Quico says: As chavista radicalism escalates, and with no institutional checks left on the guy's power, the only brakes left on the damage this government might inflict are factual. Chief among them, of course, is the dicey issue of revenue: oil prices have been behaving in distinctly counter-revolutionary fashion lately, no doubt as the result of a CIA plot.
It's hard to tell at what point the slide becomes a real problem for Chávez. One upshot of the government's zero-transparency, zero-oversight management style is that we don't really know much about the state of the State's finances. Oversight of the official budget is weak enough, but the point is that more and more spending is carried out off-budget, through direct PDVSA spending, Fonden, and who knows how many other utterly opaque, slush-fundy vehicles for presidential discretion.
Since we don't really know how much the government has been spending, we can't really tell where its red line lies. Below what oil price does the government find itself forced to start cutting on sensitive spending programs? One well-informed guess I heard is $45/barrel. If so, things could get interesting, because Venezuela's export basket dropped to $44.50/barrel last week. That's still a lot, but then the government has been spending a lot as well.
So we may be getting uncomfortably close to some red lines. Seems like the government is advancing on two fronts to counter this one. On the one hand, they're working with Iran to press for yet more OPEC production cuts. If that doesn't work, they're getting ready to borrow the difference. The real Enabling Law, (as opposed to the one they published) includes a clause that would empower Fonden to borrow money without anyone's approval but Chávez's, and with the usual standard of financial oversight (zilch.)
But is Wall Street really going to pony up the cash for a guy who's off rambling about mass nationalizations and the Socialist New Man?
Stranger things have happened, I guess...
January 20, 2007
January 18, 2007
Lessons in XXIst Century Socialism
Katy says: Ever since his convincing victory at the polls last December, President Lt. Crnel. Chávez has been claiming a mandate for implementing "XXIst Century Socialism." The main problem with this claim is that nobody can define it. The President did not explain this in the campaign, and there is certainly not a government program nor a platform where the details of this little "adventure" are laid out.Since our President is not the smartest guy in the room, we here at Caracas Chronicles thought that it would be a good idea to begin a series of posts explaining this vague concept, so crucial for our future. Think of it as our way of doing the mandatory, free public service now required of all Venezuelans.
Lesson #1: XXIst Century Socialism means that the PR needs of our Commander-in-Chief, Lieutenant Coronel Chávez, take precedence over the real needs of his people.
Example: Today, the Associated Press carries a story of how rural Alaskans are finally receiving the discounted heating oil from Citgo offered to them by the Venezuelan government. Alaskans were obviously thrilled to receive this gimme, as would be anyone braving it through the harsh rural Alaskan winter. At the same time, El Universal carries a story today about how only 2 of the 11 parishes in Vargas state, in the vicinity of Caracas, have enough doctors to provide reliable medical service. The source is none other than the regional Health director for that state.
Seeing that people in Vargas voted for Chávez overwhelmingly, one can only deduce that the people not being treated are either in the opposition, or simply prefer to sacrifice their health care so that Alaskans can keep warm during this winter. So for all you Alaskans out there, remember: while you are enjoying your hot cocoa and snuggling in your blankets while the thermometer outside hits 50 below, your comfort comes to you thanks to the sacrifice of a small child in rural Vargas who is probably bauling his eyes out because there is not a pediatrician in sight to treat his diarrhea.
There is no need to thank the boy in person. Just thank the Venezuelan Embassy and Chávez's minions at Citgo, proud banner-holders of this popular mandate.
January 17, 2007
Superfluous Authoritarianism
Quico says:
Rule by decree.
There's something irreducibly brutal about the phrase, something about it that makes the flavor of authoritarianism linger in your mouth.
Ruling by decree is what originally got Chávez in trouble back in 2001, when he first showed his disdain for pluralism by dictating 49 laws he'd discussed only with his pillow. That episode will likely seem mild, though, compared to the veritable orgy of rule by decree Venezuela is facing now that Chávez has asked the National Assembly to give him The Mother of All Enabling Laws.
An Enabling Laws is an authorization the National Assembly grants the president to legislate by decree for a fixed period of time. Time was when Enabling Laws could be used only as a last-resort, and only on financial matters. Under the old constitution, they allowed the president to move fast in situations where a long debate in congress risked deepening a financial crisis. Heading off a currency collapse, fighting a wave of bank failures, that sort of thing.
In came Chávez, and out went the safeguards. The 1999 Constitution removed the caveat that Enabling Laws could be used on financial matters only. Henceforth, the National Assembly could empower the president to go over its head on any matter, for any period of time. Sweet, sweet discretion.
Last week, Chávez asked the all-chavista National Assembly to give him the power, for 18 months, to dictate the following types of laws by decree:
If approved, this Enabling Law will make Chávez a dictator. I don't mean that in some fuzzy, propagandistic way, I mean it in the original Roman sense of the term: an official legally empowered to do anything he wants without being accountable to anyone. Hell, at least the Romans were frank enough to call their dictators dictators, and had the common sense to give them unlimited powers for 6 months only. Chávez? He wants three times that.
However unprecedented, however broad, what's chilling is realizing that these new powers won't really make a difference.
After all, legislating by decree is a way of circumventing debate in the National Assembly...as if there was any! In the era of the all-Chavista Assembly, when Chávez barks "jump", all he hears in return is 167 voices in perfect unison asking: "how high?" You'd think that would be enough power for him...but you'd be wrong. No amount of power is enough for this guy.
What's shocking is how superfluous enabling powers have become. With or without them, there is no imaginable circumstance where the Assembly is likely to encumber or delay - much less alter or (gasp) reject - a presidential bill. What these guys do is read out the bill twice and vote it in unanimously, Mao style. Even so, the assembly's desultory, entirely pro-forma kind of authority turned out to be too great a check on his power for Chávez to accept.
But the tragedy goes even deeper than that. The notion of legislating at all has become weirdly senseless in Venezuela given the current climate. With all oversight institutions, all courts, all prosecutions, in fact, the entire state system run by Chávez yes-men, the government long ago lost any incentive to pay attention to laws in the first place. And they don't...
So it just makes you want to take these guys aside and ask them, why bother writing new ones? The ink won't be dry on the Gaceta by the time you start breaking them, and we already know there will be no consequences. What's the point?
Why bother amending the constitution to legalize things you've been doing for years, like raiding the Central Bank Reserves? Even as you tacitly admit that what you've been doing was unconstitutional - otherwise, why change the constitution to allow it? - we can all see that you don't actually care. If you did, you'd sanction the people responsible for past violations. (But, of course, that would include el máximo, so you don't.)
