Opinion: We Know Who Lost The Elections · 11:17pm Nov 4th, 2018

The title comes from a video done by the journalist, and former Miss Venezuela professor on speech, José Rafael Briceño released on December 6th of 2015, the sunday where the Venezuelans elected the opposition by 2/3 to rule the congress after over a decade of chavista rule. On this video, released before the results could come in, he pointed out a series of problems that surfaced through the election campaign that were useful to know which parties lost by principle.

This is why I'm going to translate some parts of the speech done there to, firstly, explain what does he mean and,secondly, to point out how this can be applied to any election whatsoever, since principles during a political campaign as well as outside of it are clear indicators of what we should be demanding from the people we are about to elect as well as what can we tell from their behavior.

"I'm recording this editorial a thusday. Three days earlier to the elections we are having today and trying to guess what are we going to be talking about is like making a graduation speech before getting your grades.
The great question today is 'who won' at which the lovers of stupid phrases will respond with 'Democracy won! This was a democratic celebration!' and, well, as long as it isn't one of those celebration with one or two individuals on the floor but, taking into account the events that happened before we got to this date and, even on the scenario of the elections being cancelled on a saturday because ' an imperialist virus was detected on the CNE's system and making manual elections are too much of a hassle because we're not Colombians nor Argentinians', well even on that scenario I can tell you not so much who won the elections but rather who, today Sunday, lost.
The Party whose campaign consisted on talking about putting fear on what the others are going to take away from you instead of showing what they propose to you, they lost the proposal for which their voters are now leaving them disillusioned."

This is a reference of how the PSUV's (Political Party created by Hugo Chávez to converge all the socialist in Venezuela in a single entity) used to bring over half of the population to their ranks with their speech of socialism (as in, money and other goods) for the people so they could have whatever they wanted but now, instead of making promises of what they can give, they were making threats of what the opposition would take away from them if the population didn't vote for the PSUV, which was ironic considering that the PSUV ended up being the one fulfilling this threats and, personally, this is a common tactics from demagogues who, unable of making a good promise, prefer to use scare tactics of what horrible scenario can happen if their opponent wins and the best example I can give is how in practically all the presidential elections in Latin America, except Paraguay and Costa Rica, from 2017 onward, the right wing candidate, or their campaign team said that if the Left Wing candidate won it would mean the transformation into a new Venezuela.

Regardless of how real this threat was (Gustavo Petro, Haddad, Honduras's Left Wing candidate and AMLO are tied to Hugo Chávez in one way or another and Chile's Left Wing Candidate buried himself when he said that Venezuela wasn't a dictatorship) it still doesn't change the fact that the campaign should have always been the idea of proposing better ideas, never saying that the other candidate was a chavista that would turn their country into Venezuela, again, regardless of how true the threat is and this remains if the opponent uses you as a threat (although 'fair game' could be used as an argument here) by calling you a fascist, the next Hitler or a puppet government for a previous president at which, they then lost as well.

"The party that disguised itself as opposition to confuse the electorate and shared confusing cards and publicity, like that Russian who painted black stripes on white donkeys and announced a zebra exhibition. That party also lost, it lost its self respect and all it will have left is the certainty of how much is a candidate worth. Perhaps someone will write a book about it, right, William Ojeda?"

This is a reference of how, in the middle of the campaign, a new political party called MIN-Unidad appeared out of nowhere (originally the MIN, a party created by former journalist Renny Ottolina but later intervened and taken over by Chavismo) and used a name similar to the MUD (Mesa de la Unidad Democrática/Democratic Unity Table) who was popularly called "La Unidad"/"The Unity" and tried to earn votes by confusing the electorate of who was the real opposition. The punchline can be understood when you know that the party's leader was William Ojeda, a man known for always changing sides whenever it was the most convenient to him.

And this is something that holds true even in the systems where there are two parties or if one of the candidates plays itself as independent. Whenever someone goes out and starts playing as the savior or claims to be from one party but follows the same narratives that his supposed opponents use as well as making apologism to the tyrants that he should be supposed to fight either for a desire to obstruct a person he despises or for more obscure reasons. The best way to know that they were aware of how much they reduced themselves as a person can be shown on how they decided to no longer run for a candidacy, knowing full well that they have been exposed as the fakers they are, isn't that right, Jake?

"The party that used their township or ministry to force their employees a 1X10 or, even worse, demanding from them to take a picture of their vote, violating the law. They told their employees that 'I don't care about your talent or studies, I only care about if you can fit this red shirt. That party also lost, he lost the most important thing on politics: The recognition that the voters have a free conscience and they can vote for whoever they want and that goes for those who use a red shirt or any other color."

This is a reference of how Chavismo would always force their public employees to vote for the PSUV (and still do) under the treat of being fired. During the 2015 elections, the pressure went so high that chavismo would be demanding a 1X10, a process where each employee had to search for ten friends/family/etc and tell them to vote for the PSUV under the threat of being fired (this happened to my mother and I remember her calling people to ensure she wouldn't get fired) and, under fear of Chavismo knowing for who she voted, she ended up voting for a third party. I hope for this to never happen to someone else in any country whatsoever (BTW, forcing your public employees to vote for your party is illegal and can be seen a voter fraud)

"The party that uses violence to destroy votes, remove witnesses from other parties, keep election tables open and scare away voters obviously lost. They lost the balls they need measure themselves up without using a revolver."

This is a reference of how Chavismo, since long ago, has been using violence as a mean to attack political opponents to stop them to win an election, clear terrorism, and this is also common and true from any political or terrorist group that only sees violence as a mean to win (let it be the Peronist, fascist like Mussolini's, etc.) because they are too scared to win by only using their brains and political skills and any party across the world that uses violence to force their victory isn't any better than a fascist. a communist or any kind of terrorist group.

"The party that didn't condemned with all their strength the murder of a political leader and preferred to tag him as 'mobster' or 'criminal', ignoring that even our criminal's lives are protected for our Constitution, because as far I'm aware this isn't China or Texas, that party already lost. They lost the respect to life and no matter of how humanist you want to paint yourself as, you're nothing more than a murderer."

This is an obscure one. It refers to how a secretary from AD, who was making campaign with the now Representative Delsa Solórzano, was shot in the middle of the campaign (with her as a witness) and Maduro and his group only mocked the murder by saying that he was a criminal and the murder was simply a "debt payment" between gangster.

Let this be a warning: Enabling mob tactics, the use of violence against political opponents, it's always the first step before the dehumanization of your opponents to justify the most heinous of crimes against them.

"There's no need to know the results, it doesn't matter what time of the day it is, that party lost. It doesn't matter how many 'deputies' or 'seats' they win, that party, today Sunday, is the loser and any party that, now back in power, starts repeating that same behavior by talking about revenge and lies, ignoring the other half of the country, will always lose until they understand that power isn't something given by the electorate, but is rather a lease and all we ask in exchange is to stop treating us like imbeciles.
Until next Sunday and remember: God doesn't do stuff, YOU do it, and he laughs. Until next time and let's vote.

I will ignore the last part (since it's just a farewell as well because a simple speech isn't something that's going to convince others of voting, and that isn't my intent on the first place) to focus on the message: elections are more than just us choosing who will govern us in the next years, it's also about those political figures being tested by us and show us how much respect they are willing to give us in exchange of our trust and that's something that will always be the last thing we must take into account when talking about what party lost.

Because any party that lose by principle, will lose politically any elections they are willing to go through and those parties only end up dying on the long term. Here's the video for those curious: