A House Divided by Politics - Families in Venezuela torn over views on Chávez’s presidency

www.newsday.com By Letta Tayler LATIN AMERICA CORRESPONDENT January 26, 2003

Caracas - Belen Coronado, a retired court employee, doesn't permit political discussion in the Caracas apartment she shares with her daughter and son-in-law. "If we talk politics, we argue," she explained.

Coronado, 69, is a fan of populist President Hugo Chávez. Her daughter, Natalia Coronado, and son-in-law, Tony Ponce, a food distributor, back an 8-week-old national strike that aims to topple the leftist leader.

Briefly lifting the ban on political discussion for a visitor one recent afternoon, the usually soft-spoken relatives remained polite for about a minute before the barbs began to fly across their comfortable living room.

"We've had it with Chávez, We want him out now," said Natalia, 29, a homemaker, her voice prickling with anger.

"Then you're willing to break with the Constitution," her mother shot back, noting that the law will permit Venezuelans to call a binding referendum on truncating Chávez's six-year term only after its midpoint in August.

"Chávez doesn't respect the Constitution either, and he's ruining the economy," counter-attacked Ponce, 32.

The polarization within Venezuela over Chávez's presidency is widely assumed to pit rich against poor. While in many cases that is the case, the fault line also cuts through social classes, institutions and professions, further complicating efforts to unify a nation teetering on chaos.

"The tensions generated within families who are divided over the president are profound and unprecedented," said Luís Vicente León, who heads the Caracas-based Datanalisis polling company.

"It's turning brother against sister and cousin against cousin," said Elizabeth de Barnola, 54, a Caracas leather merchant whose family is split over Chávez.

In a half-century of democracy, members of Venezuela's tightly knit families often have held divergent political views. In the past, however, "these distinctions were 'light,' generating the kind of discussion one hears among fans of different baseball teams," León said.

In contrast, political experts say, the flamboyant Chávez - a former paratrooper who led a failed coup in 1992 and was elected by huge margins six years later - incites extreme hatred or adulation with his combative rhetoric and autocratic style, particularly as the country slides further into inflation, unemployment and violence.

With Chávez having largely failed in his campaign pledges to distribute the nation's vast oil wealth among the poor, numerous polls show him popular among only 30 percent of Venezuelans, far fewer than the 80 percent who live below the poverty line.

At the same time, one in five middle-class or wealthy Venezuelans supports the president, León said.

They include Belen Coronado, a diminutive, unassuming woman who lost 15 years' worth of her modest pension benefits - almost half the total - under austerity measures instituted by one of Chávez's predecessors.

Although she now lives in a comfortable apartment appointed with oil paintings and a crystal chandelier, Coronado remembers waiting in lines for food handouts during acute economic crises under previous regimes.

"Finally, for the first time in more than 40 years, we have a president who wants to help the poor instead of only helping the elite," she said.

"There are more poor children walking the streets now than there ever were before Chávez," rebutted her daughter, momentarily losing her own quiet poise.

"You can't expect a president to turn the country around in a few years," Coronado countered, adding that the opposition is "committing a crime against young children" by closing schools as part of strike actions.

For the indefinite future, Coronado has banned her daughter and son-in-law from watching news on the television in the living room, because all but one of Venezuela's highly politicized networks broadcast almost nothing but criticism of the government and praise for the strike.

If Natalia Coronado wants to join the cacerolazos, the nightly protests in which Chávez opponents march through the streets banging on pots and pans, her mother has decreed that she may do so only from the apartment's fifth-floor window. Should Natalia participate in a march, her mother flatly refuses to baby-sit.

Natalia circumvents that ban by leaving her 2-year-old daughter with her husband, who's been home every day since Dec. 2 because he has joined the anti-Chávez strike.

"I resent it that I can't express myself politically in my own home," Natalia said.

"What you're expressing is a hatred that will eat you up inside," her mother rejoined.

Since the severe rupture over Chávez began a few years ago, "everyone has begun to express their differences," said Caracas sociologist Mercedes Pulido. "The problem is, no one accepts them. What we need is a leader who can heal the wounds."

If the next president is elected peacefully, families will mend their internal rifts more easily, Pulido predicted. "But if it ends by insurrections or violence, it will be more difficult."

Asked if they would forgive and forget their political differences if Chávez is unseated through widespread violence, Belen and Natalia Coronado shifted in their seats and looked at each other expectantly across their marble coffee table.

"I hope so," the daughter said.

"I don't think so," the mother answered, gently but firmly.