Hugo Chávez was sworn in as the democratically elected president of Venezuela on February 2, 1999—seven years almost to the date that he and a group of other junior officers led a military coup against then-President Carlos Andrés Pérez. The coup, which failed in its attempt to take state power, succeeded for Chávez in another sense: It catapulted him onto the national political stage, and established his position as a man of action who was prepared to go to extreme lengths to challenge the political establishment that had come to be seen by the vast majority of Venezuelans as a bastion of elite privilege, corruption and inefficiency. Within a few years—with a two-year stint in prison in between—Chávez turned the popular appeal evident in the wake of the failed February 4 coup (and a second coup attempt in November he directed from prison) into a mandate for change. "My government will be revolutionary," he proclaimed the day before his inauguration, adding that Venezuela had entered "a true revolutionary process that allows no turning back."[1]
The election victory of Hugo Chávez and the controversial steps he has taken in the first 16 months of his government—from convening the Constituent Assembly that rewrote the nation's Constitution, to his thorough overhaul of the judicial system, to the widespread use of the armed forces for "development" purposes, to his unsparing attacks against the "old elite"—have kept analysts guessing as to his "true" intentions and ultimate goals. This NACLA Report is not an effort to resolve that as-yet unanswerable question, but rather to chart the rise of Hugo Chávez and his startling popularity, the particular nature of his appeal to Venezuela's working and lower classes, and the achievements and setbacks of his first year and a half in power.
The story of the rise of Hugo Chávez and his newly formed political party, the Fifth Republic Movement (MVR), begins with the failings of the political system and those who ruled over it, a process that is carefully analyzed in this Report by Fernando Coronil and Steve Ellner. Established in 1958, this "pacted democracy" between the Democratic Action Party (AD) and the Social Christian Copei Party had consolidated a bipartisan form of alternating rule that seemed to assure stability and economic growth. But this system soon became a means of monopolizing power and keeping new actors on the margins of the political system. This process was abetted by the country's tremendous oil wealth, which allowed the parties to develop elaborate clientelistic networks to assure their power—and to enrich themselves and their cronies. Soon, Venezuela's pacted democracy became synonymous with cronyism and corruption.
But it was the attempts to impose austerity—in 1989 under Carlos Andrés Pérez and in the mid-1990s under Rafael Caldera—that turned popular disenchantment with politics as usual into popular rage and an unmitigated demand for change. The demands for austerity were seen as hypocritical to the average Venezuelan given the rampant corruption and misuse of public funds by the country's politicians, particularly during the Pérez Administration. Perhaps more important in generating popular ire was the secular decline in living standards of the population: According to a study by the Catholic University in Caracas, in 1997 67% of Venezuelans earned under $2 a day, up from 35% in 1975, while 36% earned less than $1 a day, up from 13%.[2] It was this rage that prompted Chávez and his comrades to launch the military coups in 1992 and, when they failed, to recast themselves as democrats and enter the arena of electoral politics to institute the changes they believed Venezuela so desperately needed.
The austerity packages that proved the undoing of the Venezuelan political class were clearly linked to the changing global economy and the demands being placed on Venezuela by powerful multilateral institutions like the IMF and the World Bank. This is not unique to Venezuela. Over the past two decades, Latin America has been characterized by an increasing reliance on global markets and the inability—or perhaps unwillingness—of sovereign states to protect their populations from the socially and economically corrosive effects of those markets. In this context virtually all the countries of the Americas have witnessed growing disparities in income distribution, cutbacks in state protections and supports, and a growing desperation among those displaced and impoverished by economic "progress." In the process, political institutions have been rendered ineffective—both in countries with well-established political institutions, such as Venezuela and Colombia, and those with less effective and more volatile political institutions, such as Peru and Ecuador. This has contributed to the rise of an anti-politics discourse, which has been deployed with particular vehemence in the nations of the Andes, to different effects.