If you're so determined to flaunt your power to break the law without consequences, just do it and be done with it. One thing's good and clear by now: we can't stop you. But why waste everybody's time decreeing new laws you'll flout just as shamelessly as you flouted the old ones? What kind of sick game are we playing here? What's the point of this dadaist charade?
Rule by decree.
There's something irreducibly brutal about the phrase, something about it that makes the flavor of authoritarianism linger in your mouth.
Ruling by decree is what originally got Chávez in trouble back in 2001, when he first showed his disdain for pluralism by dictating 49 laws he'd discussed only with his pillow. That episode will likely seem mild, though, compared to the veritable orgy of rule by decree Venezuela is facing now that Chávez has asked the National Assembly to give him The Mother of All Enabling Laws.
An Enabling Laws is an authorization the National Assembly grants the president to legislate by decree for a fixed period of time. Time was when Enabling Laws could be used only as a last-resort, and only on financial matters. Under the old constitution, they allowed the president to move fast in situations where a long debate in congress risked deepening a financial crisis. Heading off a currency collapse, fighting a wave of bank failures, that sort of thing.
In came Chávez, and out went the safeguards. The 1999 Constitution removed the caveat that Enabling Laws could be used on financial matters only. Henceforth, the National Assembly could empower the president to go over its head on any matter, for any period of time. Sweet, sweet discretion.
Last week, Chávez asked the all-chavista National Assembly to give him the power, for 18 months, to dictate the following types of laws by decree:
- Laws to accomplish the transformation of the institutions of the State.
- Laws to establish mechanisms of popular participation.
- Laws to establish the essential values that will guide public service.
- Laws dealing with social and economic issues.
- Laws dealing with financial and tax-related issues, including the Central Bank Law.
- Laws dealing with the personal and judicial security of Venezuelans.
- Laws dealing with science and technology issues.
- Laws dealing with the way the country's territory is organized.
- Laws dealing with the security and defense of the nation and the State.
- Laws dealing with infrastructure, transportation and services.
If approved, this Enabling Law will make Chávez a dictator. I don't mean that in some fuzzy, propagandistic way, I mean it in the original Roman sense of the term: an official legally empowered to do anything he wants without being accountable to anyone. Hell, at least the Romans were frank enough to call their dictators dictators, and had the common sense to give them unlimited powers for 6 months only. Chávez? He wants three times that.However unprecedented, however broad, what's chilling is realizing that these new powers won't really make a difference.
After all, legislating by decree is a way of circumventing debate in the National Assembly...as if there was any! In the era of the all-Chavista Assembly, when Chávez barks "jump", all he hears in return is 167 voices in perfect unison asking: "how high?" You'd think that would be enough power for him...but you'd be wrong. No amount of power is enough for this guy.
What's shocking is how superfluous enabling powers have become. With or without them, there is no imaginable circumstance where the Assembly is likely to encumber or delay - much less alter or (gasp) reject - a presidential bill. What these guys do is read out the bill twice and vote it in unanimously, Mao style. Even so, the assembly's desultory, entirely pro-forma kind of authority turned out to be too great a check on his power for Chávez to accept.
But the tragedy goes even deeper than that. The notion of legislating at all has become weirdly senseless in Venezuela given the current climate. With all oversight institutions, all courts, all prosecutions, in fact, the entire state system run by Chávez yes-men, the government long ago lost any incentive to pay attention to laws in the first place. And they don't...So it just makes you want to take these guys aside and ask them, why bother writing new ones? The ink won't be dry on the Gaceta by the time you start breaking them, and we already know there will be no consequences. What's the point?
Why bother amending the constitution to legalize things you've been doing for years, like raiding the Central Bank Reserves? Even as you tacitly admit that what you've been doing was unconstitutional - otherwise, why change the constitution to allow it? - we can all see that you don't actually care. If you did, you'd sanction the people responsible for past violations. (But, of course, that would include el máximo, so you don't.)
If you're so determined to flaunt your power to break the law without consequences, just do it and be done with it. One thing's good and clear by now: we can't stop you. But why waste everybody's time decreeing new laws you'll flout just as shamelessly as you flouted the old ones? What kind of sick game are we playing here? What's the point of this dadaist charade?
January 16, 2007
Rage against the machine
Katy says: One thing I learned during the past year is that writing regularly can be a chore. The best posts are the ones that combine insight, common sense and plain old human emotion. But it's not always easy to tap into that emotion, what with all those bills that need to be paid and diapers waiting to be to changed.This is my first post of the new year. It's been a long time coming, but my problem during the last few days has not been lack of inspiration, but rather an inability to channel the state of mind that I equate with good writing: one leading to reasoning, patience, tolerance. I'm filled with rage, and usually I don't like coming across as angry.
The expression of rage is usually identified with animal behavior, but it is also deeply human. We're taught us to shun and repress rage, but a total lack of rage can be dehumanizing. At times, it's best to just let it rip, and there's certainly lots to be angry about lately.
The incompetents at the top have made a decided shift into stupidity, and we are all along for the ride. While the memories of CANTV's horrible service during the 70s and 80s are still fresh in my mind, the government ignores this and decides to purchase the telecoms industry from private investors that had, with caveats, done a fine job in bringing it into the XXIst Century. The argument? "Strategic" reasons, whatever that may mean in the "minds" of the failed soldiers that govern us.
I mean, think about it. Thirty years ago, you could've made a reasonable case that Telecoms was a strategic sector. Old style telecoms were a "natural monopoly" - there was no sense in laying out more than one expensive national network of wires connecting every home and office in the country. And if you wanted to communicate electronically, the phone was your first and your last option.
That was then. Today, we have four national mobile telephony operators, satellite phones, voice-over-IP, internet, internet-via-satellite, internet-via-cable-TV, Cable-TV-via-internet, Skype, etc. etc. etc. CANTV long ago ceased to be a monopolist, long ago ceased to be strategic. These days, it is just the biggest company in a crowded, fiercely competitive market. Head firmly planted in the sand, the government just ignores all that and waves its hands around shouting "strategic! strategic!" End of the argument.
There are even fewer reasons to privatize the electricity sector. While most of it is state-owned, the government has never really had a beef with allowing Electricidad de Caracas to operate as a private business. The only conceivable calculus behind these secret strategic reasons - which include the nationalization of all the extraction and refining activities in the Orinoco Tar Belt - has to do with the strategic interests the government's cronies have in lining their pockets.
Perhaps Jorge Rodríguez strategically wants more expensive cars, more houses in Margarita or yet another condo in Caracas' poshest neighborhood. Perhaps Oil Minister Ramírez and his family - including his brother-in-law, who is rumoured to have become somewhat of a "toll booth" in Venezuela's gas "business", an industry where millions of dollars are traded but not a single dollar of export revenue is produced - strategically need even more discretionary control over the oil and gas industry.
