The Venezuelan Paradox
mapage.noos.fr by Heinz Sonntag(*)
Paradox: "A statement or sentiment that is seemingly contradictory or opposed to common sense and yet perhaps true in fact." WEBSTER’S THIRD NEW INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY
What is it that makes the situation in Venezuela during the last 18 months -- with accusations against president Hugo Chávez as non-democratic and even tyrannical, the subsequent massive protests, strikes (the most recent lasting more than six weeks), and partial stoppages of the country’s decisive oil-industry -- seemingly contradictory, given the origins of a regime democratically elected by a broad margin? This question goes to the heart of the current crisis and embraces several elements barely recognized or perceived by international public opinion, knowingly hidden or silenced both by journalists and other writers of the "left" in the region, in European and North-American countries, and by Latin American and Caribbean political leaders, as well as by politicians of the developed countries.
The first element is the most obvious and reiterated: Chávez is not the first and will certainly not be the last political leader to use democratic procedures to seize power for non-democratic purposes, supposedly to "renew democracy" or to "establish a real democracy." Intending no analogies, some prominent examples might be remembered: King Victor Emmanuel III had to appoint Mussolini prime minister of Italy in 1922 because a majority of the voters had given his party the strongest fraction in the parliament. Hitler became chancellor of the Weimar Republic in January 1933 because the voters, through their representatives in different parties, made possible a coalition, which obliged the president of the German Reich to nominate him. Vargas in Brazil and Perón in Argentina became presidents in 1934 and 1946, respectively, because they won the masses’ votes through their mobilization and organization.
Hugo Rafael Chávez, a former Lieutenant Colonel who had tried twice to topple the Venezuelan democratic government in 1992: once in February as the leader of an attempted coup; the second time in November as an inspiring actor, based his campaign, like those preceding him, on the promise to solve all of society’s existing problems, first of course those that worried the majorities: from poverty, unemployment, the lack of adequate health care, educational services, housing, and their own marginality, to the shortcomings, failures and corruption of the socio-economic order and the political system. As his overall instrument he invoked a new Constitution for a "really participatory and protagonist democracy." As a result of the deterioration of the socio-economic, political and socio-cultural climate during the previous – say – 15 years, and very much as in the cases mentioned above, this push toward change was well received by broad social sectors, including the working classes of the modern economy (particularly the oil industry), the middle sectors, segments of the bourgeoisie, and the intelligentsia. Chávez’s popularity rose quickly to about 80 %.
The evening the result of the elections was announced (December 6, 1998), the majority of Venezuelans celebrated in the streets and plazas of the cities, towns and villages. Chávez’s speech had a moderate tone, reiterating that he would fight poverty, promote a "true" democracy through a new Constitution, be "the president of all Venezuelans, also of those who did not vote for me." He would eliminate corruption within one year, live a modest life, renouncing to "all the paraphernalia that surrounded the previous presidents’ lifestyles," and even transform some of the presidential residences into schools. The mass media praised the speech and the elected president’s promises the following day.
A second element is more intricate: not only did Chávez win the presidential election by a landslide, he also won the following three referenda on the constitutional process during 1999 and, finally, his own "re-legitimizing" election in July 2000 "with overwhelming majorities." This is regularly presented as a proof of the unquestionable legitimacy of the regime. The results, however, had a systematically muffled flaw: all of them reflected a high rate of abstention of registered voters: 38 % in Chávez’s presidential election; 62 % in the referendum on the appropriateness of a Constituent Assembly in April; 54 % in the election of its members in July; 56 % in the vote on the new Constitution in December; and 54 % in the re-legitimation vote of July 2000. High voter abstention does not necessarily destroy the legitimacy of a democratic regime. It does, however, certainly weaken it, generating a curious mixture of rational and charismatic legitimacy (M. Weber), by focusing on the "popularity of the leader." This is particularly certain and problematic in democracies that, like the Venezuelan, do not have a tradition of civic culture and of strong cohesive and consensus-stimulating institutions. About half of Venezuela’s citizens, thus, showed little interest in, and actually did not vote for, Chávez’s Bolivarian Revolution (though they would later express some sympathy in the opinion polls, especially in the first 18 months or so).
