Mission Florentino was a Bolivarian mission organized by the government of Venezuela

Venezuela

Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...

n President, Hugo Chávez

Hugo Chávez

Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías is the 56th and current President of Venezuela, having held that position since 1999. He was formerly the leader of the Fifth Republic Movement political party from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when he became the leader of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela...

, to coordinate the populace to vote "No" in the Venezuelan recall referendum of 2004

Venezuelan recall referendum of 2004

The Venezuelan recall referendum of 15 August 2004 was a referendum to determine whether Hugo Chávez, the current President of Venezuela, should be recalled from office...

 to keep him in office. The organizational centers of the Mission were named Comando Maisanta, as the ideological central headquarters (election brigades) for those who wished to keep Chávez as the President of Venezuela for the remainder of his presidential term.

The mission's name was inspired from a poem by Alberto Arvelo Torrealba

Alberto Arvelo Torrealba

Alberto Arvelo Torrealba , was a Venezuelan lawyer, educator and folklorical poet. Author of .Torrealba was born in Barinas. But in his youth, he moved to Caracas where he studied high school, and attended the Central University of Venezuela...

 entitled "Florentino y el Diablo (Florentino and the Devil)" in which a singer, Florentino, is tempted by the Devil to join him. Chávez claimed that reading the poem reminded him of the political situation in Venezuela at the time and encouraged his supporters to follow the example of Florentino fighting the Devil (those who were going to vote in favor of removing him from office). The name of the "Comandos" came from the Caudillo

Caudillo

Caudillo is a Spanish word for "leader" and usually describes a political-military leader at the head of an authoritarian power. The term translates into English as leader or chief, or more pejoratively as warlord, dictator or strongman. Caudillo was the term used to refer to the charismatic...

 Pedro Pérez Delgado, great grandfather of Chávez and nicknamed "Maisanta", who fought as a guerrilla fighter against Juan Vicente Gómez

Juan Vicente Gómez

Juan Vicente Gómez Chacón was a military general and de facto ruler of Venezuela from 1908 until his death in 1935. He was president on three occasions during this time, and ruled as an unelected military strongman for the rest of the era.-Early years:Gómez was a barely literate cattle herder and...

 for control of the country during the early years of the 20th Century.

On June 2004, Chávez announced that the campaign conducted by the Mission Florentino for the referendum will bear the name of "Battle of Santa Inés"http://buscador.eluniversal.com/2004/06/06/pol_ava_06A466303.shtml. The campaign will have the intention of reenacting the battle fought in 1859, in a town near the city of Barinas

Barinas, Barinas

Barinas is a city in west central Venezuela. According to an estimate in 2009, its population is 251,535. It is the capital of the Barinas Municipality and the State of Barinas...

, in which Ezequiel Zamora

Ezequiel Zamora

Ezequiel Zamora , 1 February 1817 - 10 January 1860) was a Venezuelan soldier and leader of the Federalists in the Federal War of 1859-1863. His life was marked by the romanticism that characterized liberals of the time....

 lured the government army of the west into an area where he could defeat them in a counterattack http://www.rnv.gov.ve/noticias/index.php?act=ST&f=2&t=5952. Chávez referred to Zamora's enemies during the Federal War

Federal War

The Federal War - also known as the Great War or the Five Year War - was a civil war in Venezuela between the conservative party and the liberal party about the monopoly of the conservatives of the land and the government positions, and their reluctance to grant any reforms. This drove the...

 as members of an oligarchy

Oligarchy

Oligarchy is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with an elite class distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, commercial, and/or military legitimacy...

 and, in the same way, to all of those who wished to vote against him in the Referendum.

Objectives of the Mission

The official objectives of the Mission were defined as:

• Incorporate the "base" of the party to vote
• Avoid electoral fraud
• Consolidate reached achievements
• Attract the indecisive segment of the population
• Neutralize the growth of the adversary
• Isolate the golpistas ("coup people", referring to those who supported the 2002 Venezuelan coup d'état attempt against Chávez)
• Incorporate the politically excluded

Objectives and Structure of the "National Comando Maisanta"

The "National Comando Maisanta" was conformed by members directly and solely appointed by President Chávez, for the purpose of:

• Establishing the guidelines of the campaign
• Organizing the Mission on all Venezuelan territory
• Directing and following all activities assigned to the organization
• Defining the advertising and publicity of the campaign
• Guaranteeing the effective operation of technology in all "Comandos"
• Identifying organizational problems
• Producing guidelines

Members and positions held at the time

• Chief of the "Comando": Hugo Chávez Frías (President of Venezuela)
• Logistic: Diosdado Cabello
  Diosdado Cabello
  Diosdado Cabello Rondón is a Venezuelan politician. A former member of the armed forces, he was involved in Hugo Chávez's February 1992 Venezuelan coup d'état attempt. He became a leading member of Chavez's Movimiento V República , and remains a leading member of the United Socialist Party of...
  
   (former president for a few hours between 12–13 April 2002 and current Governor of Miranda State
  Miranda (state)
  Miranda State is one of the 23 states into which Venezuela is divided. It is ranked second in population among Venezuelan states, after Zulia State. In June 30, 2010, it had approximately 2,987,968 residents. It also has the greatest Human Development Index in Venezuela, according to the...
  
  )
• Organization: William Lara (former president of the Venezuelan National Assembly and member of Parliament)
• Communication Strategy: Jesse Chacón
  Jesse Chacón
  Jesse Alonso Chacón Escamillo was Venezuelan Minister of Interior and Justice from September 2004 to January 2007, under the presidency of Hugo Chávez. He had been a close ally of Chávez since 1990 or earlier...
  
   (Communication and Information Minister)
• Technology: Nelson Merentes (Minister for Social Economy)
• Electoral Missions: Rafael Ramírez
  Rafael Ramírez (Venezuela)
  Rafael Darío Ramírez Carreño is a Venezuelan engineer and politician. He is currently the president of the Venezuelan state-owned petroleum-extraction company PDVSA. In the past, Ramírez had also served as the Venezuelan Minister of Energy and Mines for a time....
  
   (Minister of Energy and Oil and PDVSA President)
• International Liaison: Samuel Moncada (historian)
• Events and Image: Mari Pili Hernández (journalist)
• Ideology: Willian Izarra (founder and official ideologist of MVR
  Fifth Republic Movement
  The Fifth Republic Movement was a left-wing, Socialist political party in Venezuela. It was founded in July 1997, following a national congress of the Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200, to support the candidacy of Hugo Chávez, the current President of Venezuela, in the Venezuelan presidential...
  
  )
• Patrols: Tania D'amelio (member of Parliament)
• Liaisons: Simón Pestana (candidate for mayor of Baruta)
• Secretary: Haiman El Troudi (director of Presidential Relations)

External links

• Official Page of the Mission Florentino
• Official videos explaining the purpose of the Mission