President Hugo Chávez turns to images of a youthful and active president to attract the youth vote in October’s presidential election.

The Miami Herald
August 22, 2012
By Antonio Maria Delgado
[email protected]

Courtesy of: El Universal

Hugo Chávez dunking a basketball. Hugo Chávez dancing rap. Hugo Chávez with a teenager haircut, boxing, riding a motorcycle, screaming with joy while doing a wheelie.

These are some of the images that will soon make it to Venezuelan streets as part of a campaign targeting the young, an attempt to portray a not-so-old, not-so-sick president.

The campaign seeks to rejuvenate the image of the leader of the Bolivarian republic and strengthen the idea that he personifies change, even as he is about to complete 14 years in power.

Chávez, 58, has gradually started to show himself more active after having been under radiotherapy and chemotherapy treatment most of the second half of 2011 and the first half of 2012 to fight a cancer he admitted having last year.

Yet, the president is far from picking up the pace of previous elections and his relative scarce campaign tours contrast with those of his younger rival, Henrique Capriles, who at the age of 40 is exhibiting a level of energy hard to emulate, doing long daily walks in cities throughout the country.

Venezuelans will go to the polls on Oct. 7 for a presidential election that many consider could be decisive for the future of the country, amid promises made by Chávez that he will use a new six-year mandate to round up his socialist revolution.

Analysts say that Chávez’s new campaign is but an attempt to jumpstart the emotional link between the president and the younger generation, given the success Capriles is enjoying among youths.

“Actually it’s nothing but a deceiving offer. It’s an artificial campaign,” said Estaban Gerbasi, political analyst and election strategist. “He is trying to project an image of health and youth in an effort to contain the overwhelming campaign of a 40-year-old kid who is fresh, full of energy and full of life.”

“The idea of the campaign is to show that Chávez is a young guy, full of energy and who has a Venezuelan heart; all to hide the fact that, after 14 years in power, he can no longer represent change and is physically weakened by his illness,” he added.

Chávez, who has made an exhaustive use of his image for years, is seen very frequently on the streets of Venezuela. His face appears regularly on murals and billboards throughout the country. Yet, this is the first time that he is shown as a young man.

In some of the images selected for the campaign, the president appears as a young college student. In others, as a reggae singer. And still in others, as an under-30-year-old athlete.

Besides the new images, the president plans to participate in a series of activities that seek to highlight his connection with the young.

A source familiar with Chávez’s campaign said that he plans to tape a brief message addressed to young people, particularly those who are part of the “younger militants.”

According to a campaign document obtained by El Nuevo Herald, the images seek to inject “an informal tone” and break away from “established paradigms of traditional political propaganda, using phrases from the neighborhood jargon that contrast with the technical and highly careful language used by the opposition.”

To accomplish that goal, “the BETA brand logo could be use by itself or the chosen evolved tagline chosen, with the intent to suggest that the brand is endorsing the graphic piece,” the document says.

The campaign uses widely the term “beta,” part of jargon used in some popular Venezuelan neighborhoods as a synonym of gossip or news.

According to the website of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV as its Spanish-language acronym), the term later evolved and is now used to mean “thing,” “issue” and when extended to “Other Beta,” the concept becomes the synonym of “something new” or “change.”

“We say “Your beta is that one (violence, crime), but we introduce you to another one who is [President Hugo] Chávez, because we are trying to reach the young,” said Maiker Martínez, audiovisual producer linked to Chávez’s campaign, in a press release posted on the PSUV website.

Despite these efforts, Gerbasi said he doubts Chávez’s campaign will be successful in capturing the young vote.

“He is trying to create a movement for the Venezuelan youth by resorting to that romantic element the Latin American left has, as well as all that poetry and rebelliousness young people have. He has tried to kidnap that,” Gerbasi said. “But the rebelliousness of the young is opposed to power and Chávez in Venezuela represents obscene power, omnipotent power.”

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