Caracas Chronicles

Officially, the campaign starts today, but I bet most of you don’t know there’ll be more than two candidates on the presidential ballot. Initially, CNE admitted eight nominations for the October 7th election. At the last minute, neo-PPT placeholder Rafael Uzcategui declined in favor of Hugo Chávez, leaving the final candidate tally at seven.

Public attention will of course be focused on the two with real chance to win, but who are the other five? Are they just “tarjetón filler”? What do they stand for, if anything?

According to La Verdad, the five candidates share something beside been complete unknowns and lacking an Internet site: all have some kind of prior relation with Chavismo. Let’s take a look…

• María Bolívar: A 37-year old lawyer and bakery shop owner from Maracaibo. She’s running to help people and admitted in an interview with Panorama that she supported Chávez in 1998. She doesn’t consider herself a “media” person but wants to hold a political rally soon at La Curva de Molina. The center of her plataform is a “system of electronic and digital government”. It’s kind of ironic that a presidential candidate with such an ambitious idea can’t even use Tumblr to promote it.
• Reina Sequera: She has been involved with workers’ unions, running for CTV leadership back in 2001 and finishing fifth. Later she asked the TSJ to declare the whole process null and void. Her party, Poder Laboral was a member of the Polo Patriótico in 2006, but withdraw around 2007 after refusing to join the PSUV. Her key proposal: Opening personalized bank accounts with a million dollars so the poor can leave “material poverty”. I’m not joking, that is part of her program. #FACEPALM
• Luis Reyes Castillo: Beside Chávez, he’s the only candidate who ran in 2006 to repeat this time. He ended third then with almost 5.000 votes. He’s an evangelical christian representing the evangelical-oriented party ORA, which entered twice in the old Chamber of Deputies. His previous party JOVEN made an alliance with the PSUV for the 2008 regional elections and he was its leader until recently. His ideas are based around the concept of “the Christian Republic of Venezuela”. Enough said…
• Orlando Chirinos: He was part of the parallel Chavista federation of labour unions UNT, founded in 2003. He has distanced himself from Chavismo in recent years and has openly critized the government’s lack of discussion with workers. His new party is called “Socialism and Liberty” and he wants a public debate with the frontrunners. His proposals are all about the working class. Mas socialista imposible…
• Yoel Acosta Chirinos: Directly involved in the February 4th coup. He continues to support Chávez, but has reservations about Chavismo. He’s backed by Vanguardia Bicentenaria Republicana, a party which wanted to support Chávez in the first place but got rejected. They’re stuck with Acosta Chirinos instead. VBR’s plan is to keep doing the whole “21st Century Socialism” but better. No, gracias…

Those candidates will have the same amount of advertisement content allowed by the regulations of the electoral authoritah: Three daily minutes in every TV channel (including cable), four minutes in every radio station, half page of a regular newspaper and a full page in tabloid-type papers. Even the use of text messages will be limited to three SMS a week.

Will those five candidates use their space in the media? We are about to find out!