Early Elections Won't Solve Venezuela's Problems

Alejandro Eggers Moreno, Pacific News Service, Dec 26, 2002 news.pacificnews.org

Those calling for early elections in Venezuela as a way to end the country's most recent crisis miss the point, writes PNS contributor Alejandro Eggers Moreno. Whether or not President Hugo Chavez would prevail in such elections, extreme tensions between rich and poor will remain, making the country a tinderbox.

The chorus calling for President Hugo Chavez to hold early elections in order to end his country's current crisis misses the point: Elections or not, Chavez or no Chavez, Venezuela's problems will likely remain, and could still possibly explode.

After weeks of trying to ignore Venezuela's escalating political instability and violence, demonstrated most recently in a strike by oil executives and workers, the Bush administration decided to step into the fray earlier this month by calling for early elections. Washington later admitted that any process should stay within Venezuela's constitutional limits, but still insisted that Chavez find an "electoral solution" to the current mess.

It's a position solidly in line with what much of the Chavez opposition demands -- though some have called for his immediate resignation -- and what nearly every third party to weigh in on the crisis has recommended, including Cesar Gaviria, Secretary General of the Organization of American States. The U.S. Congress has also struck the same chord. Richard Lugar, soon to be chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, insisted recently that the United States take a more aggressive stance and try to force elections in Venezuela.

While this insistence on a vague electoral solution to Venezuela's woes may look good -- especially after Washington's embarrassment over its support for the April coup attempt -- it is unlikely that early elections or any other electoral scheme would successfully resolve the crisis.

First and foremost, if elections were held today, Chavez might win. He maintains a solid and united base of support -- a recent poll put it at 36 percent -- concentrated among the country's poor, and he can mobilize his supporters quickly and effectively. His opposition, on the other hand, is united only on one issue -- its hostility towards the president.

The opposition ranges from conservative business and financial organizations to socialist groups such as Bandera Roja, which is farther to the left than Chavez himself. They often have little in common, and would be extremely hard-pressed to front a candidate who would be acceptable to all. Any sort of early elections would be likely to reveal the deep ideological rifts among the opposition, and might create between the groups the kind of tension and anger now reserved solely for Chavez.

Were Chavez to win, there is no reason to think any of the anti-Chavez forces would be any less hostile or the confrontations any less frequent or damaging. Nothing would be resolved.

Should Chavez lose, the situation could become even more dangerous. Chavez's supporters are as numerous and vocal as are those seeking to remove him, but have been afforded very little publicity by the staunchly anti-Chavez Venezuelan media. Even the commander of the army, General Julio Garcia Montoya, has come out publicly against the recent strike, ending opposition hopes that the military would turn against the president.

If Chavez were voted out of office in a special election, his supporters would likely see the act as a blatant disregard of both their interests and their constitutional rights. They voted Chavez into office, and thanks to expanded social services such as free public schools and subsidized food markets, they want him to stay there. His removal would severely antagonize over 30 percent of the population, virtually all from the poorest and most desperate sectors of society.

Further alienating those who now see Chavez as their only hope is not only dangerous for Venezuela, but risky for America as well. Disaffected Venezuelans, if left with nowhere else to turn, might form alliances with FARC, the leftist guerilla organization in neighboring Colombia on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations. Or they might try to disrupt the country's flow of oil.

If anything, a highly publicized, man-to-man face-off between Chavez and an opposition candidate would provide the ideal forum for the current simmering hostility to break out into open and armed conflict.

To truly increase stability and end political tensions, getting rid of Chavez is not enough. Instead, Venezuela -- and the United States and any other party that has an interest in the country's political health -- must address the conditions that allowed Chavez to rise to power in the first place. Previous Venezuelan administrations, riddled with corruption and content to adapt market policies that sacrificed the living standards of the bulk of the population in order to enrich a small business and financial elite, generated such anger that Chavez was able to take the presidency with the largest percentage of a democratic vote in Venezuelan history.

Any election that threatened to return the country to those conditions would simply fuel further hostility and intensify the current conflict.

The deep social rift that divides Venezuela must be addressed head on. No amount of voting, no change of leadership will alter the fact that two large segments of Venezuelan society hold diametrically opposed views with equal conviction.

Moreno (alejandro@strategicassessments.com) is vice president of Strategic Assessments Institute, a political and economic consulting firm in Los Angeles that specializes in Latin American affairs.