Meanwhile, Lieutenant Coronel Chávez insults our intelligence by claiming that nobody in the opposition is worth talking to because we don't reason, because we don't provide constructive criticism. If Chávez had enjoyed the benefits of formal university education, if he were anything more than a stupid "cadetico", this wouldn't ring so hollow. What "argument" can be made when Telecoms Minister Chacón (another "cadetico") says that the reason behind CANTV's nationalization is to make sure rural areas get more phone coverage?This point is so dimwitted it's not even worth debating. Apparently, the Military "Academy" didn't teach "Tenientico" that there are any number of ways of regulating an industry to get it to do what you want. If it's rural services you need, there are plenty of incentives you can provide a company so that it does just that, if it doesn't, there are plenty of ways you can sanction it. However, there is some doubt about rural areas even needing fixed-line service, given how widespread wireless technology has become. Fixed-line telephony has been leap-frogged in rural Venezuela.
The CANTV nationalization scheme (where fat-cat corporate America will be paid handsomely for their shares while small Venezuelan shareholders are fleeced) is part of an ideological drive to turn us into another Cuba, something that is now looking more certain than ever. And while Tenientico Chávez would have certainly preferred to raid CANTV and tear-gas its executives, he decided to "buy them off" for fear of reprisals, lest a US Court confiscate Hugo's assets in the U.S. such as Citgo and the refineries on the Gulf Coast. The same story goes with AES, foreign owners of a big chunk of Electricidad de Caracas, who will probably be paid off handsomely while thousands of small Venezuelan investors lose their money as share prices plunge.
The RCTV case is even more pathetic. Chávez claims that he doesn't hear intelligent arguments from the other side of the aisle, but how can you provide an intelligent argument against a decision that has no logic? Whatever RCTV's sins may or may not have been, the proper place to vent those is a court of law. The RCTV case is pure censorship. Anybody supporting this move is supporting censorship and is therefore not a democrat - end of story, end of argument.
The opposition has also been showing signs of being comprised of stupid, short-sighted politicians. While Manuel Rosales went for a holiday in Miami (crikey!), the Primero Justicia gang is engaged in a fratricidal war that leaves nobody unscathed. While the country makes a decided turn towards radicalism, opposition leaders play into the hands of the government by taking their eyes off the ball. Instead of focusing on Venezuelans' many needs - housing, personal safety, jobs, economic stability - they're letting the government set the agenda...again!
So while Mr. Chávez bemoans the fact that nobody in the country is on par with his enormous intellect (the lieutenant-colonel has no clothes indeed), he proposes half-brained, stupid ideas such as setting up a common South American currency, building 200,000 homes in Nicaragua or giving Constitutional status to his regular raids on the Central Bank's vaults (Mobutu Sese Seko would have had trouble topping that last one). And while Venezuelans in the slums die by the thousands in a virtual civil war, the government does nothing and names its most cerebrally-challenged "cadetico" to the post of Minister of Interior.
In the meantime, The Guardian profile foreign sandalistas who visit Venezuela's barrios in propaganda tours and come back singing the praises of Chavez because in the slums, one hears Bach on the streets. Perhaps Bach is the best music to drown down the sounds of gunshots...
Arguing with the dim-witted can be exhausting, but I guess it should be done, and we will probably come back to our reasonable selves and try to make some sense of this mess in a purely logical, measured fashion. "El año viejo" didn't leave me an old jenny nor a white mare, but it did open my eyes to just how stupid Chávez is. Oh, don't get me wrong, I am not under-estimating him: he is shrewd, calculating, malicious and has a great tactical mind. He is also very popular and a great communicator. But he is dumb as a rock. He is basically an electoral machine with nothing in his head, and today, against that, I don't have reason, I have rage.
The "Godzilla" Chávez cartoon courtesy of www.coxandforkum.com.
January 13, 2007
Chávez Unchained
Quico says: After all the dread, after the slow, protracted, build-up of the last eight years, the denouement that began this week comes almost as a relief. Finally, after all the smoke and mirrors of the "transition period," the government finds itself with no reasons to hold back anymore. With power centralized absolutely, with no more institutional restraints in place, without even a looming election to impose a modicum of caution, we finally get to see chavismo the way Chávez wanted it all along: free to implement all of his utopian fantasies with utter, gleeful abandon.
On the one hand, yes, it's true. We're utterly, utterly screwed. All of the barely concealed autocratic tendencies that have been building up since 1999 have bloomed into a no-longer-really-hidden authoritarianism. The transition to autocracy is now complete; the delirious utopianism of our new governing class has nothing to hold it back anymore. Those of us who dissent have exactly zero cards left to play. Our dissent makes us enemies of the state, and the state no longer has any reason to cut its enemies any slack. After all, 63% of Venezuelans have voted for a government that openly sees the remaining 37% as enemies. Any objections we raise will be dismissed, at best - at worst, our elected dictatorship will turn them against us, use them as evidence of our treason.
On the other hand, it's been clear that this moment was coming, and it's been years since we've had a realistic prospect of avoiding it. We all knew that it was going to happen. At least the dread of the wait is pretty much over. At least we're finally finding out how far Chavez was really planning to go. At last the government realizes the time has come to show its hand. By the end of this year, we'll know how much space for independent action we'll really be allowed. It's not pretty. But, with Chávez unchained, we'll at least get a degree of certainty about what the country will be like for the duration of his rule.
We can take comfort - minor comfort - from the fact that, with oil prices now dropping to still-high-but-no-longer-quite-stratospheric levels, the government will at least have to face some resource constraints in implementing its delirium. And we can be assured that when the chickens come home to roost, it'll be clear to everyone whose home they're going back to.
Still, there is no sugar-coating it: with an extremist autocrat fully in control of every instrument of power, the next few years will be very dark ones for our country.
On the one hand, yes, it's true. We're utterly, utterly screwed. All of the barely concealed autocratic tendencies that have been building up since 1999 have bloomed into a no-longer-really-hidden authoritarianism. The transition to autocracy is now complete; the delirious utopianism of our new governing class has nothing to hold it back anymore. Those of us who dissent have exactly zero cards left to play. Our dissent makes us enemies of the state, and the state no longer has any reason to cut its enemies any slack. After all, 63% of Venezuelans have voted for a government that openly sees the remaining 37% as enemies. Any objections we raise will be dismissed, at best - at worst, our elected dictatorship will turn them against us, use them as evidence of our treason.
