June 17th., 2008

Chavez At His Dusk

Aló Presidente did not go on for many hours.  It was father’s day.  Chávez announced that he would be in the Cuba in time congratulate his father, Fidel. In Havana he declared that Fidel Castro was “alive and kicking” that from Granma he dictates the outline for the expansion of the revolution.  “We are going to jointly celebrate the 50 years of the revolution in Cuba, and the first ten of the revolution in Venezuela, because deep down they are the same evolution.” One hundred days have transpired since the last meeting between both commanders.  In both countries they have been days full of news.  In the publicized “revision of the advances of the bilateral relation” with Raul the topic of policy changes will be mandatory.  Those of Chávez put his name back on international news, with his questioning of the armed fighting in Colombia and his plea to the FARC for them to release the hostages without any conditions.  It is obvious that the agenda included the decision of Ecuador to abandon ALBA, the problems that face Evo Morales, Christina Kirchner and Daniel Ortega, and naturally those of Chávez himself, who affirms that the opposition is “coming for me,” in the gubernatorial and mayoral elections.  In the major newspapers fear of the president was analyzed.  Defeated in his proposal to the constitutional reform that would have allowed him to be indefinitely reelected, another defeat in November would exhaust all hopes of continuing in the presidency beyond the current period.  A defeat, as he himself states, would be the loss of the most important governorship and mayoral posts. Everything indicates that Chávez’s fear regarding the results in November is not without foundation.  If the opposition effectively agrees to put forth unitary candidates, as is hoped by the compromise signed the last 23^rd of January, and manages to properly scrutinize the votes, it will substantially change the political landscape of Venezuela.

Aside from the inquiries, as negative as they are for his candidates, Chávez seems to have been made desperate by the failure that was his plan to have a single party and by the anarchy that permeates the heterogeneous alliance that supported him, signs of a serious deterioration in the leadership that he enforced. Respectable analysts affirm that the crippling ineptitude that the government displays when managing problems that affect people produced a rupture in the emotional ties between the leader and the masses. He roves the country announcing his support for his candidates and irate public debates break out between those chosen and those who consider themselves to be better candidates, besides the activist accusations of “Red, little Reds,” about the breaking of promises. Trust in the protective shield of ineligible candidates. He ordered his court - the Comptroller – to make ineligible those who aspire to candidacy that seemed unbeatable, according to the polls, like Enrique Mendoza, for governor of Miranda and the Mayor of Chacao, Leopoldo Lopez, positioned for the Great Mayorship of Caracas. The Comptroller has imposed upon them administrative sanctions, clearly illegal, declaring them politically ineligible, when such a measure requires a sentence imposed by a penal judge. The general consensus has shifted against the regime and it is the banner that once again launched into the streets the students and civil society, this time in defense of the right to choose. He wished to create a problem for his adversaries, but declaring candidates ineligible became a serious problem for his image.

Monologue with Entrepreneurs

Before the entrepreneur, called together to be informed regarding the change policy in economic politics, Chávez, during the first hour, read several pages from The Affluent Society and The New Industrial State by J.K. Galbraith (recommending their reading) and he quoted Istvan Meszaros, the author of a Beyond Capital: Toward a Theory of Transition, omitting the advice to read it. The following two hours were a strange dissertation about what he understands as economic politics and political economy. In the fourth hour of the monologue he proposed an alliance with industrialist patriots regarding various offers: subsidies for production, investment wheels, socialist factories, condoning of agricultural credits, flexibility of the currency exchange restrictions for the importation of capital goods below $50,000 and the elimination of taxes on financial transactions. He affirmed that the resources necessary were guaranteed due to the price of oil, speculating that the price of a barrel could reach $200. Throughout the monologue he justified the master plans of the politics implemented during the last nine years and he expressed that the proposed alliance would allow the shortage of basic goods and inflation to be resolved, troubles which, in his opinion have their roots in the economic crisis of the United States.

