Beating the alarum
Editorial
Stabroek News
January 19, 2007
Hugo Chávez marches to the beat of a different drum. But last week at his inauguration, as he upped the socialist ante, it was as if the regular cadence of the snare drum were being augmented by an increasingly frenetic boom-boom emanating from the big bass drum of his revolutionary rhetoric.
Suddenly, here was Mr Chávez speaking of nationalization in the strategic telecommunications, electricity and petroleum sectors, state control of the central bank and constitutional reform that would not only make Venezuela a "Socialist Republic", but would also allow him to be re-elected indefinitely.
Suddenly, here was Mr Chávez not only declaiming his brand of "21st-century socialism", but also declaring himself a communist and echoing the slogans of his ailing mentor Fidel Castro.
Scratch "suddenly" and read "logically" instead.
Buoyed by his electoral success, his total control of the Venezuelan Congress, and his own revolutionary fervour and increasing belief in the myth of himself, Mr Chávez is revealing his true colours as the anti-democratic loose cannon he has always been, first glimpsed back in 1992 when he attempted to overthrow the government of Carlos Andrés Pérez.
What has hitherto been deemed "democratic authoritarianism" is now looking more and more like a totalitarian project built on the failed 20th century doctrines of communism and dictatorship.
But does Mr Chávez, having been convincingly re-elected, paradoxically have a democratic mandate to do as he pleases? Will Venezuelans accept that his 'Bolivarian' vision, far removed from anything Simón BolÃvar ever stood for, is what they want for themselves and their country? And does he really have the overwhelming support of the Venezuelan people, particularly the poor?
Francisco RodrÃguez, a former Chavista who was the chief economic adviser to the National Assembly, from 2000 to 2004, now a professor of economics and Latin American studies at Wesleyan University in the USA, does not think so.
In two articles published by Foreign Policy Magazine this month and in the British newspaper, The Guardian, on 12th January, he argues that Mr Chávez's "appeal among Venezuela's poor is based on a lie". In this respect, Professor RodrÃguez cites statistical analyses of poverty, infant health and mortality, literacy and employment rates, and access to sanitation services, to disprove the widely held assumption that the government's spending spree on social programmes is actually helping the poor. Moreover, once social security - which in Venezuela benefits mostly middle class workers in the formal sector - is taken out of the equation, government social spending has actually decreased under Mr Chávez.
Professor RodrÃguez contends that Mr Chávez owes his electoral success mainly to economic growth, which usually favours the incumbent in an election. He however warns that this growth is unsustainable, since Venezuela is currently running a fiscal deficit, estimated to be 2.3 percent for 2006, and that a decline in oil prices would make this economic house of cards come tumbling down. And as happens everywhere in times of economic reversals, it will be the poor who will suffer the most.
But by that time, it may be too late for the country as a whole, if Mr Chávez succeeds in further entrenching himself in power through his control of state resources, a consolidated political machinery and the creation of a "Unified Socialist Party" that would bring all the leftist parties under one communist-style super party, and his curtailment of freedom of expression. In the latter respect, the most sinister development is the use of the Maisanta database of the political leanings of 12.4 million registered voters, to favour or discriminate against, as the case may be, those seeking jobs, scholarships or social assistance among other things. It is a sophisti-cated approach to old-fashioned, unsophisticated political intimidation.
Now, the multinationals are worried and financial markets are jittery. The Venezuelan opposition appears to have been caught on the hop by Mr Chávez's sudden lurch to an even more extreme left than they had imagined. And the Americans are seeing their worst fears realized.
It is ironic that the late Cheddi Jagan was manoeuvred out of power and that Venezuela was encouraged to press its spurious claims to the Essequibo by the Americans in the early 1960s, precisely because of his communist leanings. But that, of course, was at the height of the Cold War and Guyana did not have Venezuela's petro-clout.
It remains to be seen what pressures the US administration will bring to bear on Mr Chávez, especially as he has thus far seemed immune to their slings and arrows. The Cuban example and American dependence on Venezuelan oil would however suggest a more pragmatic and subtle policy than that of isolation.
In the meantime, if we might be allowed to continue beating the alarum about the potential threat to our security and territorial integrity from the west, we fervently hope that our Government is, as we have suggested before, formulating some projections about how potentially we might be affected by the increasingly dramatic changes Mr Chávez is bringing to Venezuela, more especially if there is any economic downturn in that country at some point in the future. And how, perhaps, we might position ourselves to benefit from the shifting geopolitics of the region.