Merida and Sunday's Elections: A Brief Report

This weekend, Venezuelans will vote yes or no on a constitutional amendment to end term limits for all government officials. The measure will almost surely pass, probably with support in the low fifty percentage points. Despite U.S. press rhetoric, and serious flaws in President Chávez’s governance, the president is popular and supported by the majority. The referendum will put an end to weeks of intensive street rallies, some marred by violence, but mostly peaceful by both sides.

Our town of Mérida has seen both peaceful and violent manifestations of peoples’ feelings about the enmienda. In the past three weeks, demonstrations and riots at the University of the Andes (ULA) have accelerated. I plan to photograph a “no” march organized by students this afternoon at 4pm (Thursday 2/12) The occurrences of violence against demonstrators at universities throughout the nation have escalated as students, originating mostly but not exclusively from Venezuela’s small middle-class, play an increasingly central role in opposing the amendment proposal. The last Tuesday in January, reports of student injury from clashes with police emerged from three campuses throughout the country.

Beginning in early December, President Chávez began a public process to amend the constitution in order to abolish term limits. Citizens will vote on the measure on February 15, which will be the third election cycle in fourteen months. The campaign hit full stride in the late January, with a commiserate shift in tone and activity on campus. Several times a week students organize forums on campus and in five days, students have covered the town in graffiti supporting both Sí and No positions. The ULA official website is filled with opposition to the proposal, and administrators left their offices January 27 to join the “March for No”. Within one hundred yards of each other, upbeat students proclaiming Sí and No publicly campaign several times a week without interaction as police watch at either end of the street.

The recent events at ULA enflamed further when armed pro-Chávez demonstrators, according to news accounts, arrived at the demonstration. At the entrance to ULA’s largest of three local campuses, young men protesting Chávez wore ski masks and t-shirts to hide their identity. As they burned tires in the street and threw rocks, the police stood watch with rifles and bullet-proof vests. When tear gas wafted into the Social Science and Economic Cafeteria, students calmly walked out to stop the burning sensations in their eyes and nose. It took me a minute to realize that I was breathing tear gas, feeling much more panicked than the matter of factness reflected on the faces of those around me.

The police lanced the tear gas towards group of student organizers protesting the proposed constitutional amendment and the alleged vandalism of student government offices by a pro-Chávez organization. Reports from eyewitnesses, newspapers and websites offer highly conflicted reports of the sequence of events and responsible parties, depending on the source’s allegiance to Chávez or the opposition.

Located 425 miles southwest of Caracas in the country’s only primarily university town, Merida’s ULA has frequent strikes and street disturbances. Typically, the actions involve grievances over university autonomy and student conditions. It is a rare student who graduates in the five year normative time, thanks to days and even weeks of suspended classes due to actions ranging from highly coordinated public protest to street closures by small groups of masked encapuchados. The scene of hooded young men throwing rocks and burning tires occurs at least once a month in front of one of ULA’s campuses. Police have no authority on campus grounds due to strict constitutional law mandating university autonomy. This includes the street in front of ULA, giving even a small number of students the ability to close the main artery of the city during peak hours.

The campaign for the amendment reflects a decade of struggle in which each side publicly claims to be pacifist. Meanwhile both positions dismiss and berate the opponent. Pro-amendment literature describes university student opposition as “bourgeoisie university students,” lumped in with social sectors labeled “the squalid”, the anti-Venezuelan, and the devil. Opponents dismiss Chávez supporters as irrational and “bought,” labeling a victory in the amendment proposal “indefinite destruction for Venezuela”, leaving neither side with much room for considered discussion. Although polls vary, the amendment appears to have slight majority favor among Venezuela’s nearly seventeen million voters.

Tuesday’s demonstrations included a series of unusual events that indicated the escalation of tensions in light of the upcoming constitutional election. A motorcycle group of armed Chávez supporters arrived and the Venezuelan National Guard sent tanks to the main avenue, although accounts vary as to who gave orders for the action. The tanks’ presence echoed Chavez’s pronouncement that students who blocked the streets would be “swallowing some of that good kind of gas.” He added late last week that university administrators were behind the recent protest, “using the kids” and “poisoning the youth.” Nonetheless, he called the students “embarrassing and pitiable,” products of what he calls the poor training in their universities.

Chávez supporters and opponents continue to clash, occasionally in the streets but more often on their separate television channels and within families. As I interview young adults for a book project on how their generation constructs political and economic subjectivities, adherents to both sides articulate more careful analysis of their opponents than the public rhetoric suggests. University students in Mérida express a desire for an alternative, not necessarily to Chávez, but to the civil society impasse in which the university is embroiled. Opositores describe positive aspects of what supporters call the Bolivarian Revolution, including policies to help the poor, a return of sovereignty, and national cultural promotion. Adherents admit a weariness with repeated elections, crime, and heated rhetoric, complaints often voiced by their opponents. Venezuelan public discourse, however, continues at a standoff, making it difficult to imagine student de-escalation with either President Chávez in office or an oppositional victory.