On Sunday the people of Venezuela will decide who will be the next occupant of the Miraflores Presidential Palace. Forcibly thrown together following the death of Hugo Chavez, this short election season has had a very different tone to it from that of last October. During that campaign, Hugo Chavez was the ever-heroic populist president who was staring down cancer. The opposition candidate, Henrique Capriles, walked a careful line during his campaign of promising reform while trying to attract some of the more moderate supporters of Chavez. The result was the strongest showing of the opposition against Chavez in years, but was not enough to wrestle power away from the 14-year president.
The current presidential race differs substantially from that race of 6 months ago because of the absence of Chavez as a politician and the changing dynamics of a post-Chavez Venezuelan society. Nicolas Maduro, the hand-picked successor of the deceased president, lacks the populist appeal that Chavez had. What Maduro also lacks is the credibility that Chavez had established by putting money into social programs popular with the masses and by being defiantly anti-American in his rhetoric. Therefore, the strategy of the campaign appears to have become one in which Maduro simply offers himself to the Venezuelan people as the one anointed by Hugo Chavez to carry on the Bolivarian Revolution.
In the past week, Maduro has claimed to commune with the deceased president via a small bird and has invoked the name and image of Chavez at every turn. In a post on the Council of Foreign Relations, Julia Sweig pointed out that the Maduro campaign had even gone so far as to run a television ad that evoked a Christ-like Chavez with the slogan ‘I Am Chavez’. While utilizing the memory of a beloved president to gain support in an election is nothing new to democratic politics, this strategy seems to reach a new level of absurdity.
Meanwhile, the absence of Chavez in this election has allowed Capriles, again the dark-horse candidate, the opportunity to assail his opponent in a way that he could not before. Allegations of corruption and incompetence in government that were whispered in prior elections are now being shouted at campaign rallies from one end of Venezuela to the other. The new energy and bite that this opposition campaign has compared with the last has allowed Capriles to gain some momentum going into this election. Recent polls show Capriles with a deficit now in the single digits. This is in comparison to the double-digit margins by which he lost to Chavez and by which he was trailing Maduro just a few weeks ago. Whether this seemingly rising tide of support grows quickly enough to alter the expected outcome of Sunday’s election remains to be seen.
But a loss for the opposition may prove not to be such a bitter pill to swallow after all. There is very little confidence that exists for the short–term future of Venezuela. Budget deficits, currency devaluation, and an internal security crisis all await the next administration. As Christopher Sabatini, Senior Director of Policy at AS/COA recently said, “Why would anyone want this job?” Should the predictions for this election prove accurate and Nicolas Maduro win, he will carry with him the expectations to perpetuate Chavismo. The fact is, however, that the policies of the last 14 years are unsustainable. Only Chavez himself could change course by demanding adjustments in subsidies and currency while not losing the support of the people that had grown to love him as their revolutionary hero.
If Maduro wins and makes the changes that most experts agree are necessary to save the Venezuelan economy, he will surely lose the support of many for betraying the ideals of the Bolivarian Revolution. Without the political support of the base that Chavez built during his time in office, those who gained so much during the Chavez years will see their future threatened. At that point, there is the possibility that Chavismo itself would begin to crumble from within. Many have suggested that Chavismo without Chavez is possible due to the interwoven political and economic network of powerful individuals created over the last decade, and point to the perpetuation of Peronism in Argentina. While not out of the question, the deck seems to be squarely stacked against the Chavistas in Venezuela. The changes on the horizon appear to be dramatic and approaching Caracas quickly. Sunday’s election could mark the beginning of the end of a significant era in Venezuelan and Latin American history. But even if this is the last stand of Chavismo, it proves once again that the legacy of Hugo Chavez casts a very long shadow.
Michael W. Edghill has a BA in History from the University of North Texas, and currently teaches courses in U.S. Government and in Latin America & the Caribbean in Fort Worth, Texas. He has previously been published in the Yale Journal of International Affairs, International Policy Digest, and Caribbean Journal.
Photo: Prensa Miraflores/Hugo Chavez (cc).
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The Last Stand of Chavismo?
