Presidential elections were held in Venezuela on 7 October 2012 to choose a president for a six-year term beginning in January 2013.
After the approval of a constitutional amendment in 2009 that abolished term limits, incumbent Hugo Chávez, representing the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) was able to present himself again as a candidate after his re-election in 2006. His main challenger was Henrique Capriles, Governor of Miranda, representing Justice First. The candidates were backed by opposing electoral coalitions; Chávez by the Great Patriotic Pole (Gran Polo Patriótico, GPP), and Capriles by the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD). There were four more candidates from different parties. Capriles ran an energetic campaign, and visited each of the country's states. Throughout his campaign, Capriles remained confident that he could win the election and be the country's next president despite Chávez leading most polls by large margins. Chavez won the election comfortably, although this was the narrowest margin he ever won by.
Chávez was elected for a fourth term as the 52nd president of Venezuela with 55.07% of the popular vote, ahead of the 44.31% of Capriles. The elections showed a turnout of above 80%. Capriles conceded defeat as the preliminary results were known. Chávez died only two months into his fourth term.
Electoral process
Since 1998 elections in Venezuela have been highly automated, and administered by a non-partisan National Electoral Council, with poll workers drafted via a lottery of registered voters. Polling places are equipped with multiple high-tech touch-screen DRE voting machines, one to a "mesa electoral", or voting "table". After the vote is cast, each machine prints out a paper ballot, or VVPAT, which is inspected by the voter and deposited in a ballot box belonging to the machine's table. The voting machines perform in a stand-alone fashion, disconnected from any network until the polls close. Voting session closure at each of the voting stations in a given polling center is determined either by the lack of further voters after the lines have emptied, or by the hour, at the discretion of the president of the voting table.
On 10 June 2012, Capriles walked to the election commission to formally register his candidacy, at the head of a march estimated in the hundreds of thousands by international media, while local polling company Hernández Hercon estimated it to between 950,000 and 1,100,000. Capriles had stepped down as Governor of Miranda in early June in order to concentrate on his campaign.
Withdrawals
17 September, opposition candidate Yoel Acosta Chirinos withdrew from presidential election and announced support to president Chavez.
Parties
Patriotic Pole
Incumbent president Hugo Chávez Frías announced he would seek re-election at a University Students' Day rally held in Caracas in November 2010. Chávez' first mandate began in 1999, and if he had served the complete 2013–19 term, he would have served 20 years as president, having won four presidential elections. In July 2011, Chávez reaffirmed his intent to run in spite of his battle with cancer.
Chávez was supported by the Great Patriotic Pole (GPP), an electoral coalition led by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela, PSUV).
Democratic Unity
The opposition parties were grouped in the Democratic Unity Roundtable whose candidate was selected through an open primary election held on 12 February 2012. The MUD electoral coalition consists of the parties Justice First (Movimiento Primero Justicia, PJ), Fatherland for All (Patria Para Todos, PPT), Project Venezuela (Proyecto Venezuela), and Popular Will (Voluntad Popular, VP) as the main supporters of Henrique Capriles in the primary elections of February 2012. Other parties in the coalition include A New Era (Un Nuevo Tiempo, UNT), Democratic Action (Acción Democrática, AD), COPEI (Comité de Organización Política Electoral Independiente), and Movement to Socialism (Movimiento al Socialismo, MAS).
Primary
Capriles won the opposition primaries with 1,900,528 (64.2%) votes of the 3,059,024 votes cast (votes abroad not included). The other candidates on 12 February primary ballot were:
Leopoldo López was barred from running following corruption charges which he denied and for which he was never tried; in 2011, the Interamerican Court of Human Rights overturned the Venezuelan government ruling and said he should be allowed to run. On 24 January, placed "in the awkward position of being able to stand for elections but not hold office", he withdrew his candidacy to support Henrique Capriles.
Candidates César Pérez Vivas (governor of Táchira state), Antonio Ledezma (mayor of the Metropolitan District of Caracas) and Eduardo Fernández (former secretary general of COPEI) withdrew from the race, saying they would support candidates with better chances of winning.
A dispute erupted over the disposition of the voter rolls, rising out of concern that opposition voters could incur reprisals. Because the names of voters who had participated in the request of the 2004 recall referendum against Chávez had been made public via the Tascón List and, according to opposition leaders, those voters were later targeted for discrimination or lost jobs, the MUD had guaranteed voter secrecy. On Tuesday 14 February, in response to "a losing mayoral candidate, who asked that the ballots be preserved for review", the Supreme Court of Venezuela ordered the military to collect the voting rolls "so that electoral authorities could use them to investigate alleged irregularities during Sunday's elections".
An attorney for the opposition said that records are to be destroyed within 48 hours by law. Violence broke out as the opposition attempted to prevent police from collecting the names of voters. One young man, Arnaldo Espinoza, was run over and killed by a police tow truck that backed up suddenly, attempting to separate people who were protecting the vehicle belonging to the vice-president of the regional office for the primary elections in the state of Aragua. Later the opposition declared all voter rolls had been destroyed.
