Chávez Wins Again
CARACAS, Venezuela — The results of the Nov. 23 state-municipal
elections dashed the opposition’s hopes that Venezuela has become fed
up with President Hugo Chávez. Chávez’s United Socialist Party (PSUV)
took 17 of the nation’s 22 governorships, 80 percent of the mayoral
posts and all but three state legislatures. The achievement of an
absolute majority of the popular vote by the Chavistas — or Chávez
supporters — after 10 years in power is impressive. It shows that the
president has found the formula for maintaining high levels of
popularity over an extended period of time.
In another plus for the Chavistas, voter turnout surpassed 65
percent — 20 percentage points higher than the last state-municipal
election in 2004. Such participation helps debunk the claim that Chávez
is installing an authoritarian regime.
However, it wasn’t all good news for the Chavistas. Opposition
leaders and some of the media highlighted Chávez defeats in Miranda,
Zulia, Carabobo, the nation’s most populated states, as well as in the
capital city of Caracas. The losses might force Chávez to slow down the
pace of change and force the PSUV to analyze its errors.
Chávez was first elected president in 1998. The Chavistas won all 10
local, state and national elections held between then and December 2007
— when his proposed 69-article constitutional reform was defeated in a
national referendum. Chávez’s far-reaching changes during this decade
include nationalization of strategic sectors of the economy, increased
spending for the poor, closer relations with Russia and China at the
expense of U.S. ties, and a hard line within OPEC, the Organization of
the Petroleum Exporting Countries.
The broader focus
From the election’s outset, national — and even international —
issues overshadowed local ones. In September, Chávez expelled the U.S.
ambassador in solidarity with Bolivian President Evo Morales, who had
done the same the previous day, as a way to protest intervention in
internal affairs. Chávez also announced that security forces had just
uncovered an assassination plot against him.
But the opposition showed little sympathy for Chávez. On Nov. 18,
the secretary general of Un Nuevo Tiempo party (UNT), Gerardo Blyde,
who was elected mayor of Caracas’ municipality of Baruta, chided Chávez
for “turning the race into a plebiscite over his rule.” Blyde added
that “Chávez’s obsession that someone is trying to kill him diverts
attention from the dreadful performance of his local elected
officials.”
Intentional or not, Chávez had good reason to focus attention on
broader national issues and away from the local arena. His popularity
far surpasses that of the leading politicians of his movement.
Chávez’s hyperactive role was also designed to make clear to his
followers the party loyalties of individual candidates. In the states
of Barinas, Carabobo and Guárico — as well as the cities of Barcelona,
Caracas and elsewhere — candidates for mayor and governor who had not
been chosen to run on the Chavista ticket defected from Chávez’s
movement. Chávez called the pro-Chavista Communist Party and the
Homeland for All Party (PPT) “counterrevolutionary” because they
divided the vote by running their own candidates in various states.
Chávez warned that the opposition would use any space gained in the
elections as a staging ground to mobilize the population against his
rule. Indeed, the clashes and shooting of innocent people that led to
the short-lived 2002 coup against Chávez was made possible by the
opposition’s control of the mayoral government of Caracas.
Chávez’s followers now fear that the surprising triumph of the
zealously anti-Chavista Antonio Ledezma in the mayoral elections of
metropolitan Caracas, which includes the capital’s six municipalities,
may undermine stability. Ledezma, who received 52 percent of the vote,
defeated the Chavista politician Aristobulo Istúriz.
The stakes of the electoral contests were high for another reason.
Had the opposition made greater inroads, it would have been well
positioned to campaign for a recall election against Chávez. At the
same time, the Chavista governor of the state of Anzoátegui, Tarek
William Saab, declared at a September rally kicking off his re-election
campaign: “Our victories throughout the state and the nation will be
stepping stones to the passage of a constitutional amendment allowing
Chávez to re-run for office.” One week after the election, Chávez
announced his intention to modify the constitution to allow him to seek
another term in 2012.
Failures at the local level
During the campaign, the opposition seized on the Chávez
government’s inefficiency and failure to solve problems at the local
level — ranging from deficient garbage collection to the poor quality
of public works to crime. Pompeyo Márquez, a former Communist leader
who has emerged as an opposition spokesman, attacked Chávez’s
“socialist model” as unviable and argued that it employs “obsolete
categories, such as improvised state-takeovers, centralism and communal
arrangements.” He went on to tell opposition candidates to “prepare to
govern with efficacy and orderliness.”
In this sense, Chávez’s rule differs from leftist-run municipal
governments and trade unions in many parts of the world. The former
Italian Communist Party’s message during the several decades it
controlled Rome and other city governments was essentially, “Regardless
of what you think of our ideology, we do a better job than our
opponents in keeping the streets clean.”
In contrast, many Venezuelans who are attracted to Chávez’s lofty
ideals, nationalist rhetoric and social concerns chafe at some of the
concrete results of his rule. Between 70 and 80 percent of Venezuelans
consider lack of personal security their major concern, a problem that
became critical two decades ago and has grown worse. According to
criminologist Alexis Romero, the increase in violent crimes over the
recent past has far surpassed that of nonviolent felonies.
These downsides may be inevitable given Chávez’s experimental road
to change (See “The Trial (And Errors) of Hugo Chávez,” September
2007). One reason for the administrative snags is that the government
inherited a state bureaucracy staffed by many people who are adamantly
opposed to the radical changes under way. The public administration is
now filled with Chavista loyalists, some of whom lack experience.
A number of Chavista leaders attribute electrical power failures,
food shortages and poor administrative performance to intentional
sluggishness among employees belonging to the opposition and sabotage.
