There is no doubt that the Russians did
interfere in the election.
By buying a tiny handful of Facebook ads that
promoted Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein, and attacked Marco Rubio
and Hillary Clinton, and, allegedly, by phishing the DNC’s email system with
the result that more people became aware of the obvious fact that the DNC had
helped Hillary get the nomination.
And I think the interference, though not yet
quantified, if fully investigated would show that Trump didn’t actually win the
election in 2016. He lost the election and he was put into office because the
Russians interfered on his behalf.
For anyone in public life to utter such an absurdity, let
alone a former president, is contemptible. But let’s recall that Jimmy
Carter is not exactly a reliable source when it comes to elections. A reader
reminded me of this news
report from September 2012:
Former US President Jimmy Carter has declared
that Venezuela’s electoral system is the best in the world.
Speaking at an annual event last week in
Atlanta for his Carter Centre foundation, the politician-turned philanthropist
stated, “As a matter of fact, of the 92 elections that we’ve monitored, I
would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.”
…Carter also disclosed his opinion that in
the US “we have one of the worst election processes in the world, and it’s
almost entirely because of the excessive influx of money,” he said referring to
lack of controls over private campaign donations.
The comments come with just three weeks
before Venezuelans go to the polls on 7 October, in a historic presidential
election in which socialist incumbent President Hugo Chavez is standing against
right-wing challenger Henrique Capriles Radonski of the Roundtable of
Democratic Unity (MUD) coalition.
Chavez welcomed Carter’s comments, stating
yesterday that “he [Carter] has spoken the truth because he has verified it. We
say that the Venezuelan electoral system is one of the best in the world”.
Chavez also reported that he had had a forty
minute conversation with the ex-Democrat president yesterday, and said that
Carter, “as Fidel [Castro] says, is a man of honour”.
You could say that Carter is a long-time
Communist dupe, but that might be too kind. Here is
a more sober view of the quality of Venezuela’s 2012 election:
For nearly 14 years, Hugo Chavez labored with
tireless energy, undeniable charisma, and ruthless design to destroy the
opposition, silence critics, and intimidate skeptics, all while leaving the Potemkin
façade of a “democracy”.
These conditions have made Venezuelan elections under
Chavez utterly unfair. Judges who ruled against Chavez were imprisoned. Those
that remain openly declared their fealty to him.
The previous opposition
presidential candidate is in exile. Businessmen who supported opposition
candidates were investigated and expropriated. Labor leaders who opposed the
government were imprisoned. Opposition radio and TV stations were shut down,
denied permits, and fined. Those that survived engaged in self-censorship.
***
The electoral campaign process, meanwhile, was patently unfair. Chavez had unlimited use of state funds and state infrastructure to carry out his campaign.
… The ruling party campaign was lavishly and freely financed with state
funds, while the opposition was denied any public financing whatsoever (and
Venezuelan businessmen knew they faced expropriation, or worse, if they openly
supported the opposition campaign).
Then there was perhaps the most critical
element of a modern election campaign: access to the mass media. Via the
arbitrary issuance and withdrawal of licenses, Chavez enjoyed the support of
all but one TV channel in the country. On top of all this, during the campaign
Chavez regularly commandeered all of the airwaves, citing presidential
privilege.
The process is aptly named cadenas (chains) and compels all TV and
radio stations, no matter the ownership or their politics, to broadcast the
president’s speeches in full–no matter how long the tirade. Chavez’s “chains”
had the effect of crowding out any significant news regarding the opposition.
For instance, on September 17, 2012, during one of the largest rallies in the
Capriles campaign, hundreds of thousands turned out to hear him speak in a
Caracas park. The event was broadcast live all around the country on radio and
TV. However, shortly after Capriles began to speak, Chavez abruptly cut him off
by declaring another cadena, in which he extolled the virtues of the current
Venezuelan state and the benefits of socialism.
Finally:
A pre-election poll in Venezuela indicated
that 40 percent of those questioned did not believe their ballots would be
secret and 30 percent stated that this intimidated them.
…Venezuela has a sordid precedent of violating
the democratic principle of ballot secrecy from the 2004 referendum petition,
which sought to remove Chavez from office in a recall election. Chavez famously
warned: “Whoever signs [the petition] against Chavez… their name will be there,
registered for history, because they’ll have to put down their first name,
their last name, their signature, their identity card number, and their
fingerprint.”
This registry of names was later published by
a chavista congressman, Luis Tascón, on his personal website. The “Lista
Tascón” was used to create an apartheid-like system, dividing Venezuelans
into those who “had signed against the president” and those who were loyal to
Chavez.
Public employees lost their jobs, those seeking employment were
instantly disqualified, and identification papers became hard to get for those
who had dared sign the recall petition. Citizens seeking loans from state banks
were told they had opted out of any assistance due to their disloyalty to
Chavez.
This is the system that Jimmy Carter loved, and that
many Democrats, including Bernie
Sanders, praised.