Inside hardline chavismo questions arose: An alliance with those who exploit the workers, those who cause the people to hunger, those responsible for the poverty, the enemies of the revolution? The Minister of Labor explained that it is a convenient strategy for the current stage for the revolutionary process. He proclaimed “According to Marx in scarcity there can be no socialism.” The Minister of Planning, in a program on VTV (a government station) said it has to do with a gamble to attempt to bring back up a productive apparatus that no longer absorbed the growth of the economy. He pointed out that in the first trimester of this year PIB grew 4.8% and the industry only grew 1.4%. “We must not repeat the mistake from last year. In November we thought that the country was beginning to step onto the stage of transforming from capitalism to socialism, but a month later the perception was different.” He commented that the results of the constitutional referendum indicated that the terrain was in a state preceding the transition. “In the stage prior to the transition we have to tolerate a mixed economy, having it be clear that socialism is our final destination.”

The leaders of the national associations of entrepreneurs, industrialists, merchants, farmers and consumers, agreed that the announced measures did not satisfy the expectations of the nation.  “Beyond the urgency to stop the negative tendencies of the economy – writes a columnist from El Universal – it is evident that the revolutionary process attempted to construct an alternative model that shows few advances and does not allow the confrontation of an imbalance that revives the topic of the structural problems of the economy, like scarce investment… there is no experience of economic development that is basically supported in a mode of cooperatives.” He adds that, in parallel, there is an informal sector with enormous profits and an industrial sector in decadence, to which macroeconomic problems are added, doubts about the rights of property, price regulations, currency exchange regulations and an overvalued currency that feeds imports. The imbalance between demand propelled by public spending and an offer that does not grow enough led to important price increases. The inflation between May, 2007 and May, 2008 accumulated 29% and food jumped 47.3%.  The deceleration of the economy became a cause for alarm and forced a change in policy, to build bridges between the government and the entrepreneur, who do not trust Chávez and show little willingness to cross those bridges. 

The Electoral Scene

It is a historic event without precedent, affirmed Chávez upon his arrival, in a vehicle of Iranian make, to the place where he was slotted to vote in his party’s (PSUV) primaries to qualify those who aspire to the charges of mayor in Caracas. The process, completely automated, was organized by the National Electoral Council (CNE). According to Chávez nationally 5 million people would vote, who according to him, had signed up with the enthusiasm to participate in the choosing of the candidates. According to the numbers offered by the directive of PSUV a little more than a million voted. The voices of the opposition qualified the event as a farce, as the media had been signaling for several days what the names of the candidates favored by the President were and would surely end up favored in the primaries. “Nothing is better evidence for the autocratic nature of PSUV-they declared- than that shameless simulation, in which it is pretended that the “base” elects the candidates when the truth is that Chávez gives them the names, which he has previously approved, so that they are proclaimed the victors.” During the two weeks following the primaries, the directors of PSUV have been denouncing that there was a technological fraud, that votes for the candidates that were not on the lists approved by the President disappeared and that the votes for those that were favored by the president but not the base of voters were increased. The whole affair has been openly discussed by the people of PSUV nationwide, to the point that Chávez declared that a Governor who denounced “fraud” was declared “expelled.”

The parties that signed the unity pact last January 23^rd have not managed to get CNE to make public, in their entirety, the results of the constitutional amendment referendum of December 2^nd and some experts have pointed out inaccuracies, which have not been denied by the agency. There have been insistent calls for the laws regarding Electoral Registration be scrutinized, transparent integration of regional and municipal bodies, and voting centers and tables, trustworthy audits of the automated system, a guarantee of the presence of witnesses in the different steps of the process, use of truly permanent ink and that an end is put to the abuse of its media. Chávez boasts the world record for screen appearances. The government facilitates television frequencies to sympathizing groups, obtains private channels through entrepreneurs who are chavistas, harassment of independent broadcasters, they favor or punish with publicity guidelines and saturate 85% of the radio electricity under their control with electoral propaganda. Active Citizenship- an independent NGO- has directed itself to the European Commission, denouncing that the recommendations of Observation Mission that have been sent to previous commissions have not been followed, and that if the current situation is maintained there is no guarantee of “transparency, impartiality and an effective right to choose.” They have also asked that the CNE formalize an invitation to the OEA and the European Union for them to perform observatory functions. There exists the conviction that just one efficient and opportune observation will give confidence to the voters that their votes will be respected. The parties further programs of enablement and technical support to guard the vote, in such a way that the will expressed by the electors on November 23^rd will be genuinely expressed in the official results.