On the other hand, it's been clear that this moment was coming, and it's been years since we've had a realistic prospect of avoiding it. We all knew that it was going to happen. At least the dread of the wait is pretty much over. At least we're finally finding out how far Chavez was really planning to go. At last the government realizes the time has come to show its hand. By the end of this year, we'll know how much space for independent action we'll really be allowed. It's not pretty. But, with Chávez unchained, we'll at least get a degree of certainty about what the country will be like for the duration of his rule.
We can take comfort - minor comfort - from the fact that, with oil prices now dropping to still-high-but-no-longer-quite-stratospheric levels, the government will at least have to face some resource constraints in implementing its delirium. And we can be assured that when the chickens come home to roost, it'll be clear to everyone whose home they're going back to.
Still, there is no sugar-coating it: with an extremist autocrat fully in control of every instrument of power, the next few years will be very dark ones for our country.
January 10, 2007
The Limits of Economic Analysis
Quico says: Don't miss this provocative article by Francisco Rodríguez in the current Foreign Policy. Key graf:
And, to me, it's the most interesting part of the story.
After all: did Caldera and Alfaro Ucero get any credit for the fall in poverty rates Rodríguez cites in 1996-98?
The most commonly cited statistic in defense of the Chávez-helps-the-poor hypothesis is the decrease in poverty rates, from 42.8 percent when he took office in 1999 to 33.9 percent in 2006. But this decrease is neither unprecedented nor surprising, given that the Venezuelan economy is in the midst of an economic expansion fueled by a five-fold increase in global oil prices since his first term began. Historically, drastic declines in poverty in Venezuela are associated with periods of substantial real exchange appreciation similar to the current one. The last such episode, which lasted from 1996 to 1998, coincided with an even larger decline in the poverty rate, from 64.3 percent to 43.9 percent. The fact that Venezuela is presently running a fiscal deficit despite unprecedented global oil prices signals that the current improvement, just like previous ones, will sooner or later be reversed.I find it oddly reassuring that somebody is doing this kind of work, and doing it competently, despite all the obstacles. But I do think the piece shows the limits of economic analysis. Whether or not Chávez's policies have actually helped the poor, what's relevant is that the poor attribute the improvement in their living standards to what Chavez has done. That's a fundamentally political fact based on a series of complex cultural phenomena: no amount of economic data is likely to clarify it.
And, to me, it's the most interesting part of the story.
After all: did Caldera and Alfaro Ucero get any credit for the fall in poverty rates Rodríguez cites in 1996-98?
January 9, 2007
Way Back Socialism
Quico says: So, it has started. With his vow to nationalize CANTV and the electricity sector, Chavez has finally put some meat on the bones of "21st Century Socialism." At first sight, it looks suspiciously like the 20th Century kind - the move will, no doubt, confirm many people's fears that chavismo is just lightly (and ever less) disguised Marxism. Tactical dissembling in the transition period notwithstanding, this latest move makes it easy to conclude that "socializing the means of production" is what this exercise was all about.
For my money, though, calling Chávez a Marxist is a vile slur...on Marxists.
However wrong his theories might have been, you can't help but admit that Marx at least had some. Theories in the sense of carefully worked out understandings of the way society works, coherent takes on how exploitation happens and a cogently reasoned set of prescriptions for how to overcome it.
"Scientific socialism" is what Marx called it. Enlightenment rationalism adapted to sustain far left views. Marx developed this style of theorizing in direct and conscious contrast to Utopian Socialism - that wooly gaggle of disjointed plans, fond hopes and pious ideals lacking any systematicity that dominated far-left theorizing before he came along. Promising an earthly paradise once the evils of individualism and greed had been banished from the earth, Utopian Socialism was based on a visceral rejection of capitalist aesthetics, of the motivations that underpin capitalists as they go about their business.
Even more than a critique of capitalism (which Marx avowedly admired), Marxist thought took aim at the pajuatadas of the Utopian Socialists. Marx insisted that socialists had better ask themselves some tough questions about the nature of the problems society faced and work to answer them in a way that made sense. A vague nausea, a feeling of disgust at the greed of the greedy and the money of the moneyed could not serve as a solid basis for an alternative system of human government. In order to succeed, socialism had to make sense in the realm of ideas, to give convincing answers to the great over-arching questions of life in modern society.
For me, it's clear that 21st Century Socialism is a throwback - but not just a throwback to the 1960s, or to the Bolshevik Era, or even to 19th Century Marxism. It's a throwback to the first decades of the 1800s, all the way back to an era before Marxism dominated socialist thought, to a time before socialists were rationalists.
Think about Sunday's announcement. Chavez decides to nationalize two key areas of the Venezuelan economy. But why? Based on what view of what ails society? With the aim of achieving what?
The answers, I think, are basically aesthetic in nature. For Chavez, the problem with private ownership of telecoms and electricity is that it's ugly. It rubs him the wrong way. It brings up images of gringo yuppies trading CANTV ADRs in expensive suits on the floor off the NYSE. It leaves important parts of the economy in the hands of people he doesn't like motivated by feelings that disgust him. In that sense, nationalization is an aesthetic necessity. And it's on that basis that he's moving ahead.
Chavez doesn't propose a systematic view of the nature of capitalist oppression. He doesn't even try to situate his decision in a coherent overall view of what is wrong with the way society is now, how he intends to make it better, and what role these nationalizations will play in getting us from where we are to where we want to be. This kind of hard-nosed analysis is entirely alien to chavismo, which instead delights in parading its disdain for hard questions, flaunting its deep intellectual poverty.
Of course, when you proceed that way, some questions you might think relevant are just never asked...let alone answered. Will phone users get a better service? Will the lights stay on? How can the state guarantee that, once they're nationalized, these companies will sustain a level of investment appropriate to the needs of the user base? Who cares!
And, then, there's the money question: will nationalized telecoms and utilities produce services that are of greater value than the resources they consume to produce them? If they don't, which other parts of the public sector will be shortchanged to cover the shortfalls? If they do, then what's the point of nationalizing them?
For my money, though, calling Chávez a Marxist is a vile slur...on Marxists.
However wrong his theories might have been, you can't help but admit that Marx at least had some. Theories in the sense of carefully worked out understandings of the way society works, coherent takes on how exploitation happens and a cogently reasoned set of prescriptions for how to overcome it.
"Scientific socialism" is what Marx called it. Enlightenment rationalism adapted to sustain far left views. Marx developed this style of theorizing in direct and conscious contrast to Utopian Socialism - that wooly gaggle of disjointed plans, fond hopes and pious ideals lacking any systematicity that dominated far-left theorizing before he came along. Promising an earthly paradise once the evils of individualism and greed had been banished from the earth, Utopian Socialism was based on a visceral rejection of capitalist aesthetics, of the motivations that underpin capitalists as they go about their business.
