The issue of Nicolás Maduro’s campaign is being decided these days in a reality show produced by a state channel. The Venezuelan Government has thus unlocked a new level in its omnipresent propaganda apparatus: a few days ago the first of eight episodes of M-Factor, a musical competition that tries to emulate the British format that was made world famous by one of its jurors, the fearsome music producer Simon Cowell, for his acid criticism of aspiring singers. In the studios of Televisora Venezolana Social (TVES), the channel that took the signal from the defunct Radio Caracas Televisión, the first television station in the country against which Hugo Chávez waged war 17 years ago, the production that traces In programs of this type, the musical effects, necessarily emotional stories of the participants, slow motion following gestures interspersed with shots of the previous auditions, many LED lights and fire effects, an always smiling studio audience and an entertainer with a sweet intonation, accompanied by his actress wife and director of the channel on which the show is broadcast.
A total of 35 participants selected in auditions held in mid-April in Caracas will compete in the final that will be held shortly before the electoral campaign officially begins. The competitors in the first round were varied. A llanero with a hat and leather jacket, a young balladeer who was very nervous on stage, a veteran salsero and another younger one who combined his proposal with reggaeton and a former model and actress converted to the Bolivarian Militia who tried a pop song.
The contest jury, on the other hand, brings together a group of musicians who are regular at Chavismo events, some with public positions and links to high-ranking government officials. The judges are the merenguero Omar Enrique; the reggaeton player, former baseball player and former Minister of Sports, Antonio Foal Alvarez; Xuxo, an artist with 9,000 subscribers and twenty videos on YouTube who reached official screen by performing the theme of the campaign for the Essequibo referendum last December; the singer and music producer Omar Acedo, who was part of local youth groups such as Salserín and Calle Ciega and, in addition, is the son-in-law of the vice president of the PSUV, Diosdado Cabello; and as an international representation, a must-see on Maduro’s birthdays, the Dominican Bonny Cepeda, remembered in the playlists of Venezuelan weddings for Hotel room and Murderess and that today he is vice minister of Culture in his country.
Other national political figures participated in the preselection auditions such as Camilla Fabri, wife of businessman Alex Saab who returned to the country from prison in a prisoner exchange with the United States, and PSUV deputy Génesis Garvett. Both members of the Government delegation at the negotiation table with the opposition.
Each musical presentation was woven by the comments of Winston Vallenilla, who was the star host of the game shows of the extinct RCTV and has directed the Social Television TVES signal since Chávez revoked the concession to his predecessors, in one of the first blows taken in Venezuela against freedom of the press. Like the reality show that this channel presents today with a very low rating like almost all open television in Venezuela, the network has tried to be a commercial television station with various singing competitions in different musical genres, although it is always linked to the endless official broadcasts that from the Hugo Chávez’s times scared Venezuelan audiences off national screens.
In the first of seven rounds, competitors sang songs with titles The president is Maduro, Maduro is the future, Come on, Nico, Here I am, here I am and “Let’s go everyone”. Vallenilla, at the end of each presentation, invited the participants to send messages of encouragement and support to the president, assuring that he would be watching the program from his office. With a close shot and melancholic piano music, the participants told the presidential candidate not to give up, “that great leaders are measured by how many times they overcome these adversities,” as one of the salseros said.
M-Factor in which, of course, the M comes from Maduro, it is one more attempt by Chavismo in its intense campaign to rebuild its support for the presidential elections on July 28. Efforts have been focused, in part, on trying to reach the youngest voters, since they have been left alone, with a hard core voter base of just 15% of the population, according to most surveys. From a weekly television program —Mature +—, where he has tried to show his most intimate side with his wife with Cilia Flores, while interacting with tiktokers Fashion; to a video podcast with all the trappings of giant headphones and professional microphones. He has tried everything to confront the enormous impact that the opposition has gained around María Corina Machado and the Unitary Platform, whose last candidate, the 74-year-old diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia, who has finally been allowed to register, being an unknown person who does not even will not even go out on the streets to campaign, it has already unleashed thousands of memes of approval and even a series of songs created with artificial intelligence that activists have made available to the campaign. Whoever reaches the final victorious M factor, Vallenilla said in the presentation of the program, he will be awarded with the professional recording of the song and “the privilege” of accompanying Maduro in the campaign, although the prize, in reality, goes to the candidate himself.
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