JJ Rendón

Juan José Rendón Delgado (born 1964 in Caracas, Venezuela) is a psychologist, publicist, professor,^[2][3] political strategist and activist.^[4][5] Rendón has been ranked as one of the top five most prominent Latin American consultants and was the first Hispanic inducted into the Hall of Fame of Political Consulting by the U.S.-based publication, Campaigns & Elections in 2012.^[6][7][8] His role as a political strategist has led him to consult for presidential campaigns and legislative elections in countries including Honduras, Mexico, Colombia and others.^[9] He has worked on 28 presidential campaigns and has reportedly only lost two of them.^[10][11][12] In 2011, he was honored with the Order of Merit award by Honduran President Porfirio Lobo Sosa.^[13] In 2015, he received the Humanitarian Award for Innovation from the Humanitarian Innovation Forum (HIF) at the United Nations headquarters in New York.^[14]

Early life and education

Rendón was born in 1964 in Caracas, Venezuela at the Military Hospital in the parish of San Juan.^[15] His parents were local organizers for Acción Democrática (Democratic Action), a political party that promoted democracy and helped end the reign of dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez in 1958. Later, Rendón studied psychology at universities in Venezuela, Andrés Bello Catholic University and Central University of Venezuela, and Italy before starting his career at an advertising agency in his early 20s.^[16]

Career

Early career

At the age of 24, Rendón volunteered for Carlos Andrés Pérez's second presidential run, where he initially worked as a driver before assisting American political consultant Joseph Napolitan. Rendón was later hired to help run Rafael Caldera's presidential campaign, which was won in a narrow victory in 1993. In the early 2000s, Rendón worked with organizations including the dominant Mexican Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and Party of the U.^[17][18]

Politics

Rendón became well known for his work on the successful campaigns of Enrique Peña Nieto in Mexico, Juan Manuel Santos in Colombia, as well as both Porfirio Lobo and Juan Orlando Hernández in Honduras.^[19]

When Juan Manuel Santos was named Minister of Defence during the presidency of Álvaro Uribe Vélez in Colombia in 2006, JJ Rendón became the strategist of the Ministry of National Defense of Colombia, as he also was the lead strategist of Social Party of National Unity (Party of the U).^[18] One of his roles was helping high rank military officers to learn how to use communication as a tool. During this time, there were notable military operations to rescue hostages who had been held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) included Operation Jaque (Operación Jaque) that resulted in the successful rescue of 15 hostages, including former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt. Also, there was a military raid that killed FARC leader Raúl Reyes on March 2008. Another operation called "Operation Emmanuel" took place on 2007; it "was a humanitarian operation that rescued politician Clara Rojas, her son Emmanuel (born in captivity), and the former politician Consuelo González from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)" (REF. quote Operation Emmanuel). Hugo Chávez Frías, who was at the time the former president of Venezuela, and the FARC, insisted they would liberate Emmanuel with the rest of the hostages. In 2008, J.J Rendón was accused through various social media platforms, which supported the Venezuelan government, of having J.J being behind the "historic fantasy" of the rescue of the child Emmanuel by the Colombian government (former president Álvaro Uribe Vélez),^[20][21] and that the child was living in Bogotá, this ends up being true. Soon after, it was proved that the child was in effect Emmanuel the DNA testing backed it up.^[22] Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro questioned the results of the DNA testing, stating that Colombia did not allow Venezuelan specialist to conduct their own tests and had created a "cloak of doubt". But on January 2008, FARC rebels released a communiqué in which they admitted that Emmanuel "is the same three-year-old living in foster care in Bogotá, Colombia, who was due to be part of hostage deal." ^[23]

In 2010, Rendón, the lead strategist of Juan Manuel Santos presidential campaign, helped turn a close presidential race in Colombia into a landslide victory for Juan Manuel Santos against Green Party candidate Antanas Mockus.^[24][25]

In 2013, Rendón joined Juan Manuel Santos for his re-election campaign.^[26][27] An allegation was made in May 2014 by alleged leader of a Colombian drug cartel called Los Rastrojos, Javier Antonio Calle Serna, in which he accused Rendón of agreeing to broker $12 million for several Colombian drug lords to surrender in exchange for not being extradited to the United States. Rendón denies receiving the money, but stepped down as campaign chief to avoid distracting from the Santos campaign in its final stretch.^[28] Upon investigation, the allegations were not consistent with the evidence and could not be proven,^[29] prosecutors dismissed the case and concluded that Rendón had not been involved.^[30][31] Santos beat his opponent by six percent in a run-off election in June 2014,^[24] securing his second four-year term as Colombia's president.^[32][33]

Relationship with the media

With more than 1 million (1M) followers on Twitter, and even more followers in other social medial platforms, J.J. Rendón is one of the most followed political strategists around the world among social media, ranking him as an internet celebrity; he averages weekly around 12 thousand (12K) followers.^[34] Rendón is also known for his political activism in protest of the Venezuelan regime, part of his protest is done through the writing and composing of songs such as "Ya está bueno Ya," ^[35] songs were distributed through Soundcloud and were downloaded 200 thousand (200K) and 1 million times (1M) respectively.^[36]