A third factor is structural and has several dimensions. The exercise of political power by Chávez had, from the very beginning, some features which, both in the short and long run, tended to put his popularity in question and, consequently, to further threaten even more the democratic elements of his legitimacy, though not affecting his charismatic appeal. He polarizes the people into "friends" and "enemies" in an extremely aggressive manner, roughly along the divisions between the social classes, as he (erroneously) understands them. Enemies are dubbed the squalid ones or the oligarchy, independently of their real socio-economic and political status; friends are the dignified ones. This pattern, evident from the very beginning of his political career, even during his campaign, has been steadily reiterated in the Sunday allocutions that came after his victory (136 to date, with an overall duration of more than 1.000 hours).
Chávez militarized the public administration by appointing active and recently retired military officers to practically all important positions, from ministers (few), vice-ministers (many) to officials (a lot) in charge of "essential" programs, such as the Plan Bolivar, a financially megalomaniac social plan, and a no less gigantic house building plan. He assumed control over nearly all institutions of political society: the Supreme Court, the National Electoral Council, the Offices of the General Attorney and the Ombudsman, the state organizations for social policies, the Central Bank, filling them with his allies. He also tried to impose his will on the civil society, with reasonable success in cultural institutions like museums, the national library, the two state-owned publishing houses (Monte Avila Editores and Biblioteca Ayacucho), one TV and several radio-stations, the arts schools, and theaters, but with little or no success in the trade unions, the major part of the Catholic Church, the autonomous public and private universities, the entrepreneurial organizations and most of the mass media: they resisted this bringing into line by the process (as Chávez’s followers call the Bolivarian Revolution).
In addition, Chávez presented himself as "the candidate (and later president) of the poor." The economic and social policies of his government, however, were and are basically those of previous governments, subject to structural adjustments and neo-liberal reforms, even as his ideological and political discourse condemns them (and capitalism in general) as savage, anti-humanist and exploitative. This contradiction between discourse and praxis was, and is, accompanied and mirrored by a slowdown of economic growth and an increase in unemployment and poverty, the first from about 12 % to roughly 20 % in three years; the latter, from about 48 to 70 %, in spite of high windfall profits in the oil industry during 2000 and part of 2001. Indeed, the availability of funds from this sector surpassed anticipated state revenues for the 2000 budget by 47 %.
In spite of this favorable financial situation, the economy experienced growing deterioration. The number of companies that went bankrupt, particularly of medium and small size, increased from year to year. There were no policies for the re-activation of the internal economy. The inflation is among the highest of the region (around 30 %.) The real per capita income declined more than 11 % in three years. During 2002, the economy contracted by 7 %. The savings rate, and with it the capital formation, is currently one of the lowest of all Latin American and Caribbean countries. The national currency has been devaluated by more than 100 % since October 2001, mainly due to Chávez’s disastrous policies, and the resulting lack of confidence of the investors who prefer to transfer a considerable part of their assessments and incomes abroad.
Chávez’s regime has been described as one of the most inept, chaotic, and ineffective administrations in the history of the country since the achievement of its political independence more than 170 years ago. Since there is no internal coordination between the different governmental agencies and no external accord between these and the different collective actors, the ship of the state drifts in an eternal zig-zag without any clear course, subject to the arbitrariness of Chávez’s decisions and, secondarily, those of his closest "collaborators" (who often do not respect the Constitution of 1999). This anarchy, at least partially a consequence of the militarization of the state apparatus referred to earlier, engenders a growing corruption, compared to which that of the "really existing democracy" in place up to 1998 appears relatively benign. It is focused of course mainly in the high and middle rank military officers with bureaucratic jobs. Scandals like the disappearance of about $ 3.7 billion, legally destined to a macroeconomic stabilization fund, or the illegal use of currency exchange profits of the Central Bank, were neither explained, investigated, nor punished. Since the comptroller and the chief of the Central Bank are followers of Chávez, there is no real control of the state’s expenditures. These are but a few examples that throw light on the nature of this peculiar "government."
Chávez’s foreign policy would deserve an article of its own. Be it sufficient to highlight his early friendship with Fidel Castro, whose "paradise" he would like to import to Venezuela (his own words!), and specially his messianic belief that his destiny, his teleological mission consists of fighting and negotiating for the "second independence" of Latin America and the Caribbean.
