The Votes Still Count

In a continent increasingly coming under the control of military rule, Venezuela is proving to be refreshingly addicted to the practice of democracy. For the fourth time since the overthrow of Dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez almost 16 years ago, Venezuelans trooped peaceably to the polls last week to elect a new President to a five-year term. The winner, with 48% of the vote-a near landslide by local standards-was Carlos Andres Perez, 51, a tough ex-Minister of the Interior and standard-bearer of the center-left Democratic Action Party. He immediately announced that he would not cut back oil production but would use the Venezuelan oil weapon gently but firmly to gain better trade terms from the U.S.

By the time 4.2 million Venezuelans had voted, most of the issues had given way to a personality contest in an American-style election campaign that officially lasted almost two years and cost the country a minimum of $30 million -nearly $7 a vote. Perez and his closest rival, Lorenzo Fernandez of the ruling COPEI (Social Christian party), who won about 37% of the vote, both relied heavily on U.S. consulting firms to build their images.

"Choosing between those two is like choosing between Pepsi-Cola and Coca-Cola," snapped Jose Vicente Rangel, the Marxist-Socialist candidate who finished a distant fourth, with roughly 4.2% of the vote. It was true that neither of the two leading candidates could show clear political differences from his opponent. Though Venezuela's output of about 3.4 million bbl. of crude daily makes it the world's third largest oil producer (after Saudi Arabia and Iran), oil never became an issue. Both major candidates agreed that foreign oil concessions, mostly to American companies that now have a $2 billion investment in Venezuelan oil, must revert to Venezuelan control by a process of negotiation before the 1983 date called for in the original agreement.

The returns suggest that Venezuelans rather like choosing between the political equivalent of Coke and Pepsi. The two major parties together cornered roughly 85% of the votes cast, in a field of twelve candidates ranging from the extreme left to the far right. This was seen by political observers as a trend toward a two-party system that, if it continues, could give the country a more stable political system. Of the eleven countries in South America, Venezuela along with Colombia, and possibly Argentina, are the only working democracies. The big loser in the election was former Dictator Perez Jimenez, who had called on his followers to boycott the balloting. The only candidate supporting Perez Jimenez received a minuscule .68% of the vote, a showing so poor that many now believe that Jimenez is finished as a political force in Venezuela.

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