April 12, 2013
On Sunday the people of Venezuela will decide who will be the next occupant of the Miraflores Presidential Palace. Forcibly thrown together following the death of Hugo Chavez, this short election season has had a very different tone to it from that of last October. During that campaign, Hugo Chavez was the ever-heroic populist president who was staring down cancer. The opposition candidate, Henrique Capriles, walked a careful line during his campaign of promising reform while trying to attract some of the more moderate supporters of Chavez. The result was the strongest showing of the opposition against Chavez in years, but was not enough to wrestle power away from the 14-year president.
The current presidential race differs substantially from that race of 6 months ago because of the absence of Chavez as a politician and the changing dynamics of a post-Chavez Venezuelan society. Nicolas Maduro, the hand-picked successor of the deceased president, lacks the populist appeal that Chavez had. What Maduro also lacks is the credibility that Chavez had established by putting money into social programs popular with the masses and by being defiantly anti-American in his rhetoric. Therefore, the strategy of the campaign appears to have become one in which Maduro simply offers himself to the Venezuelan people as the one anointed by Hugo Chavez to carry on the Bolivarian Revolution.
In the past week, Maduro has claimed to commune with the deceased president via a small bird and has invoked the name and image of Chavez at every turn. In a post on the Council of Foreign Relations, Julia Sweig pointed out that the Maduro campaign had even gone so far as to run a television ad that evoked a Christ-like Chavez with the slogan ‘I Am Chavez’. While utilizing the memory of a beloved president to gain support in an election is nothing new to democratic politics, this strategy seems to reach a new level of absurdity.
Meanwhile, the absence of Chavez in this election has allowed Capriles, again the dark-horse candidate, the opportunity to assail his opponent in a way that he could not before. Allegations of corruption and incompetence in government that were whispered in prior elections are now being shouted at campaign rallies from one end of Venezuela to the other. The new energy and bite that this opposition campaign has compared with the last has allowed Capriles to gain some momentum going into this election. Recent polls show Capriles with a deficit now in the single digits. This is in comparison to the double-digit margins by which he lost to Chavez and by which he was trailing Maduro just a few weeks ago. Whether this seemingly rising tide of support grows quickly enough to alter the expected outcome of Sunday’s election remains to be seen.
But a loss for the opposition may prove not to be such a bitter pill to swallow after all. There is very little confidence that exists for the short–term future of Venezuela. Budget deficits, currency devaluation, and an internal security crisis all await the next administration. As Christopher Sabatini, Senior Director of Policy at AS/COA recently said, “Why would anyone want this job?” Should the predictions for this election prove accurate and Nicolas Maduro win, he will carry with him the expectations to perpetuate Chavismo. The fact is, however, that the policies of the last 14 years are unsustainable. Only Chavez himself could change course by demanding adjustments in subsidies and currency while not losing the support of the people that had grown to love him as their revolutionary hero.
If Maduro wins and makes the changes that most experts agree are necessary to save the Venezuelan economy, he will surely lose the support of many for betraying the ideals of the Bolivarian Revolution. Without the political support of the base that Chavez built during his time in office, those who gained so much during the Chavez years will see their future threatened. At that point, there is the possibility that Chavismo itself would begin to crumble from within. Many have suggested that Chavismo without Chavez is possible due to the interwoven political and economic network of powerful individuals created over the last decade, and point to the perpetuation of Peronism in Argentina. While not out of the question, the deck seems to be squarely stacked against the Chavistas in Venezuela. The changes on the horizon appear to be dramatic and approaching Caracas quickly. Sunday’s election could mark the beginning of the end of a significant era in Venezuelan and Latin American history. But even if this is the last stand of Chavismo, it proves once again that the legacy of Hugo Chavez casts a very long shadow.
Michael W. Edghill has a BA in History from the University of North Texas, and currently teaches courses in U.S. Government and in Latin America & the Caribbean in Fort Worth, Texas. He has previously been published in the Yale Journal of International Affairs, International Policy Digest, and Caribbean Journal.
Photo: Prensa Miraflores/Hugo Chavez (cc).
