BY BRIAN TAYLOR
Elections in crisis-wracked Venezuela have yielded a
Bonapartist figure as president - former military officer Hugo
Chávez Frías, who became popular after organizing a failed
coup in 1992 against a discredited regime.
The two traditional ruling parties - the Social Christian Party known as COPEI and the social-democratic Democratic Action - made a desperate, last-minute move to ditch their candidates and back Henrique Salas Romer, a single pro- establishment politician. Despite this attempt, Chávez attracted nearly 57 percent of the vote with a campaign that rested on anticorruption rhetoric and promises that, if elected, he would bring stability to the country.
It was the first time in 40 years that a capitalist politician not belonging to Venezuela's dominant ruling-class parties has won an election. Chávez is scheduled to take office February 2.
The global capitalist crisis has wreaked havoc with the Venezuelan economy. Depression conditions have progressively spread and worsened since the end of the oil boom a decade and a half ago. Various administrations have tried to ram austerity measures down the throats of working people to appease imperialist bondholders. As a result, more than 70 percent of the population lives in poverty in a country that's among the largest oil exporters in the world.
Chávez put anticorruption demagogy at the center of his campaign, vowing to "fry" the heads of the "political elites" and to bring back ethics and morality. He referred to the anti- Chávez alliance between COPEI and Democratic Action as "a wedding of corrupt politicians." Chávez, who cultivates his image as a "man of the people," is mestizo unlike the main- party politicians who are white and have presided over a population that's nearly 80 percent mestizo, Black, or Indian.
A political strong-man, the `sheriff'
Chávez has cultivated a reputation as a political strong-
man. Nicknamed "el Comandante" (the commander), Venezuela's
president-elect often sported the army special forces red beret
and military fatigues. He touted his former career as a
lieutenant colonel in the military and a leader of a coup
against the government in 1992. He combined this image with
nationalist rhetoric, identifying himself with Simón Bolívar,
a Venezuelan national hero and a main military commander in the
struggle for Latin America's war of independence in the early
19th century.
Chávez's political proposals are vague and chameleonic. He has espoused opposition to "neoliberal economic policies" like selling off Petroleos de Venezuela, the nationalized oil company, and has called for a partial moratorium on payment of foreign debts. He enjoys support from layers of small businessmen and other middle-class elements who hope his nationalist rhetoric will equal trade protections.
Chávez, is "neither for savage capitalism, nor socialism, nor communism," he explained as the election neared, but instead for a so-called kinder gentler capitalism. He supported job creation and more educational programs, while at the same time calling for "rigorous fiscal discipline" and deep spending cuts.
The new president, as is traditionally the case with Bonapartist figures, projects himself as a savior rising above social classes and traditional institutions. "Venezuela's new sheriff" was the headline of a December 8 article in London's Financial Times. "He's kind of like the sheriff who comes into the town that has been run by the brothel keeper and money changer. He is going to come in and clean up this town," the article said.
Chávez has called for a referendum to dissolve Congress, one of the institutions blamed by many Venezuelans for the proliferation of widespread corruption and the impoverishment of toilers there. Congress would supposedly be replaced by a constituent assembly with broad powers. "When people want a radical change, the constitution cannot be a strait-jacket," said Jorge Giordani, the architect of the referendum.
Chávez rises out of capitalist crisis
Venezuela, which has the largest oil reserves in the world
outside the Arab-Persian Gulf, experienced an economic boom in
the 1970s that lasted through the early 1980s. During that
period toilers wrested a number of social benefits from the
ruling class. These programs were largely paid for out of the
revenues from the oil industry, nationalized by the social
democratic administration of Carlos Andrés Pérez during his
1974-79 presidential term. Some 80 percent of the South
American country's budget was based on oil exports.
Washington and other imperialist powers touted Venezuela as a model for capitalist development in the Third World. This all came to an end in the late 1980s as oil prices crashed and a worldwide economic depression set in.
When Pérez was elected a second time in 1988, the social democratic president adopted a "free-market" austerity plan to satisfy imperialist bondholders who wanted payment on Venezuela's then-$34 billion foreign debt.