National, regional and international defenders of the regime blame the hostility of the mass media for the broad resistance against the president. But, as is so often the case with this regime, this is only a part of the truth. Chávez’s triumph in the elections of 1998 was actively and until the end of 1999 enthusiastically celebrated by the mass media, both by their owners and their journalists, as by a majority of the population; as a matter of fact, Chávez owed his landslide victory largely to the media. The president and his entourage had ample accessto tv- and radio talk shows and dominated the headlines of the tabloid press. He was seen and thus presented as the incarnation of a much desired political and socio-economic change. During practically the entire constitutional process, from February 1999 to the re-legitimation elections of July 2000, the mass media were in favor of the government and its measures, mainly the reform of the political system and its constitutional framework, though they occasionally made criticisms against abuses, some policies and isolated scandals (which is, after all, one important function of the fourth estate).
The way in which these criticisms were received brought the first disappointments with the regime. Instead of giving coherent explanations or accepting responsibility for their wrongdoings, Chávez and his followers attacked the media, committing the additional error of personalizing these attacks by focusing on certain journalists and media owners. Since the scandals became more and more frequent, the investigative journalism of the press and the audiovisual media, highly developed in Venezuela, insisted on trying to uncover other scandals, irritating the government, particularly the president, and provoking him to make increasingly aggressive attacks, such as his condemnation of the anti-social mass media. So a spiral was born, which escalated very quickly as journalists published growing proofs of governmental gaffes, errors, misdeeds, and corruption. In addition, the promises of Chávez’s inaugural speech the night of his victory were quickly forgotten. The president discovered the pleasure of elegant suits of Saville Row, when he doesn’t rig out (illegally) with his military uniform, and Cartier watches. Seldom had a previous president surrounded himself with such impressive military and civilian security. He and his entourage indulged in a luxury lifestyle. The repair of the swimming pool of the presidential residence in Caracas cost more than $ 1 million. The government also bought a new airplane for the president for $ 65 million, plus $ 6 million for "extras" of the design and equipment of the interior cabins. These facts irritated the media even more.
It became progressively evident that the freedom of information and opinion had become formal, that is to say, had no real influence on the regime’s measures and policies. It was the first time since 1958 and the (re)establishment of democracy after the dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez that the media would see themselves deprived of any real influence on governmental policies and the dynamics of the political system, experiencing only their own impotence. In short, the freedom of the press existing in Venezuela is today nothing more than a chimera, a sort of farce, which implements the wishes of the government in its desperate attempts to demonstrate its "democratic" nature. The state owned channel and radio station were converted into, and continue to serve, as a kind of "propaganda machine" à la Goebbels.
During the years of the worst deterioration of democracy, between approximately 1980 and 1990, with the riots of the Caracazo of February 27, 1989 as its most emblematic expression, the dissolution of the internal cohesion of Venezuelan society had reached its peak. With Chávez’s victory in 1998 there was widespread hope that this state of anomie (normlessness) could be overcome by the changes he proposed. His aggressive political style and his tendency to conceive political and social dynamics only within the limits of a friend-enemy framework (in which the enemy is the other and has to be destroyed), very much in accordance with the 1920s theories of the German political philosopher Carl Schmitt, have made nearly impossible the reconstruction of a set of rules that facilitate an orderly society, respect for "the other" as a fellow citizen yet particularly as a human being, even under conditions of (inevitable) controversy about the goals and characteristics of this order between the different collective actors. His polarization of political (and civil) society has resulted in polarizing the opposition, so that in the end no negotiation is feasible. Even the attempts of international organizations (OAS, UNDP, CARTER CENTER) to foster a climate of negotiation have failed, primarily because Chávez and his government deny any concession to the opposition, even a non-binding advisory referendum about the acceptance or rejection of his permanence in the presidency.
As if this were not enough, Chávez, in addition, began to found Bolivarian Circles across the country, neighborhood and shanty-town (barrio) groups for both the local organization of his allies and the defense of the Bolivarian Revolution. Though a few of these circles develop significant community work, most are dedicated full-time to attacks on the political enemy. Investigative journalists have noted that the members of these latter circles are paid and armed by the government and it is obvious that they attempt to intervene and fight the opposition’s demonstrations, especially in the last months.
In brief, the political polarization nurtured by Chávez, the incapability and inefficiency of his government, the tremendous corruption, the failure to accomplish his campaign promises, the contradiction between his policies and his discourse, his tendency to monopolize political and even social power, have ultimately undermined his popularity and have been producing an unexpected result: those who say they will not abstain in the next election or referendum have decreased to less than 12 %. Since mid-2001, the resistance against the president grows steadily, among practically all sectors of the population. The first to express resistance were the bourgeoisie and the middle sectors, in whose social circles Chávez had had a favored place. When he tried to suppress the traditional trade unions, he lost the support of the working classes of the modern economy (including the oil industry), particularly when he attempted, once more via referendum at the beginning of 2001, to eliminate the unions and create a workers’ organization within the framework of his political party (remember Mussolini and Hitler?). In more recent times, he is even losing the support of the poor, the nourishing soil of his "revolutionary" project. This explains the fall of his popularity from 80 to 27 %, among all social strata, maintaining figures of about 30 % only among the most marginalized (more than 60 %, of these same people, nonetheless, doubt, that Chávez will solve their problems or that their future will be any better under his leadership).