In Peru, for example, the anti-politics rhetoric of President Alberto Fujimori was used to impose neoliberal economics. In contrast, in Venezuela, Chávez has linked his anti-politics discourse with a strong dose of nationalism, attacking in particular the loss of sovereignty that neoliberal policies, such as the privatization of the state-owned oil company, signify. A similar strain of nationalism was evident in the mid-level army officers who supported last January's indigenous uprising in Ecuador, which succeeded in ousting the sitting President but not in taking power or securing agreements on economic policy. But across the region we are seeing a rise of protest against neoliberal reforms—from Chávez in Venezuela to a mounting opposition movement to the Fujimori regime in Peru, and from the indigenous movement in Ecuador to a broad alliance of social forces in Bolivia opposing privatization and other neoliberal measures—that has taken on a particularly anti-elitist and popular form. While there is no credible model of nationalist economic development in Latin America at present—as there was, for example, during the three decades following World War II with import-substitution industrialization—these anti-neoliberal forces all cast into sharp relief the nationalist impulse of resistance to the current phase of globalization.
The Chávez phenomenon is a perplexing combination of the old and the new. Aside from his nationalism, Chávez draws on the historical anti-party discourse of the armed forces in Latin America, which expresses disdain for civilian institutions and posits the armed forces as the only institution capable of achieving an orderly and productive society. He also draws on a tradition of reformist military leaders such as Juan Velasco Alvarado in Peru (1968-75) and Omar Torrijos in Panama (1968-81) who justified a role for the military in politics, not in defense of elite privilege—as was the case with their military counterparts in the Southern Cone in the 1960s and 1970s—but in favor of reform. Though the ultimate rationale was national defense—stepping in to carry out reforms being demanded by the lower classes in order to nip more revolutionary options in the bud—these military leaders saw themselves as revolutionary in that they were challenging the old privileged elite in favor of the working and middle classes. Though the nature of the traditional elites being opposed is distinct—Velasco and Torrijos railed against traditional landed oligarchies, while Chávez has attacked the political class that he says has squandered the country's oil wealth—they all share an effort to link the concerns of "the people" and the armed forces in opposition to the myopic interests of economic and political elites. Chávez also shares his predecessors' belief in the power of the state—as opposed to and distinct from civil society—to transform and "uplift" society.
On the other hand, Chávez did not take power through a barracks coup; he was democratically elected. There is little doubt that Chávez has vast popular support, particularly among the poor, as documented by Margarita López-Maya and Luis Lander in this Report. And, using democratic processes, he has managed to achieve in less than a year what he once tried to do via military putsch: the displacement of the political elite. This is an astonishing feat, not the least because it was achieved so rapidly and through peaceful means—via a series of electoral processes that allowed Chávez to establish a Constituent Assembly that in turn wrote a new Constitution which sets the stage for the final consolidation of his power in the May 28 "mega-elections." Though the process has not been as seamless as Chávez may have expected—particularly after his three comrades-in-arms and co-conspirators in the 1992 coup attempts accused him of betraying the ideals of their movement, and one of them, Francisco Arias Cárdenas, became his principal rival for the presidency—he has in effect carried out a peaceful political revolution. But for those who threw their support behind Chávez not only because he promised a change in politics as usual but also because he promised to improve living standards for the more than 80% living in poverty, his promised "revolution" has yet to come.
While the fears of Chávez's innate authoritarianism expressed by some critics have not been borne out, there are some disturbing indicators. The new Constitution, which was approved overwhelmingly by popular vote, gives much greater power to the Executive. Not only does it extend the presidential term from five to six years, it also allows for re-election, which has led some observers to note that Chávez may be around until at least 2012. The dissolution of both Congress and the Supreme Court and their replacement until the May 28 elections with institutions consisting of individuals chosen by an elected, though Chávez-dominated Constituent Assembly, have also inflamed fears that Chávez harbors an authoritarian agenda.
The new Constitution also opens the door to a greater role for the military in Venezuelan political and social life. Of less concern is the new Constitution's departure from tradition in granting active-duty members of the military the right to vote and allowing retired members of the armed forces to run for elected office. What is worrisome is that the Constitution not only authorizes a greater role for the military in maintaining "internal order," but also grants the armed forces "active participation in national development." Given the virtual disappearance of the traditional parties, Chávez may yet yield to the temptation to use the armed forces as a political tool—not unlike what his counterpart in the southern Andes, Alberto Fujimori, has done for the past decade.
