Viva Chavez! - Hugo Chavez of Venezuela

International Economy, The, May, 2001 by Mark Falcoff

Venezuela's president leads a revolution based on personality.

After forty years of politics as usual, Venezuela has suddenly become an object of curiosity to the world's press. The reason is President Hugo Chavez, a 46-year-old former lieutenant colonel who first came to the attention of Venezuelans in 1992, when he and a group of other junior officers attempted to overthrow the government of President Carlos Andres Perez. Amnestied by Perez's successor, Chavez began a political career of his own, and in 1998, running as the candidate of the so-called Fifth Republic Revolutionary Movement (MVR), he was elected by a decisive majority. Two and a half years later, he is still an enigma--to Venezuelans, to the United States, and to everyone else. Given his country's central role in the oil producers' cartel and, even more, given the current dependence of the United States on Venezuelan oil, he merits a closer look.

"Hugo Chavez is Venezuela--he is the typical Venezuelan." The comment was made to me more than once when I visited the country in February. Most Venezuelans, I was reminded, do not have homes in Miami or New York, do not speak fluent English or have degrees from American universities, do not feel particularly comfortable in the boardrooms and stock exchanges of the North Atlantic countries, and do not understand much about economics. Chavez is one of them. The son of a rural schoolteacher, he grew up in the Venezuelan backlands and was able to enter the military academy thanks to his talent as a baseball player. He combines a rather rudimentary education with a jumble of undigested political and economic notions culled from a variety of sources--Marxism, Latin American-style nationalism, indigenous irredentism, environmentalism, and antiglobalism. Oddly enough, although many of his closest political associates are veterans of Venezuela's small but influential Marxist or semi-Marxist Left, the ideologue generally thought to have the greatest influence over him, Norberto Ceresole, is an Argentine fascist living in Spain.

To hear Chavez tell it, he and his country represent the vanguard of a new world order challenging the prevailing "neoliberal" Washington consensus. He has singled out Venezuela's membership in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) as a means of advancing his international agenda. In pursuit of his goal, he has made scores of trips to Third World venues since taking office; he is also a frequent visitor to Cuba, whose dictator, Fidel Castro, he regards as a mentor and role model. At the same time, however, Venezuela's role in the world economy remains resolutely conventional--it pays its debts on time to U.S. and European banks, welcomes foreign investment, and so far has not tampered with property rights in Venezuela itself. Moreover, although some newspaper publishers have been subjected to threats, and although Chavez complains bitterly about criticisms in the U.S. media, Venezuela enjoys a surprisingly free press--so free, in fact, that it is difficult to believe some of the stories about the government that appear on an almost daily basis. Finally, the government has made no effort to curb strikes or popular discontent; indeed, the roadways of Caracas are held up on an almost daily basis by protest demonstrations.

What, then, is "revolutionary" about the Chavez government? First, it has utterly dismantled the institutions inherited from the previous regime, the so-called Fourth Republic. Like many other Latin American strongmen, Chavez has a distinct penchant for the use of plebiscites. Since taking office in early 1999, he has called Venezuelans to the ballot box five separate times--first, to convoke a new constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution; then to elect members of that assembly; then to win approval for the charter it produced; then to hold new elections for president, governors, and mayors; and most recently, to dismantle the existing labor movement. That process--which by now has exhausted Venezuelans to the point that relatively few are interested in exercising the right to vote--has allowed Chavez to replace an elected Congress with one overwhelmingly dominated by his supporters. Furthermore, it has enabled him to rewrite the constitution so that he can serve for six years, up from five, and run for another consecutive term instead of having to stand down for one term. Lastly, the spate of elections has also replaced the traditional political elite with a cadre of governors and mayors largely of the president's own preference.

Second, Chavez has assigned an entirely new role to the Venezuelan armed forces. For many decades before 1958, Venezuela was perhaps the Latin American country most severely afflicted by the disease of militarism (Bolivar himself once referred to his own country as a "barracks"). The founders of the Fourth Republic (1958-99) struck a bargain with the armed forces: In exchange for their complete retirement from the political arena--they even surrendered the right to vote--they were given salaries, fringe benefits, and other privileges far surpassing those of other Latin American institutions. That arrangement, which seemed particularly commendable at the time, was financed by the country's burgeoning oil revenues.