Even more than a critique of capitalism (which Marx avowedly admired), Marxist thought took aim at the pajuatadas of the Utopian Socialists. Marx insisted that socialists had better ask themselves some tough questions about the nature of the problems society faced and work to answer them in a way that made sense. A vague nausea, a feeling of disgust at the greed of the greedy and the money of the moneyed could not serve as a solid basis for an alternative system of human government. In order to succeed, socialism had to make sense in the realm of ideas, to give convincing answers to the great over-arching questions of life in modern society.
For me, it's clear that 21st Century Socialism is a throwback - but not just a throwback to the 1960s, or to the Bolshevik Era, or even to 19th Century Marxism. It's a throwback to the first decades of the 1800s, all the way back to an era before Marxism dominated socialist thought, to a time before socialists were rationalists.
Think about Sunday's announcement. Chavez decides to nationalize two key areas of the Venezuelan economy. But why? Based on what view of what ails society? With the aim of achieving what?
The answers, I think, are basically aesthetic in nature. For Chavez, the problem with private ownership of telecoms and electricity is that it's ugly. It rubs him the wrong way. It brings up images of gringo yuppies trading CANTV ADRs in expensive suits on the floor off the NYSE. It leaves important parts of the economy in the hands of people he doesn't like motivated by feelings that disgust him. In that sense, nationalization is an aesthetic necessity. And it's on that basis that he's moving ahead.
Chavez doesn't propose a systematic view of the nature of capitalist oppression. He doesn't even try to situate his decision in a coherent overall view of what is wrong with the way society is now, how he intends to make it better, and what role these nationalizations will play in getting us from where we are to where we want to be. This kind of hard-nosed analysis is entirely alien to chavismo, which instead delights in parading its disdain for hard questions, flaunting its deep intellectual poverty.
Of course, when you proceed that way, some questions you might think relevant are just never asked...let alone answered. Will phone users get a better service? Will the lights stay on? How can the state guarantee that, once they're nationalized, these companies will sustain a level of investment appropriate to the needs of the user base? Who cares!
And, then, there's the money question: will nationalized telecoms and utilities produce services that are of greater value than the resources they consume to produce them? If they don't, which other parts of the public sector will be shortchanged to cover the shortfalls? If they do, then what's the point of nationalizing them?
January 6, 2007
José Vicente Rangel's Legacy, cont.
Quico says: Thinking through JVR's exit from the vice-presidency (cuz, lets be real, that's the only part of the cabinet shake-up that matters) I was reminded of an annecdote I heard from a fellow journo in Caracas back in 2003. The guy had to go cover a press conference at the Vice-presidency, but of course those were the days of the daily mini-riot downtown, as government hoodlums took pock-shots at the then oppo-mayor of Caracas offices and Metropolitan cops tried to hold them back with water cannon and tear gas.That afternoon, my friend emerges from the metro at Capitolio station to find the by then routine scene. He zigzags past the nervous looking cops and scurries through the Esquina Caliente crowd, wading through a cloud of tear gas on his way into the press conference at the Casa Amarilla.
By the time he gets in, my friend and a bunch of his colleagues are a coughing, wheezing mess of tears and blood shot eyes. Shoving a microphone in front of his face, they ask Rangel for a comment on the circus just outside his door.
Rangel stops and gives them that look of his - if you've ever seen it, you know the look I'm talking about, that smug glare brimming with contempt and boredom and schadenfreude all rolled up into one - then says,
"Riot? outside? I don't know why the media insists on inventing these stories. It's a fabrication, this allegation, part of a plan to destabilize the government, part of the media coup. Everything is calm in the center of Caracas."
I remember the look of sheer arrechera on my friend's eyes as he told the story.
"I swear, my eyes were still bloodshot as he said this. Some journos were still coughing from the gas, we could still hear the hubbub just outside. And there I was, holding a mike inches from the guy's face. It took every bit of willpower in my body to restrain myself from just clocking him upside the head with it."
That, dear reader, was José Vicente Rangel. That was his modus operandi: untrammeled contempt for his former profession, barely concealed delight at the way power allowed him to piss all over the truth, to flaunt his ability to lie and lie again, ever more outrageously, without anyone being able to hold him to account for it. And, of course, never happier than when he is in full frontal provocation mode.
A sick, sick fuck Rangel is. A caso clínico.
And now, for better or for worse, he's out.
How come? Well, one (typically unverifiable) rumor making the rounds these days is that José Vicente Rangel was fired for opposing the move to shut down RCTV. If true, it signals that the guy was Miquilenized - dumped for confusing means with ends.
Miquilena was Chávez's point man for taking the country from representative democracy into a "revolutionary process." The guy's old-regime know how was invaluable in maintaining stability as Chavez began the process of breaking down the old political system. As soon as his relative moderation came into conflict with Chavez's more radical vision, he was dumped. Could it be that the same thing has happened to Rangel?
It seems likely. Rangel appears to have been the mastermind behind Chávez's brand of "Goldilocks Authoritarianism" - not so hot as to place the government entirely beyond the pale in international circles; not so cold as to leave any truly meaningful avenues for dissent open. Harrassing opposition journalists and media without quite shutting them down was a classic Rangelista stance. Choosing to shut down the station - and facing the international heat such a measure would generate - seems to break with the Goldilocks Authoritarianism strategy.
Miquilena was suckered into believing Chávez valued his moderation in itself - in fact, Chávez merely used it as a means to the end of launching the "revolutionary process." JVR may have thought Chávez valued Goldilocks Authoritarianism in itself - but it now looks like it, too, was a means to an end: transitioning from "revolutionary process" to "revolution" plain and simple.
It may be that, in time, we'll come to see JVR's rampant cynicism with something akin to nostalgia, that we'll come to remember him as a moderating figure once no such figures are left in Chávez's entourage. Or it could be that Jorge Rodríguez will seek to pick up where his mentor left off.
Then again, JVR's exit could bring the end of chavismo's maddening duplicity. Because, yes, JVR was a sick fuck - but he was a calculating sick fuck. An influential one, and - lets face it, a kind of genius at the game he played. Without him around, we're left in the hands, basically, of mindless sick fucks - or, at best, influenceless sick fucks.
As "revolutionary process" turns into revolution, the smoke and mirrors involved in maintaining an appearance of democracy may abate. With all institutional restraints removed, all key institutions (self-)purged, state coffers bulging and even the TV airwaves in on the game, we'll see chavismo as Chávez had always wanted it: impetuous, utopian, aggressive, unchallenged.
Ay papá...
