At the center of the Chávez Revolution we have a contradiction in terms. In democracies dissent is healthy, alternance the norm. In revolutions dissent is treason, alternance impossible. You can be democratic or you can be revolutionary. You can't be both.
The strategic ambiguity inherent to this oxymoron is unsustainable. Chavez has been particularly successful at maintaining the fiction that the two concepts can co-exist within a single political project. They can't.