He also became especially well known in 2013 through media outlets such as CNN and interviews with journalists including Jorge Ramos,^[37] Maria Elvira Salazar,^[38][39] Fernando del Rincón, and Jaime Bayly in which he discussed the situation in Venezuela with Chavez being in Cuba while being treated for his illness.^[40] He came back on the show to talk about the special elections being held in Venezuela to replace Hugo Chavez after his death in March of that year.^[41] During the interview, Bayly heavily insinuated that Rendón had been the main strategist for Henrique Capriles Radonski's campaign. Rendón did not deny nor confirm this. On Jan 6, 2016, during an interview with Jaime Bayly, Rendón claimed he has been a victim of political persecution and received more than 140 attacks by Venezuelan government.^[42]

Political Activist

In addition to his publicly known career as political strategist, Rendón gained international attention for his role as activist against what he considers neo-totalitarian regimes.^[9] He has being declared enemy of the so-called Socialism of 21st century for his support to opposition presidential and governor candidates.^[43] His position with regards to these governments, specially the Venezuelan, has caused strong reactions by Socialism of 21st century, Chavez and communist supporters.^[44] On many occasions, Rendón has faced strong opposition from Venezuelan senior officials government, including former president Nicolás Maduro, who was the first to declare J.J. Rendón "the number one public enemy of the Venezuelan state" in July 2012.^[45][46]

The lead strategist of the Venezuelan government, Jorge Rodríguez, has heavily insinuated that J.J. Rendón is the main strategist of the Venezuelan opposition, calling him "psychopath" on government-funded media outlets,^[47][48] including the public channel VTV (Venezuelan Television Corporation) and TeleSUR, which is a pan-Latin American television network headquartered in Caracas, Venezuela.

Since 2004, Rendón has denounced that Venezuelan government has committed fraud in the electoral elections. And in 2013, Venezuelan opposition Henrique Capriles claimed electoral fraud had taken place on April 14, 2013, in the Venezuelan special election where Nicolás Maduro was elected president.^[49][50] Capriles, leader of the Venezuelan opposition, provided evidence of the alleged fraud and refused "to accept the vote-tally unless the electoral authority agrees to open all the ballort boxes and count the paper ballots" –Capriles said. "According to Mr. Capriles, the opposition logged more than 3,200 irregularities –enough, he said, to render Mr. Maduro´s victory margin moot" (Maduro´s pyrrhic victory, published in The Economist).^[51]

On December 6, 2015, after lost 19 elections in 15 years, the Venezuelan government recognized the Venezuelan opposition has won 112 posts in the National Assembly.^[52] However, former president Nicolás Maduro and Jorge Rodríguez, the lead strategist of the Venezuelan government, assured on national television network the Democratic Unity coalition (Venezuelan opposition party, MUD) was won it because the "economic war and psychological war", which they had said it has been led by J.J. Rendón, and other opponents. On his daily show, the journalist Jaime Bayly congratulated Venezuelan opposition, Henrique Capriles Radonski and Rendón for the victory.^[53][54]

The Power of One (conference)

The Power of One is a global seminar series created by political strategist JJ Rendón started in 2013, as a result of the electoral fraud claims in Venezuelan elections,^[51] featuring practical strategies for political activists who want to defense democracy and stand against neo-totalitarian regimes (a new form of totalitarian regimes)^[55] or what Rendón calls "The New Face of Dictatorship" on one of the conferences he delivered.^[56] Rendón has presented the seminar for free in over 30 cities throughout Latin America and at the TEDx conferences in Washington D.C, and in New York City for the United Nations (UN).^[57][58][59]

Rendón has declared himself an "enemy of neo-totalitarian governments" using Venezuela and Cuba governments as examples of this form of regimes,^[58] wherein democratic credentials have been questioned by many, including U.S. government and global media platforms.^{[60][61][62][63]}

Allegations

Rendón was faced with strong opposition from various Chavez-funded media outlets, centering on his work ethic and strategy tactics.^[64] In 2013, leaders of the Venezuelan government among various other openly Chavez-supporting journalists joined former host of the Venezuelan talk show La Hojilla, Mario Silva, in an attempt to bring Rendón's political reputation down on national television with a video discrediting him that was transmitted daily on the Venezuelan state channel Venezolana de Televisión. The video accused Rendón of fabrication and accusing him of directing a "dirty war" with "psychological strategies and rumors".

Allegations were brought forward in November 2013 by Venezuelan prosecutor Delcy Rodriguez who requested Interpol detain Rendón under charges of assault.^[65][66] Rendón denied these claims and asserted that Venezuela could not legally ask for his arrest without a warrant being present.^[67] Despite the allegations, no such warrant was placed on Interpol's wanted persons list,^[68][69] and the claims were dismissed.^[70]

References

External links

• Power of one: JJ Rendon at TEDxUNPlaza 2013