January 5, 2007
Exit the prince of darkness, enter his protege
Quico says: Well, the new year is here, and with it a classic Chavez mixed message. On the one hand, we can only celebrate the exit from high office of Vice-president José Vicente Rangel, possibly the only regime figure able to give Chavez himself a run for his money in the opposition loathing stakes. It's difficult to overstate the influence JVR has had in Venezuela in the last five years, and nearly as hard to overstate how insidious that influence has been. Essentially, his has been the only voice outside Havana Chavez has actually listened to since 2002. A man of deep cunning and flat-out pathological perversity, Rangel was the mastermind of Chavez's unique brand of Goldilocks authoritarianism: not-so-hot as to call forth unambiguous international repudiation, not-so-cold as to allow for any meaningful avenues of dissent.
Rangel's "achievements" were considerable. His was the brain behind the Chavez-Los-Tiene-Locos strategy. He was the man with the unique political foresight to bait every key section of the opposition (dissident military officers, PDVSA managers, and eventually every last one of our parliamentary representatives) into saving Chavez the trouble of purging them by getting them to purge themselves. For eight years he's been baiting us, for eight years we've been falling for it. He's beat us up one side of the street and down the other time and time again, and I for one am genuinely relieved to see the back of him. Thank god.
Nobody, I would argue, could really fill JVR's shockingly Macchiavellian shoes. The one regime operative who comes closest is, predictably enough, the one who got the nod. Jorge Rodriguez got his start in chavista lackeying as Rangel's protege, which tells you nearly as much as you need to know about him. A psychiatrist in the same sense Mengele was a doctor, Rodríguez cut his teeth running the electoral arm of the Chavez-los-tiene-locos strategy with sublime effectiveness. Certainly a member of the top five as far as toxic regime personalities go, Rodríguez in the vicepresidency will be no bed of roses. I'm confident, though, that nobody but nobody could match Rangel's evil genius. One for the record books, really.
Also note: From this month, JayDee is moving on to bigger and better things - I for one will miss this contribution. Also note that this blog will run without a comments section for at least a trial period. This has been a tough decision to take, but one made necessary by the totally unwieldy amount of time needed to patrol the comments section: none of you seem to believe it, but Katy and I really do have day jobs.
If you have a comment you really need to get off your chest, you can send us email.
Rangel's "achievements" were considerable. His was the brain behind the Chavez-Los-Tiene-Locos strategy. He was the man with the unique political foresight to bait every key section of the opposition (dissident military officers, PDVSA managers, and eventually every last one of our parliamentary representatives) into saving Chavez the trouble of purging them by getting them to purge themselves. For eight years he's been baiting us, for eight years we've been falling for it. He's beat us up one side of the street and down the other time and time again, and I for one am genuinely relieved to see the back of him. Thank god.
Nobody, I would argue, could really fill JVR's shockingly Macchiavellian shoes. The one regime operative who comes closest is, predictably enough, the one who got the nod. Jorge Rodriguez got his start in chavista lackeying as Rangel's protege, which tells you nearly as much as you need to know about him. A psychiatrist in the same sense Mengele was a doctor, Rodríguez cut his teeth running the electoral arm of the Chavez-los-tiene-locos strategy with sublime effectiveness. Certainly a member of the top five as far as toxic regime personalities go, Rodríguez in the vicepresidency will be no bed of roses. I'm confident, though, that nobody but nobody could match Rangel's evil genius. One for the record books, really.Also note: From this month, JayDee is moving on to bigger and better things - I for one will miss this contribution. Also note that this blog will run without a comments section for at least a trial period. This has been a tough decision to take, but one made necessary by the totally unwieldy amount of time needed to patrol the comments section: none of you seem to believe it, but Katy and I really do have day jobs.
If you have a comment you really need to get off your chest, you can send us email.
December 31, 2006
The Year in Review
Katy and Quico says:January
The first post of the year was about Chávez's decision to name Jorge Rodríguez Vice-president, shunting legendary evil genius José Vicente Rangel to the side. At the time, I mused,
It may be that, in time, we'll come to see JVR's rampant cynicism with something akin to nostalgia, that we'll come to remember him as a moderating figure once no such figures are left in Chávez's entourage.Emboldened by his decisive victory in the previous month's presidential election, Chávez was at the height of his power and ambition, unchained:
With power centralized absolutely, with no more institutional restraints in place, without even a looming election to impose a modicum of caution, we finally get to see chavismo the way Chávez wanted it all along: free to implement all of his utopian fantasies with utter, gleeful abandon.Straight away, Chávez pledged to nationalize the power and telephone companies, though, as I noted at the time, he never really told us why that was a good idea. He asked the National Assembly the power to rule by decree on pretty much all major aspects of national life. And, of course, to suspend RCTV's broadcasting license.
Towards the end of the month, Katy flipped out over a badly misjudged BBC photo essay.
February
Greater Caracas Mayor kicked things off with one of the crazier attempts to suck up to Chávez we'd seen all year.Continuing with the surrealist theme, Central Bank director Domingo Maza Zavala told us he had no idea how much money the state was spending.
Quico then started boring readers with the first
of several philosophically minded posts on the role of deliberations in democratic decisionmaking. Zzzzzzzz...
It was around that time that TalCual was fined for publishing a front page editorial that alledgedly violated Rosinés Chávez's childhood privacy, and Quico urged readers to send in their donations to h
elp cover the fine.The next day, Al Qaeda said the way to fight the US empire was to attack facilities supplying oil to the US, wherever they may be found. Chavismo called it - wait for it - a CIA conspiracy.
The following week, Katy passionately defended Primero Justicia after a set of high profile defections to Un Nuevo Tiempo.
On February 28th, 18 years after the sadly famous Caracazo, Katy noted that too many of the military men responsible for the massacres are now in the upper echelons of chavista power.
December 11, 2006
Leaving the light on
The past year has been a busy one. The opposition gained in a loss, while the revolution plowed through yet another election. President Chávez became a tropical version of Santa Claus, while crowds at home and abroad enjoyed the seemingly limitless bounty flowing from both his wallet and his tongue.
Latin America saw a string of elections, leaving us wondering whether the people had finally stood up or rather they had sowed the seeds of their own downfall. Our CNE finally gained a bit of credibility, while PDVSA and the Viaducto sunk to new lows. We fought over polls, candidates, comedians and communication strategies, and we scolded some of our readers, even censoring a few of their comments. All in all, we hope it's been as fun for you as it was for us.
No one knows what the future holds for our country. During the past few days, many have decided to throw in the towel, making plans to embark on that lonely journey called exile. For them, a simple message: Venezuela is a mess, but it's our mess, and once you don't have that, you miss it badly. So whatever reasons you may have for packing your stuff and venturing out into the real world, make sure they are potent and be prepared to suffer serious nostalgia. And be ready to start paying for gas.
