Nikolas Kozloff

To read the article, click here.

To read the article, click here.

To read the article, click here.

As Chavez fights for his life, eyes are turning to Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela's Foreign Minister, who is viewed as a likely political successor. When asked to comment by USA Today reporter Peter Wilson, I expressed doubts about Maduro's ability to unite diverse constituencies within Chavez's PSUV party. Furthermore, as readers of this website are aware, I am skeptical about all the possible Chavez successors including Maduro, Diosdado Cabello and Hugo's brother Adan.

To read the article, click here.

On balance, Venezuelan elections under Chávez have been handled pretty fairly and many observers agree that the system has been free of glaring irregularities. Yet, if WikiLeaks cables are any indication, some potential underlying problems still remain. At issue is the so-called “Misión Identidad” or “Identity Mission,” a government program which has registered new voters.

The Chávez government started the initiative in 2003 in an effort to provide identification cards to the disenfranchised poor which up until that time had not possessed any official government identification. Misión Identidad, which was administered by the National Office of Identification and Naturalization or ONIDEX, formed part of a number of other social-based programs known as missions. Without any official Venezuelan identification, the poor would not able to vote or acquire benefits from social services.

In theory it all sounds good but according to U.S. diplomatic cables “the Chávez government has politicized this social service and used it to improve its electoral standing.” Perhaps, the system could even give Chávez a leg up in today’s presidential election. The U.S. Embassy in Caracas noted that Cuba, a key strategic ally of Venezuela in the wider region, has provided key expertise to Chávez on how to expand the country's national electoral registry, and through Misión Identidad the authorities were able to register a whopping two million new voters.

As far back as 2006, the Chávez government used the “tried and true method of stuffing the voter registry” by naturalizing migrants and handing out identification cards through Mision Identidad. According to the Americans, Chávez “unabashedly used the Misión Identidad program as a tool for garnering more votes.” Since most of the Misión Identidad employees were “avowed Chavistas,” the implication was “clear” that applicants were expected to vote for Chávez. Moreover, those who received new ID cards would probably be grateful to Chávez and more inclined to vote for him.

Many of the registrations were carried out in “mass naturalizations” in frontier states like Zulia and Táchira along the Colombian border. The U.S. Embassy reported that “little if any documentation is needed for this process.” In a scathing indictment, the Americans wrote that ONIDEX and Misión Identidad were “rife with corruption.”

If today’s presidential contest is close, perhaps we will hear more questions about the use of these types of programs. Stay tuned.

To read my article about the status of Venezuela's Cuban health program, click here.

To read my article about WikiLeaks, Brazil and Cuba in the post-Castro era, click here.

To read the article, click here.

To read the article click here.