The central government in Caracas, the country's capital, slashed social services and dropped subsidies for food, electricity, water, and public transportation. Gasoline prices skyrocketed 80 percent and utilities like water steadily deteriorated. The regime sold off state-owned factories, eliminating tens of thousands of jobs. Official unemployment shot up to 30 percent.
Pérez's 1989 austerity plan ignited a tinderbox. In February of that year Caracas and eight other cities exploded in spontaneous protests. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets, sacked supermarkets, and denounced the government. The regime responded with one of the bloodiest massacres in the country's history. Army and police forces killed anywhere from 400 to several thousand people. Protests ensued over the next few years. In roughly the first half of 1992, there were reportedly 1,400 antigovernment demonstrations.
It was in this context of social devastation that Hugo Chávez, along with other lower echelon army officers, launched a coup against the Pérez government in February 1992. The military action, which had sympathy but no participation from layers of working people, was put down by forces loyal to Pérez. Chávez and other military officers were imprisoned.
Both Democratic Action and COPEI were completely discredited after those events, while Chávez was elevated to hero status. For weeks after the coup, slum residents rallied in support of the arrested officers. Chávez attempted a second coup from prison in November 1992, which the government suppressed at the cost of 230 lives. After crushing the revolt, Pérez suspended basic civil liberties - from freedom of speech to the right to peaceful assembly - and established a 6:00 p.m. curfew.
In a 1993 poll of voters' preference among all the main political parties, "none of the above" stood as top choice with 34 percent. Another poll during that period indicated that Alberto Fujimori, now president of Peru, was the most popular politician in Venezuela.
Fujimori, a Bonapartist figure himself, ran on a similar anticorruption, "put faith in me"-type campaign. As president, he dissolved Peru's congress and courts and clamped down on democratic rights with popular support, in the name of fighting inflation and "terrorism."
In early 1993, Pérez was indicted and suspended from office on corruption charges. He was impeached by the Venezuelan Senate in May of that year.
Conservative Rafael Caldera replaced him. Caldera had served a presidential term earlier, but was repackaged by the ruling class as an "independent" and "clean" candidate. Four months after coming into office to "save" the economy, Caldera declared an economic emergency and suspended the constitution, including the right not to be arrested without a warrant and the right to freedom of movement of people and goods.
The deflationary crisis has been deepening since then. Oil is sold for less than $10 a barrel today - a quarter-century low for Venezuela. Real incomes have fallen by nearly two- thirds in the last 15 years and 70 percent of Venezuela's 21 million people live in poverty. Venezuela has one of the largest gaps in distribution of wealth, with nearly half the country's income going to 20 percent of the population.
Strikes, protests, and marches by many sectors of the working class - from oil workers to teachers - have been ongoing for wage and pension increases. One of the highest turnouts for May Day, the international worker's holiday, was in Venezuela, where tens of thousands filled the streets.
Under these conditions, Chávez, who claims to champion the rights of the downtrodden, drew 700,000 people to his closing campaign rally December 2, as the two main parties in power for the last four decades collapsed in public opinion.
Shedding radical image
Chávez has already begun to shed many of the leftist
elements of his radical rhetoric. He has called on banks and
private investors to bring capital back into the country, which
businessmen whisked abroad upon news of his possible victory.
He has opened his arms to dealings with the U.S. government
that labeled him a terrorist after his coup attempts and has
denied him a visa to enter the United States. An article in
the Spanish-language big-business newspaper El País quoted
Chávez in a meeting that included former U.S. president James
Carter. "There are no hard feelings with the United States," he
said.
Many working people have high expectations that the Chávez administration will deliver jobs and increase the social wage. During his campaign, Chávez promised 30,000 bolivars ($53) to every unemployed Venezuelan, minimum wage hikes, job security, and retirement guarantees.
But everything indicates Chávez will be a loyal defender of capitalism. In fact, some bourgeois commentators point out that given how discredited the whole gamut of "mainstream" politicians are, Chávez may be the only one who can get away with driving through sharp attacks on working people. That, at least, is what capitalist politicians and pundits are banking on.