Venezuela’s Exclusion of anti-Chávez Candidates Faces a Challenge

Leopoldo López was once touted as a future leader of Venezuela, ayoung and appealing opposition figure who could have challengedPresident Hugo Chávez in next year’s presidential election. Afterserving as mayor of Chacao, a major commercial district of thecapital, from 2000 to 2008 — he won his 2004 re-election with 81%of the vote — the Harvard-educated López was poised in 2008 to runfor mayor of all Caracas, with a 65% lead in the polls. But López wasstopped in his tracks when he, together with more than 300 otherVenezuelan politicians, were declared “inhabilitados” byChávez’s comptroller general, and disqualified from seeking publicoffice until 2014 because they were supposedly guilty of corruption intheir past.

Not surprisingly, say Chávez critics, 80% of those disqualified wereopposition politicos. And, like López, most have never been formallycharged, let alone convicted of any crime. That prompted López andother inhabilitados to take their cases to the Inter-AmericanCourt of Human Rights (IACHR) in Costa Rica, arguing that both theVenezuelan Constitution and the American Convention on Human Rightshold that only those who’ve been formally convicted of crimes can beprevented from running for election. Last week, López, 39, finally gotto testify before the IACHR. “This is the first time that I have hadthe opportunity to present my case in front of impartial judges,” hetold TIME afterward, insisting that Chávez “has developed a strategyto destroy democracy” by keeping his foes from seeking office.

(See “Why Chávez Happened: Carlos Andrés Pérez’s Legacy.”)

Chávez supporters say the inhabilitado law is meant to keepVenezuela’s former kleptocracy — which had for decades prior toChávez winning power in 1999 pillaged the wealth of a country with thewestern hemisphere’s largest oil reserves — from returning topower. But the case against López is hardly that clear-cut. It stemsfrom his work at the state-run oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela(PDVSA), in the late 1990s when López’s mother headed PDVSA’s publicaffairs office and often authorized company donations to charities andcivic groups. One of those grants went to Primero Justicia (JusticeFirst), a judicial reform advocacy group and political movement towhich her son belonged. PDVSA executives in those days had beennotorious for enriching relatives and cronies — although criticssay under Chávez, it’s simply become a political patronage ATM for hissupporters. But it’s questionable whether the Primero Justicia grantconstitutes a criminally corrupt act that merits barring López fromelections.

Some 800 Venezuelans have been declared inhabilitados since2007. One of them, Manuel Rosales, a popular former governor ofoil-rich Zulia state who lost to Chávez in the 2006 election, tookpolitical asylum in Peru in 2009 to escape corruption charges,claiming there was no chance for a fair trial in his home country. “Mycase is not isolated,” says López. “It represents the reality ofhundreds of Venezuelans that have been disqualified without dueprocess.”

The inhabilitado scheme may be legally dubious, but Chávez hasbeen able to get away with it politically because many of its targetsare associated with the corrupt old guard. In the past few years,however, Chávez’s own government has faced increasing corruptionaccusations — including the so-called suitcase scandal involving$800,000 that a PDVSA-connected entrepreneur was caught ferrying toArgentina in 2007, purportedly as a government political donation tothen presidential candidate Cristina Fernandez, who is now President.Chávez’s disqualification of opposition pols seems more hypocriticalto many Venezuelans as a result.

(See “Venezuela Cracks Down on Illegal Mining.”)

Either way, the government has said it may not abide by the IACHR’sruling on Venezuela’s inhabilitado law, which is not expectedfor months. Venezuela’s representative at the court, Germán Saltron,and Comptroller General Clodosbaldo Russian both said recently thatthe Venezuelan Supreme Court will have the final say and will onlyapply the IACHR ruling if it’s deemed constitutional. If Venezuelarejects a verdict against the inhabilitado process, says JordyEnrique Moncada, a lawyer for López’s political party, VoluntadPopular (Popular Will), the opposition will then ask the Organizationof American States (OAS) to intervene.

López can claim blood lineage to Simón Bolivar, Venezuela’s and SouthAmerica’s 19th-century independence hero in whose name Chávez claimsto wage his revolution. But even if his inhabilitado statuswere reversed, Venezuela’s opposition is not sufficiently unified tomake López serious threat in the 2012 presidential election. “López isone of the most important young political leaders in Venezuela today,”says Carlos Romero, a political scientist at Venezuela’s CentralUniversity in Caracas. “However, some parts of the opposition don’tlike López and would like to see him out of the running. There is notmuch solidarity.”

Indeed, there are at least seven presidential candidates, allembarking on tours of Venezuela and organizing their own campaignteams. With primary elections slated for later this year, they havelittle time to unite behind an opposition standard-bearer. If theydon’t, they’ll leave Chávez, who despite a limping economy and rampantviolent crime is still the most popular political figure in Venezuelatoday, all but untouchable.

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