"Last one to leave turn off the light," goes the saying. On behalf of Quico, JayDee and myself, a pledge that we will keep the light on and that, starting the first week of January, we will be back with our batteries charged, ready to continue fighting the good fight.
Quico adds: Before signing off for the year, I want to thank Katy profusely for her help over this last year. Patient where I'm headstrong, alert to stories I would've just missed, unremittingly clear headed and allergic to BS, she has made an enormous contribution to Caracas Chronicles. Thanks! I have no idea how I once managed without you.
December 10, 2006
Santiago Chronicles
Katy says: Santiago on a Sunday is an unusually subdued place, boring even. One of my first shocks upon moving here was hopping over to the Restaurant district of El Bosque Norte on a Sunday for lunch and finding restaurants empty or, in some cases, closed. The contrast to the hustle and bustle of Las Mercedes on a Sunday was startling.
This being a long weekend, the city was even more subdued, until the news came out: former dictator Augusto Pinochet had died. I decided to step out to the places where each side was gathering, to mingle with Chileans and try to grasp what this meant for a divided country.
In a city of six million people, the man's death left no one indifferent.
My first stop: Plaza Italia, meeting place of those celebrating the dictator's death.
The place was brimming with cops, and the mood was festive. A huge banner advertising Andres Bello University made me feel a little less out of place, even though I was the only one there carrying an eighteen-month old toddler.
Several banners made sure I knew not everyone there felt happy about the man's death. The first reads "Death defeats justice", while the second pair claims for divine justice and says that "El tata", as his supporters used to call him, is now playing poker with Hitler in hell.
A woman curiously resembling Pres. Michelle Bachelet was so happy that she took her top off and started dancing in the streets in jubilation. Well, at least her bra was black.
As I inmersed myself into the crowd, the signs got more rustic and more raw.
I was not surprised to find among the many flags being waved, my own Venezuelan tri-color, or at least what used to be my flag with the seven stars. We have definitely become part of the landscape of the Latin American left.
I had never witnessed street celebrations for a person's death. And while the mood was contagious, the common presence of Ché Guevara T-shirts and hammer-and-sickle flags made me question the commitment to human rights of many in the crowd.
I took this parting shot of the crowd, with the San Cristóbal mountain's statue of the Virgin Mary in the background, as if imploring "Can't we all just get along?"
I drove a few miles to the East to the Military Hospital, where the General had died a few hours earlier. The crowd there was equally numerous and equally enthusiastic, chanting military songs mixed with anti-communist and anti-Bachelet cheers.
The women in the crowd showed a special fondness for the General, coming out in droves with military headgear and pictures of Pinochet accompanied by small children. It reminded me of other pictures of military strongmen appearing alongside children to soften their image.
As I drove home, I glanced at the modern office buildings in the El Golf neighborhood, with the Ritz Carlton hotel in the foreground.
These gleaming monuments to Chile's dynamic economy stood in sharp contrast to the reminders of Chile's painful past that I had witnessed just a few kilometers down the road.
One city, torn apart by the actions of politicians and men in uniform. The wounds are still open in this divided country, and the passing of one man will do little to heal them.
During the course of the afternoon, my baby girl drew coos of admiration from rabid Pinochet supporters and from communist pasionarias. And even though she experienced the smell of marijuana for the first time in the anti-Pinochet rally, I'm glad I brought her along. Her bright-eyed innocence made me wish for a world without military strongmen, without divisiveness. My hope is that when she is older, both Venezuela and Chile - her native countries - will each be able to stand as a single nation.
This being a long weekend, the city was even more subdued, until the news came out: former dictator Augusto Pinochet had died. I decided to step out to the places where each side was gathering, to mingle with Chileans and try to grasp what this meant for a divided country.
In a city of six million people, the man's death left no one indifferent.
My first stop: Plaza Italia, meeting place of those celebrating the dictator's death.
The place was brimming with cops, and the mood was festive. A huge banner advertising Andres Bello University made me feel a little less out of place, even though I was the only one there carrying an eighteen-month old toddler.
Several banners made sure I knew not everyone there felt happy about the man's death. The first reads "Death defeats justice", while the second pair claims for divine justice and says that "El tata", as his supporters used to call him, is now playing poker with Hitler in hell.
A woman curiously resembling Pres. Michelle Bachelet was so happy that she took her top off and started dancing in the streets in jubilation. Well, at least her bra was black.
As I inmersed myself into the crowd, the signs got more rustic and more raw.
I was not surprised to find among the many flags being waved, my own Venezuelan tri-color, or at least what used to be my flag with the seven stars. We have definitely become part of the landscape of the Latin American left.
I had never witnessed street celebrations for a person's death. And while the mood was contagious, the common presence of Ché Guevara T-shirts and hammer-and-sickle flags made me question the commitment to human rights of many in the crowd.
I took this parting shot of the crowd, with the San Cristóbal mountain's statue of the Virgin Mary in the background, as if imploring "Can't we all just get along?"
I drove a few miles to the East to the Military Hospital, where the General had died a few hours earlier. The crowd there was equally numerous and equally enthusiastic, chanting military songs mixed with anti-communist and anti-Bachelet cheers.
The women in the crowd showed a special fondness for the General, coming out in droves with military headgear and pictures of Pinochet accompanied by small children. It reminded me of other pictures of military strongmen appearing alongside children to soften their image.
As I drove home, I glanced at the modern office buildings in the El Golf neighborhood, with the Ritz Carlton hotel in the foreground.
These gleaming monuments to Chile's dynamic economy stood in sharp contrast to the reminders of Chile's painful past that I had witnessed just a few kilometers down the road.
One city, torn apart by the actions of politicians and men in uniform. The wounds are still open in this divided country, and the passing of one man will do little to heal them.
During the course of the afternoon, my baby girl drew coos of admiration from rabid Pinochet supporters and from communist pasionarias. And even though she experienced the smell of marijuana for the first time in the anti-Pinochet rally, I'm glad I brought her along. Her bright-eyed innocence made me wish for a world without military strongmen, without divisiveness. My hope is that when she is older, both Venezuela and Chile - her native countries - will each be able to stand as a single nation.
December 8, 2006
Why did more people vote for Chavez than for Rosales?
Quico says: Just to pick up on Alek's lucid postmortem, I'll add some thoughts of my own.
I think the best way to go about dissecting Rosales's loss is to divide it up between things he might have done differently, and factors entirely outside his control.
