Chavez: the Caracas establishment candidate

Doing my morning tea blog rounds I read Quico of Caracas Chronicles worrying about the “positive” effect that would be for Chavez opening the Caracas-Tuy railroad, and making it free until Chirstmas. Indeed, that might garner Chavez some favor but not as much, by far, as one would think.

See, the problem here is that we, in the provinces, see the Caracas –Tuy railroad as an only Caracas benefit while major public works in our corner of the world are inexistent or years late.

I remember about three years ago, when Chavez went to do one of his regular self promoting events on the construction site of the Caracas Tuy railroad, that the host of the popular morning talk show on Barquisimeto Pomar TV, Sin Barreras, was complaining, almost bitterly, that this train was very nice for the long suffering commuters of the Tuy valley, but what about “us here in Barquisimeto?”. Mr. Barreras knew exactly was he was talking about: after 8 years of glorious revolution the road bypass of Barquisimeto is still not complete (it was done 80% when Chavez came to office). Thus all the road traffic between Venezuela and Maracaibo MUST pass through Barquisimeto downtown instead of squirting the city as it should have been long done considering the volume. Instead the mayor of Barquisimeto and the governor of Lara embarked on a much controversial project of some tram for Barquisimeto which is a dubious solution for Barquisimeto mass transit (in particular for the future expected growth) while it contributes to make traffic an even greater hell.

That is, if the tram was the chosen solution for Barquisimeto they should have started by finishing the Barquisimeto by-pass, a real and effective solution. But that by-pass had been started by the previous governor of Lara, Fernandez Medina, an earlier supporter of Chavez and now a bitter enemy of Chavez and of the lousy, inefficient and likely corrupt present governor, Reyes Reyes. A governor who besides being one of the coup mongers of 1992 has so little personality, so little charisma that he has to resort to imitate Chavez ticks to fake a public image. Thus there is no way that Reyes Reyes would finish a “4th Republic” road. Until recently that is as crews are busy trying to finish what could have been done 6 years ago.

And thus back to Caracas- Tuy train. In fact, by granting free train access until December Chavez makes an additional mistake: he shows that he is now more than ever the Caracas candidate, the establishment one. Whereas Rosales keeps campaigning busily inside the country and speaking to and for the forgotten provinces. Because this is perhaps the most amazing twist in the campaign: Chavez, the poor boy of Sabaneta who made it to the presidency (in the best log cabin tradition, with his birth house already a shrine) has become the cosmopolitan well traveled fancy Caracas president, the one of the bureaucratic establishment. Well, not quite yet, but it is a transformation well under way and here, in San Felipe, or Barquisimeto or perhaps even Barinas, we are taking notice.

Unfortunately for Chavez there is nothing much he can do about that. To begin with Rosales as a governor and a guy who never held a job in Caracas, can not be placed as an “establishment guy” and even less as a Bush-the-devil agent. Second, Chavez new found extra pounds, fancy suits and his constant jet setting in his private plane from which we still have to see official pictures of the inside (think about any US president chatting with journalists inside US Air Force ONE) do not speak as much to the masses as the semi starved looking army officer from Sabaneta who related to the people in 1992.

But Chavez has a problem, he is losing points in the Caracas metropolitan area, who, one must remember, he narrowly lost at the Recall Election of 2004. The area is almost a quarter of the country votes. That is why he needs to try to recover some strength there and thus promote unfinished railroads, unfinished subways and advance year end bonus payment for public employees whose bulk is in Caracas. That might or might not help in Caracas, but I doubt very much it will help him outside. Heck! I am not even sure Rosales needs to criticize Chavez on that, we in the provinces know better.

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PS: I pick the Barquisimeto example but there are many other such examples where provincial areas feel neglected. For example in Yaracuy we are still waiting for highway to Puerto Cabello as the Urama stretch is a guillotine with all the trucking from Puerto Cabello to Barquisimeto and the Andes. In fact the highway has been almost completed for years but that last few miles are blocking its inauguration, while the promised Barquisimeto-Puerto Cabello train is advancing at snail pace.

Or we could look at the need for a second Maracaibo bridge while Chavez prefers to discuss a third one on the Orinoco even as the second one is not finished yet.

Or the collapsing bridges on existing highways such as the La Guaira one or the almost near collapsed La Cabrera one which has made it a torture to go between Caracas and Valencia. People stuck in that traffic have all the leisure to watch as the Puerto Cabello-La Encrucijada train is built at snail pace.

Or the Valencia subway that was going at an excruciatingly slow rate while the Salas ruled over Carabobo and which now goes at a faster pace, but wrecking as much havoc on Valencia traffic.

And more.