Corruption and Venezuelan opposition: a dangerous liaison

Caracas, Venezuela, 26 June 2008. For the last few days, opposition members have been making a lot of fuss and noise over the suspension of the political rights of their candidates to the coming local elections in Novemeber 2008.  The Chief of the Office of the Comptroller General -Clodosbaldo Russian-  has barred both opposition and official candidates from participating in the elections due to their involvement in embezzlement or administrative mismanagement.

Most notably, Major of Chacao -central Caracas - Leopoldo Lopez has been linking his suspension to the enjoyment of Human Rights consecrated in the current 1999 Venezuelan Constitution. Last week he visited US and met with American Democrat candidate Barak Obama. Lopez also complained at OAS Human Rights Commission and Carter Centre. But, it is unclear whether he mentioned his own administrative mismanagement and embezzlement during the meetings.

But when one takes a closer look at the issue, another picture emerges. Corruption is the real and most prominent reason behind the legal and temporary suspension of the political right of members of both local opposition and Chavez´s administration staff.  However, it is only the opposition that has tried to cover the embezzlement and mismanagement of public moneys by its members. It has linked an administrative punishment of corruption to political exclusion. Furthermore, it is only recently the governement started to make a reasonable campaign to explain the corrumption punishment motivations of its administrative decisions. Today,  Parliament backed the suspensions after a long and intense debate.

Venezuela has had a long and some times obscure relation with corruption. It has condemned corruption but made little efforts to control it during various democratic government. Even the recent administrative suspensions are only political. They do not expect people to serve jail terms or refund public money.  However, the current opposition strategy could back fire once again. Their claim could be used to depict them as corrupt prone public administrators. Their despair to participate in the November elections is due to the fact that Chavez could loose power. In addition, his intention to re introduce a constitutional reform to stay in power indefinitely could be halted if opposition wins most governor and mayor posts.  

Sources: El Universal, Globovision, Unionradio, VTV,

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