CARACAS: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is everywhere in the run-up to Sunday's election — shaking his fist on state television, smiling at the facades of buildings in Caracas, beaming at the sky the night over Maracaibo.
Unrestricted access to state media and propaganda funding allowed non-stop appearances on television, radio, billboards, billboards and even the ambulance.
The opposition, by comparison, has been absent from traditional campaign platforms in a political climate that is widely condemned as an authoritarian. However, polls show that the opposition has left Maduro in the dust.
Not for lack of trying on his part.
A well-oiled spin machine is working 24-7 to portray the 61-year-old as a strong anti-imperialist, yet caring and compassionate man.
Maduro is shown alternately hounding capitalist “fascists,” dancing salsa with his wife, and promising prosperity after years of economic crisis that have sent more than seven million Venezuelans fleeing — nearly a quarter of the population.
“There is a willingness for it to live in people's minds,” Leon Hernandez of the Information and Communication Research Institute at the Andres Bello Catholic University told AFP.
And the most important thing is to remind them that he is the heir of the great socialist Hugo Chavez. Unlike Maduro, he remains very popular and is widely regarded as a revolutionary hero.
Due to the lack of independent television left, the image of the opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia does not enter people's living rooms.
Instead, the opposition is linked to YouTube and TikTok, a platform they must share with Maduro's 24-hour processing machine.
The president, who is seeking a third six-year term in power, has been raving to his people in daily broadcasts about his “pilgrimage” across Venezuela.
He is also the subject of a movie that was recently released in a Caracas theater, based on a book about his life.
To reinforce his real presence, Maduro also has a caricature in his image — a masked hero called Super-Bigote (Super Mustache) fighting monsters sent by the United States.
And he recently adopted the symbol of a fighting chicken with feathers in yellow, blue and red in Venezuela, which was designed to highlight his brilliance in relation to Gonzalez Urrutia, 74 years old, gentle.
Roosters can be heard in Maduro's live election campaign, and campaign songs pay homage to the pioneer bird.
Chickens also showed, with Maduro's face, in a drone light show over Maracaibo, the center of the petro-state's oil wealth but now struggling with shortages regular oil in other diseases.
On one side of the spectrum, there is little room for dissenting voices in the independent media.
More than 400 independent newspapers, radio and television stations have been closed in the more than two decades of Chavista's rule — a social movement named after Chavez.
Some were bought by businessmen close to the government. Even more chose self-censorship to continue working independently.
Foreign networks such as CNN Spanish and Deutsche Welle (DW) were removed from cable providers due to government orders.
In a platform like YouTube, where opponents cannot be banned, the attacks have been relentless.
The videos accuse Gonzalez Urrutia — a stand-in for popular opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, barred from the race by institutions loyal to Maduro — of pushing plan and want to “give” Venezuelan oil to the United States.
In a country where electoral power is tied to the government, there are no posters bearing Gonzalez Urrutia's face, and few are talking about the opposition.
During the campaign, which officially closed on Thursday, Gonzalez Urrutia was able to secure only a few interviews with the national media, conducted in an atmosphere of scrutiny. strict governance and self-censorship.
Misinformation is also a popular tool.
Military leaders recently released a video of a speech by Machado and Gonzalez Urrutia in front of a screen containing proposals to privatize the state-owned company PDVSA and the education system.
AFP confirmed that the video had been edited, and that the screen was actually blank.