This also explains the quantitative and qualitative growth of the opposition. It is a peaceful opposition, its demonstrations big, frequent and powerful. Even Chavez’s temporary ouster in April 2002 during a massive demonstration is no proof of the opposition’s "violence," since it is an episode in which the details and particulars still remain opaque and unclear. In the nation’s capital of about 4.5 million inhabitants alone, the demonstrations have grown from some 100.000 in December 2001 to 1.2 million people during the current strike. Though at its beginning on December 2, 2002, the opposition still asked only for a consulting referendum (foreseen in his custom-made Constitution) on whether Chávez ought to remain in the presidency or not, there are now more and more calls for immediate new elections.
The opposition movement is composed by members of all social classes, of all ages, of all regions, with a specially notable number of women participating. Although there is a coordinating group of entrepreneurial, workers’ union, and political, civil, and NGO leaders, the movement is highly spontaneous. For Latin America and the Caribbean, where mass movements are often manipulated, this one has more of a grass-roots character, mostly independent of formal leadership, and with a considerable degree of autonomy.
The reason for this special growing movement is the perception that Chávez is destroying the economic, social, and cultural bases of the society. Relatively independent analysts (i.e. committed to neither of the contending parties) have been making calculations about the time it would take to reconstruct Venezuela’s material and socio-institutional structures. Their most optimistic estimate is about 15 years.
The most recent demonstrations were violently disturbed by members of the Bolivarian Circles, producing casualties and numerous injured. Chávez threatens with the declaration of a state of exception. For now, he appears to be in control of the armed forces, despite rumors about the growth of their institutional sector, hostile to being used in Chávez’s personal project. So he has still the money (but, with the oil strike, until when?) and the arms (with the institutional officers, again, until when?) to maintain himself in power.
Venezuela is not (yet?) a dictatorship or a tyranny. But there is a notable and growing discrepancy between the formal character of the regime and its real content in terms of political practices and policies. In parliamentary democracies, this discrepancy also occurs, but then new elections are being called. In a presidential-authoritarian democracy, the Constitution becomes a strait jacket, which eliminates the sovereignty of the citizenry, particularly if it contains many nearly totalitarian elements.
Like for any other paradox, there is no solution to the Venezuelan predicament, save the eventual overcoming of the contradictions by the triumph of one contender or the other (since there is by now no possibility of any compromise). But what seems clear is that the contradictory aspects will continue to go unrecognized or unperceived by regional and international public opinion, for basically two reasons. First, many members of the regional, North-American and European "left" with influence in some mass media support and defend Chávez’s regime: either because of their absolute ignorance about what is going on in Venezuela; or as a result of their incapacity for thinking beyond the limits of their obsolete ideological framework; or maybe even because it can be profitable to write and speak as they do; or for all these reasons together. The second reason is that many Latin American and Caribbean leaders, as well as politicians of developed countries, have vested interests in hiding the true character of the situation. They recognize that the possibility of questioning the discrepancy between the formal character of a regime and its real content in terms of political practices and policies in a specific case could very well open the eyes of their own peoples. And collectively open eyes are dangerous to any pretension to maintain their dominion. In the meantime, they delegate the mediation to the OAS, whose Secretary General is currently moderating a "Round-Table of Negotiations" of government and opposition, which for more than five weeks has produced no results.
Still, even a round-table without results can prove convenient to our political leaders and heads of state, by hiding their inactivity behind the veil of a seemingly collective defense of "constitutional regimes." The "Group of Friends of Venezuela," just constituted by Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Portugal, Spain, and the USA during President Gutierrez’s inauguration in Ecuador (1/15/03)--despite Chávez’s attempts to deny membership to the United States--has to be seen in the same light.
Amherst, MA, January 2003
(*) The author is a retired Professor of Sociology at the Central University of Venezuela and former director of its Center for Development Studies – CENDES, where he is still a research fellow. His next book is on social exclusion in a comparative perspective.