Chávez
The GlobalPost says that "housing, health and other programs have been the cornerstone" of President Chávez's tenure, who "remains very popular, largely because of the vast number of social programs he put in place, funded by Venezuela's vast oil wealth". According to The Washington Times, Chávez said the opposition represents "the rich and the U.S. government"; as part of his campaign, he increased social spending and investments to benefit the poor, and plans to launch a satellite made in China before the elections.
Capriles
According to Reuters, "Capriles defines himself as a center-left 'progressive' follower of the business-friendly but socially-conscious Brazilian economic model", although he is a member of the center-right Justice First. He has a youthful and populist style, a sports enthusiast who rides a motorbike into the slums, and has broken with the older guard of Venezuelan politicians. Although he comes from a wealthy family, he espouses helping business thrive through a free market while tackling poverty via strong state policies. In an interview with the GlobalPost, Capriles said his campaign was based on "improving education, which he sees as a long-term solution to the country's insecurity and deep poverty". In November 2011, in response to claims from Chavez that the opposition would end the Bolivarian Missions if elected, Capriles said "he would be 'mad' to end" projects like Mission Barrio Adentro, adding that "the missions belong to the people". In February 2012 Capriles insisted he would keep these programs, saying "I want to expand them, and get rid of the corruption and inefficiency that characterizes them."
In early September 2012 David De Lima, a former governor of Anzoátegui, published a document that he said that showed secret MUD plans to implement, if elected, different from what their public statements showed. De Lima said the document was a form of policy pact between some of the candidates in the MUD primary, including Capriles. On 6 September 2012 opposition legislator William Ojeda denounced these plans and the "neoliberal obsessions" of his colleagues in the MUD; he was suspended by his A New Era party the following day. Capriles said that his signature on the document was a forgery, while the MUD's economic advisor said that the MUD had "no hidden agenda", and that its plans included the "institutionalisation" of the government's Bolivarian Missions so that they would no longer be "subject to the whims of government". One small coalition party claimed De Lima had offered them money to withdraw from the MUD; De Lima denied the claim.
Campaign
The authority of the Venezuelan National Electoral Council (CNE) to oversee the election was recognized by the opposition. Chávez said the fairness of the CNE should not be challenged. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) noted Chávez's popularity among poor Venezuelans, and that "Chávez dominates the nation's mass media, and has been spending lavishly on social programs to sway Venezuelan voters". A January poll placed Chávez's approval rating at 64 percent. In May Rafael Poleo, owner and publisher of El Nuevo País, warned in a column in his newspaper that the MUD candidacy was lagging in the polls because it "ignores that in Venezuela voting is emotional ... and that the people vote for hope", adding that "Chavismo has taken the place in the heart of the people which AD and Copei have vacated." He concluded that "going down this road, I can already tell them the outcome." Capriles criticized Chávez for expropriating private businesses and for the government's use of the state-controlled media; the Washington Times said it will be hard for Capriles to compete with Chávez's "ability to take over the airwaves of all TV and radio stations when he deems appropriate". In June Chávez said he would not engage in an election debate with Capriles, describing him as a "non-entity" he would be "ashamed" to measure himself against.
Funding
It has been reported that funds to social programs increased dramatically before the elections, with Chávez devoting 16% of Venezuela's GDP to the initiatives.
Chávez's health
Prior to the election, Chávez received treatment for cancer in Cuba including radiation, chemotherapy, and two operations. In a Mass during Easter Week 2012, Chávez wept and asked Jesus Christ to give him life; the Associated Press says that although Chávez often praised socialism and atheism, his cancer caused him to turn to Jesus Christ for inspiration and that "... analysts say his increasing religiosity could pay election-year dividends in a country where Catholicism remains influential". He did not reveal the specifics of the type or location of his cancer, but his illness was a factor in election campaigning.
According to Reuters, some journalists sympathetic to the opposition spread information about Chávez's cancer based on claims that they had access to medical sources. Amid speculation about whether he will live through the elections, there was no clear successor. CNN stated "outlines" of a successor were seen in the appointments of two Chávez allies to top posts; Diosdado Cabello as president of the National Assembly of Venezuela and Henry Rangel Silva as minister of defense. Reuters said additional potential successors or placeholders include Chávez's two daughters and Nicolás Maduro, foreign minister. The Venezuelan constitution provides for the president to appoint vice presidents at his discretion, and for the vice president to assume power in the event of the president's death, but according to CNN, the more likely scenarios ranged "from a military coup to Chávez naming Cabello or Maduro vice president before he dies." CNN also said that analysts say Cuban politics had a role in the succession questions, with some Cubans supporting the president's brother, Adán Chávez.
From mid-April to late May 2012, Chávez was only seen in public twice, spending almost six weeks in Cuba for treatment. On 7 May, he responded to criticism that he had left Venezuela in a power vacuum, saying he would be back soon. On 22 May he took part in a live broadcast of a cabinet meeting lasting several hours. He created a new Council of State, fueling rumors that it would act as a committee to help in the event a transition of government was needed.