 homes" with bricks, cement and sanitation parts.

The first project in the plan was delivered last Friday: a sports center in the state of Falcon in the country's northwest.

"It is part of a very Latin American and particularly Venezuelan dynamic.

.. using public resources in electoral campaigns," analyst Ricardo Rios, president of the Poder y Estrategia (Power and Strategy) consultancy told AFP.

- 'Part of the campaign' -

The ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) has said it will announce its presidential candidate on Friday. But it is a formality: the party has already agreed on Maduro.

The president, in the meantime, has increased his public appearances -- something that in recent years has been very rare.

Every day state television shows footage of adoring crowds throwing themselves at his car as Maduro waves at them from within.

"It is clearly part of the campaign," said Rios.

Campaigning officially only opens on July 4, according to a timeframe announced by the electoral authority.

Machado, meanwhile, has refused to bow out even though the Supreme Court ruled her ineligible to hold public office for 15 years on allegations widely dismissed as spurious.

While she travels around the country giving speeches, the bulk of her campaign is organized around so-called "comanditos" -- some 4,500 small groups of neighbors, friends or family members beating the Machado drum countrywide.

"This is a campaign without money," Machado's campaign manager Magalli Meda told AFP.

"It's a campaign carried by people" without "pamphlets, billboards or advertising," she added.

For Luis Vicente Leon, director of polling firm Datanalisis, Maduro's main challenge is not Machado, it is his own lack of popularity.

"Any scenario in which you have a candidate who is real is a danger for Maduro," said Leon, referring to a flurry of so-called challengers said to be aligned to the opposition but widely viewed as regime collaborators.

The deadline for nominating presidential candidates is March 25.