That said, however, in the running disputes between the military commanders and the civilian politicians in his coalition, Chávez has tended to side with the civilians, most of whom are on the left. Indeed, it was his strong ties to leftist civilians that led to the schism between Chávez and his former comrades-in-arms. Perhaps the key event occasioning the schism was Chávez's acknowledgement of the validity of civilian concerns that serious human rights abuses occurred during the restoration of order following the country's flood disaster last December.
In the aftermath of the floods—which left thousands dead and hundreds of thousands displaced—the restoration of order was principally in the hands of the political police, commanded by Jesús Urdaneta, one of the military comandantes who participated in the 1992 coup attempt. When credible accusations arose of suspected looters being tortured and even summarily executed by police officers, some prominent civilians in Chávez's cabinet, notably Foreign Minister José Vicente Rangel, demanded an impartial investigation. This exacerbated the military-civilian tensions within Chavismo, leading to Urdaneta's countercharges of corruption among the civilians and eventually to the split in which Arias Cárdenas declared himself a presidential candidate. Yet fears of militarism persist, as evidenced by the withdrawal of support for Chávez by the leftist Homeland for All (PPT) in mid-May.
Still other concerns about Chávez's authoritarian potential have been voiced by members of the press. Freedom of information is protected under the new Constitution, but a clause saying that the press must publish "truthful information" has led to fears of censorship. Chávez has harshly criticized opposition journalists, and some have charged the President with pressuring their employers to silence them. Such was the case of Teodoro Petkoff, a former minister under the Caldera government, who says Chávez got him fired from his job as editor of El Mundo. Talk show host Napoleón Bravo made similar charges when his program was taken off the air. In both cases, the employers in question and Chávez himself have denied these charges, but fears of government interference in the press remain real, particularly in light of a handful of violent attacks against media outlets. For example, a pipe bomb exploded outside the offices of El Universal shortly after Chávez publicly criticized the paper's editor for opposing the government's policies. Such incidents have created a great deal of uneasiness among the press, who do not fear so much direct state repression as attacks by overzealous Chávez supporters. "I wouldn't say that journalists feel that our freedom of expression is in danger, but we do fear for our physical safety," said Gregorio Salazar, general secretary of the National Union of Newspaper Workers. "Lamentably," he continued, "the presidential discourse categorizes us as enemies of the people and even makes us feel like we should be ashamed of our profession, hiding our identity cards on the street so that the people can't identify us, much less know who we work for."[3]
Is Hugo Chávez the revolutionary leader Venezuela needs, or is he a historical anomoly, the result of the failures of the Venezuelan political class and the pressure of the global economy? Is he carrying out the will of the people, as he claims, or is he a master politician using his charisma to whip up support while carefully constructing a political regime in which he exercises almost complete control? Only time will tell. In the meantime, the people of Venezuela are waiting. The comandante has the next word.
AS WE GO TO PRESS....
On Thursday, May 25, just three days before scheduled "mega-elections" for the presidency and over 6,000 other elected posts, Venezuela's Supreme Court postponed the balloting. Acting on complaints of two independent civic groups that the incomplete installation of automated voting equipment opened the process to fraud and manipulation, the Court ruled that the "reliability and transparency" of the electoral process could not be guaranteed, and ordered that the the election be rescheduled for a future date to be determined by the acting Congress—the Congresillo. The following Monday, May 29, the Congresillo asked for, and received, the resignation of the National Electoral Council, the inexperienced, pro-Chávez group charged with organizing the vote. A new Council, promises Congresillo leader Luis Miquilena, will be drawn from members of opposition as well as Chavista parties, and from civil society. As we go to press, no new election date has been set.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Fred Rosen is the Director of the North American Congress on Latin America. Jo-Marie Burt is the Editor of NACLA Report on the Americas.
NOTES
1. "Ex-coup leader promises 'peaceful revolution' in Venezuela," www.cnn.com, February 1, 1999.
2. Study cited in "Chávez's muddled new world," The Economist, November 20, 1999.
3. El Nacional (Caracas) online, May 11, 2000, p. D2.
