The Venezuelan Referendum: urgent and indispensable

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela Electronic News Posted: Wednesday, March 26, 2003 By: Gustavo Coronel

VHeadline.com commentarist Gustavo Coronel writes: The state of the Venezuelan nation is chaotic. Unemployment is nearing 30%, while under-employment (street vendors and occasional workers) is about 50%.  Only 20% of the working population are receiving some sort of regular income, largely minimum wage ($130 per month at the current official rate of exchange and about $100 on the black market).

As a result, the crime rate has increased significantly, converting Venezuela into the second most violent country in Latin America.

Land and private property invasions are almost out of control, and even universities have been invaded by squatters (University of Carabobo). More than a month has gone by since currency exchange controls were introduced, without the first dollar having been sold by government due to lack of systems and faulty organization.

• In fact, rumors are that the measure will be lifted, as the government is not able to apply it and as it was illegally decreed to start with.

Industry ... whatever is left ... can not import required inputs. Food price controls have been established, often below production costs, already producing severe shortages, as no one can be obliged to sell below cost.

The oil industry is severely crippled, especially the refining sector ... which means that no gasoline and light product exports are being made, and that some 6 million barrels of gasoline have been imported to attend local demand ... at huge losses of some $35 per barrel for the government. The mood of citizens ... government followers and opposition alike ... is increasingly gloomy, as if the future had ceased to exist.

Venezuela is essentially paralyzed. The economy, cultural and educational life, the normal coming and going of citizens are at an all time low. A fundamental component of a healthy society has disappeared: Trust in the capacity of the Nation to move ahead and in the capacity of the political leadership to correctly diagnose and solve our fundamental problems.

I have little doubt that our main malady is political ... political conflict has been the source of economic and social deterioration. If we can install a stable political environment, we can put the country back on track. I agree with Daniel Burnett's recent article in which he says that ideology will not solve Venezuelan problems but, I suggest, a rational, pragmatic approach.

While ideology is mostly words, pragmatism could be mostly action with a clear purpose.

Ideological conflict has not been good for our country ... it has done little more than hardening the resolve of the adversaries and putting hate in many hearts. The house is divided and the house is falling. If we want to come out of this crisis we must do two things almost simultaneously: One, go to the polls to select a new political leadership; and, two, structure a program, as direct and simple as possible, to without delay address the half dozen or so of main issues which are forcing our country down the ladder of progress.

We will find that these issues are closely interconnected and that, eventually, they boil down to one: How to convert people into citizens, how to convert economic invalids into producers, how to convert social dead wood into motors of progress.

The main issues to be tackled could be:

How to gain the trust of the national and international community through transparency, clear rules of the game and a modern attitude towards government;

How to generate mass employment in a country with millions already used to depend on government handouts;

How to lay the foundations for a just distribution of national income instead of the immense waste of government income prevailing nowadays; How to decentralize effectively and aggressively;

How to complement petroleum income in the short term through a crash tourist development program;

How to install an education revolution (yes, here the word applies) to create skilled workers in two year programs and, at the same time, create good citizens, instead of a parasitic population.

We could start arguing that we also need this, and we also need that, but this would be precisely the way to do nothing.

I believe that a country does not need an enormous amount of laws, old and new, and great numbers of experts at legalese ... but rather needs citizens with a new attitude towards social solidarity.

Attitudes, not laws, make a society move forward.

Venezuela, I have said before, is a country of bulky and numerous laws ... but is also a country without law. Laws are to be read, interpreted, argued about and often serve merely to provide a living for lawyers. But the law is something that is born from within your heart and depends on your level of civilization. The more civilized we can build our society the less laws we will need.

The sermon on the mountain is less than one page long. The Venezuelan Constitution has 350 articles while England has no Constitution. What society is doing better?.

We have to go to the polls while we have a country and not a bunch of politically independent tribes ... led by regional warlords, roaming the territory which used to be Venezuela, as it was the case in the 19th century.

We have to go to the polls before we live in a country from which freedom and happiness have disappeared, the two ingredients for which our country has been best known, together with oil and beautiful women and sweet oranges and 200 kinds of ice cream

We have to go to the polls to conserve our racial and religious harmony.

I would not care less about who was the next Venezuelan President ... but I do care about what kind of person s/he will be. Personally, I hope it is a woman ... I have always got along better with women, anyway. In Venezuela they are the most successful ingredient of society. They are brave, they are courageous, they make decisions, they work hard, they have been shouldering the burden of family for many years now, while the men are getting drunk and discussing about the sex of angels, baseball or politics.

All I would ask the new President (or Presidenta) is to play clean, to tell us what we have to know, to be compassionate but firm, to inspire his/her people to strive for civic decency (greatness is too much to ask for), to listen before taking decisions, to explain fully to people the import of those decisions, to surround the Presidential office with the best, the brightest and the more honest, to ask when he, she does not know since no one knows it all, to be light-hearted but not a clown, to have self esteem but not to be in love with him/herself.

In short, to be a Statesman or Stateswoman ... not a entertainer. Entertainers belong to TV and vaudeville ... but to be a President(a) is a a great call that must be honored with decorum, with decency and with an impeccable personal behavior that can be an inspiration to the people.

We need a Referendum as soon as possible ... August is already pretty far away, but we should resist all legal or illegal maneuvers to extend the date.

Honest Venezuelans from all political sides will have to accept that voting is urgently required.

All those who love our country should support the Referendum and work to make it happen as soon as possible...

Gustavo Coronel is the founder and president of Agrupacion Pro Calidad de Vida (The Pro-Quality of Life Alliance), a Caracas-based organization devoted to fighting corruption and the promotion of civic education in Latin America, primarily Venezuela. A member of the first board of directors (1975-1979) of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), following nationalization of Venezuela's oil industry, Coronel has worked in the oil industry for 28 years in the United States, Holland, Indonesia, Algiers and in Venezuela. He is a Distinguished alumnus of the University of Tulsa (USA) where he was a Trustee from 1987 to 1999. Coronel led the Hydrocarbons Division of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) in Washington DC for 5 years. The author of three books and many articles on Venezuela ("Curbing Corruption in Venezuela." Journal of Democracy, Vol. 7, No. 3, July, 1996, pp. 157-163), he is a fellow of Harvard University and a member of the Harvard faculty from 1981 to 1983.  In 1998, he was presidential election campaign manager for Henrique Salas Romer and now lives in retirement on the Caribbean island of Margarita where he runs a leading Hotel-Resort.  You may contact Gustavo Coronel at email ppcvicep@telcel.net.ve