Caracas Mayor Freddy Bernal observed, “Each time we are nearing
elections, there is an ‘operation slowdown’ of garbage collection.”
The opposition considers such accusations a cover-up for
incompetence. But given the shortages and alleged sabotage during the
attempt to oust Chávez in 2002 and 2003, and the expressions of
contempt and animosity toward the government routinely conveyed by
members of the opposition, Bernal’s allegation is not farfetched.
Nevertheless, the problem does not speak well for the efficiency and
administrative capacity of the Chavistas.
Priorities and tradeoffs
The opposition’s claim that Chávez reduced the elections to a
referendum over his own popularity misses the point. The president’s
social programs, which local Chavista candidates ardently supported and
which municipal and state governments help finance, heavily influenced
voters’ preferences.
The social programs — such as education, healthcare and food
distribution, which are referred to as “missions” — reach out to
millions of the underprivileged and operate at a fraction of the cost
of the same services provided elsewhere. Voters back these programs,
even though in some cases they sacrifice quality in favor of quantity.
Lina Gfeller, who is a principal in one of the education “missions” in
the eastern city of Barcelona, says “the enormous popularity of the
missions, even among some middle-class people, shows how much support
there is for the proposition that education and health should be free
and open to all.”
A makeshift university program called “Sucre Mission” offers evening
courses in public schools throughout the country. Lacking library
facilities, few teachers assign reading from books, so students of all
majors carry out assignments in the community, such as designing public
works projects that are then used to apply for grants. For the first
time since it was founded in 2003, 30,000 Sucre Mission students were
awarded university diplomas in 2008, while 100,000 receive small
stipends to help them continue their studies.
Chavista candidates hail this program along with the other
“missions,” such as the literacy campaign for the nation’s 1.5 million
illiterates and the Ribas Mission for adult high school students.
Caracas candidate and former Education Minister Aristobulo Istúriz,
speaking with the president of the Ribas Mission at a student
graduation ceremony at the outset of the campaign, stated: “Each one of
these graduations constitutes an important event for the revolution;
they highlight universalization of rights.”
The most recent and innovative program injects state money into
community councils, which design and execute their own public works
projects. Twenty-seven thousand councils have sprung up over the last
three years mainly among non-privileged sectors of the population.
Common priority projects, which are ratified in neighborhood
assemblies, include the construction of roads, sidewalks, community
houses and family housing. The community councils insist that companies
contracted for these projects employ residents of the same neighborhood
when possible.
In September 2007, Chávez decreed federal matching funds for all
municipal and gubernatorial grants for community council projects. From
a cost-benefit perspective, the program is open to criticism. The money
allotted could undoubtedly reap better immediate results in the hands
of private contractors. But the councils promote the Chavista goal of
popular participation in decision- making.
Has the opposition evolved?
Public opinion surveys indicate that social programs are the most
popular feature of Chávez’s rule. This popularity has undoubtedly
influenced some opposition leaders to pledge themselves to continue the
missions. Manuel Rosales, who had run against Chávez in the 2006
presidential elections — and who was elected mayor of Maracaibo this
time around — assured mission students that their stipends of about
$100 U.S. per month would not be endangered. Nevertheless, several
years ago the pro-opposition Medical Federation of Venezuela went to
the courts in an attempt to expel from the country the 15,000 Cuban
doctors who staff much of the health mission program.
During the campaign, opposition leaders made a concerted effort to
focus on local problems and avoid incessant references to Chávez. This
strategy broke with the past when the opposition seemed obsessed with
Chávez’s personality. In this respect, it has come a long way since
2002 to 2004, when it promoted a coup, an indefinite general strike and
even street warfare. In 2005, it boycotted congressional elections and,
in the weeks leading up to the 2007 referendum, some of its members
shut down highways and threatened post-election insurgency.
But opposition leaders continue to call Chávez authoritarian, to
criticize all of his words and actions (the educational “missions”
being an exception), and to warn of the danger of Castro Communism.
As has been the case since the outset of the Chávez presidency, the
opposition still lacks a program that defines its strategy. It has yet
to demonstrate how it would avoid a return to the misguided rule that
preceded Chávez’s advent to power when corruption and social inequality
intensified.
This failure may be a mixed blessing. It avoids infighting between
the opposition’s parties — such as between Primero Justicia (Justice
First), which supports explicitly conservative economic policies, and
others that attempt to demonstrate greater concern for social problems.
But unlike the Chavistas — who held primaries in which 2.5 million
voters chose their candidates for governor and mayor — the opposition’s
candidates were selected largely by political elites. Some opposition
politicians objected to the unfair role played by TV magnate Alberto
Federico Ravell of “Globovision” in favor of the candidates of the UNT
headed by Manuel Rosales and Gerardo Blyde.
What’s ahead?
Since assuming power in 1998, Chávez has followed electoral
victories by implementing popular, radical measures. This time,
however, his triumph was less than absolute and he is now subject to
financial restraints as a result of falling oil prices.
To maintain the momentum of his rule, Chávez could crack down on
corrupt government officials, including Chavista ones. The Chavista
rank and file — as well as the Venezuelan population — has long
clamored for action along these lines. And during the campaign, Chávez
threatened to purge his government and party of self-serving members.
This is not the first time Chávez has announced these intentions. But
history demonstrates that Venezuelans are less tolerant of corruption
during periods of economic downturn, such as what the nation now faces,
than in years of oil-induced bonanza.
During the past 10 conflict-ridden years, Chávez’s bold initiatives
in the aftermath of victories have never failed to invigorate his
movement. The coming year is unlikely to be an exception.