Factors outside Rosales' control
Things Rosales could've done better
Nevertheless, the race might have been made much tighter, and the reality is that Rosales' showing was poor. Energetic though his campaign was, Rosales's subtly misdirected message meant the guy never really broadened his appeal beyond the demographic that was always likely to vote for the opposition, regardless of the candidate. He just didn't win over anyone, and ended up losing by a margin that makes another recall referendum basically unthinkable.
Hopefully, he will do much better as opposition leader than as opposition candidate. Personally, I think he will.
I think the best way to go about dissecting Rosales's loss is to divide it up between things he might have done differently, and factors entirely outside his control.
Factors outside Rosales' control
- The Oil Boom: Far and away the biggest reason Chavez won was the government's control over a nearly limitless revenue-stream. The oil boom allowed Chavez to make his key constituency noticeably better off in the two years before the election. It directly - and illegally - financed Chavez's campaign, as the EU Monitoring Mission has noted (note: PDF file.) And it allowed the government to stimulate aggregate demand just in time to coincide with the electoral cycle, creating an economic boomlet and the kind of diffuse feel-good factor that keeps incumbents in office. The oil boom structured the campaign in Chavez's favor, and there was nothing we could've done about it.
- The Eloquence Gap: It sucks that this matters, but it does. Hugo Chavez is in love with his microphone. Manuel Rosales is locked in a kind of blood feud with his. Insofar as campaigning is all about persuasion, this was a major problem for him.
- The Opposition's Image Problem: After four years of missteps and relentless chavista provocations and attacks, much of the mud slung our way stuck in voters' minds. To be the opposition's standard bearer was, as far as many swing voters were concerned, to carry water for a callous, coup-mongering elite. Years of well-financed, repetitive attacks along these lines paid off for the government. Though Rosales might have gone further in distancing himself from the damaged oppo brand, he was basically stuck to it.
Things Rosales could've done better
- Misplaced focus: As Katy points out, Rosales made a quizzical decision to focus overwhelmingly on his opponent's strongest issue - Social Policy - rather than on Chavez's major weak points - foreign spending, divisiveness, crime and unemployment. Focus groups showed again and again that swing voters didn't really understand Mi Negra very well. Once it was explained to them, they tended to like the idea, but also to believe it was unlikely to be implemented. Mi Negra never really neutralized Chavez's advantage on Social Policy themes - but it did take the spotlight away from issues where Chavez was far more vulnerable.
- Too little time: It seems like an eternity now, but it was just three months ago that the opposition was mired in a barren debate about how to choose a single anti-Chavez candidate. That may not have been such a problem if Julio Borges - who is already well-known nationwide - had been chosen. But Rosales, who was mostly unknown outside his home state, just didn't have enough time to get voters acquainted with him. With less than a month to go, many Focus Group participants outside of Zulia still had only the haziest notions about the guy, what he stood for, who he was. And with only three months to campaign, there wasn't really enough time to design and test a message that would really work.
- NiNi-unfriendly framing: I touched on this one on Monday, and throughout the last year. To win an election you need to control voter's perceptions of what the choice they are making is about. Rosales tended to tow the standard opposition perception that the election was a choice between Castro-Communism and Democracy. I happen to agree with him, and it's likely you do as well. But that doesn't matter, because this framing doesn't really resonate beyond the oppo's core middle class vote. The discontented poor voters Rosales needed to convince to make the election close just didn't respond to this kind of message.
- Atrévete: For similar reasons, "dare to" was arguably a counterpreductive slogan. For the same reason you can't read "don't think of an elephant" without thinking of an elephant, you can't read "atrévete" without getting the vague sense that voting against Chávez is risky. This may well have backfired with NiNis, who must have wondered what kind of craziness and instability might follow if Chavez lost. The government seems to have grasped this dynamic much better than Rosales did, and exploited it by holding out the prospect of mayhem if Chavez lost. "Only Chavez can guarantee stability," remember?
- "Mercal used to be called Proal, Mision Robinson used to be Acude." Rosales's always cringeworthy line about how misiones are just 4th republic social program re-treads may have been factually accurate, but it was a clear campaign own goal. The line - repeated from his campaign launch straight through to the end - strengthened his symbolic association with the old political system, which was something he needed to go to some lengths to avoid. The choice to staff his campaign with figures from the old Coordinadora Democratica was another needless own-goal in this regard.
Nevertheless, the race might have been made much tighter, and the reality is that Rosales' showing was poor. Energetic though his campaign was, Rosales's subtly misdirected message meant the guy never really broadened his appeal beyond the demographic that was always likely to vote for the opposition, regardless of the candidate. He just didn't win over anyone, and ended up losing by a margin that makes another recall referendum basically unthinkable.
Hopefully, he will do much better as opposition leader than as opposition candidate. Personally, I think he will.
December 6, 2006
Podcast: "This is a political triumph amidst an electoral setback"
Quico says: Well, Manuel Rosales kicked a huge amount of ass at his press conference yesterday (download part of the audio here.) The guy will never quite be eloquent, but yesterday he came across as clear-headed, mature, forward-looking, sincere and even warm.I think JayDee nailed it when he said the peculiar thing about the campaign was that we'd only find out if Rosales was for real after the election. Well, now it's clear: his is the kind of feet-firmly-planted-on-the-ground leadership the opposition has been in desperate need of since 1999.
It was a remarkable performance: stamping his authority on the opposition movement, squelching the all-too-predictable calls for a "plan b" response to Sunday's result, and distancing himself emphatically from the immediatist wing, Rosales paradoxically had his "Sister Souljah moment" after the vote.
For the first time in the anti-Chavez movement's history, an opposition leader emerges from an electoral defeat stronger and more credible than he was going in. For the first time, opposition votes have a clear owner with a clear commitment to carry on with the fight. And that's a very good thing indeed, because everything suggests to me that Rosales is a much more talented back-room politician than he is a campaigner.
So when the guy says that "this is a political triumph amidst an electoral setback," I, for one, buy it.
Uruguayan Spoof
Quico says: This one's too good not to post. Sorry to say it's not really translatable.
December 5, 2006
Ojo Electoral's Preliminary Observations
Quico says: Ojo Electoral, a Venezuelan elections monitoring NGO, posted observers at 337 randomly chosen voting tables (mesas de votación) spread out over 22 out of Venezuela's 24 states.Check out their preliminary monitoring report in Spanish.
Key points:
- Ojo Electoral's quick-count of automated tally-sheets (actas de escrutinio) had Chávez at 61% and Rosales at 37%.
- The mandated procedure to randomly select which mesas would be audited on the spot was followed in 97% of relevant polling stations.
- The on the spot audits Ojo observed showed Chávez at 61% and Rosales at 38%.
- There were pro-Chávez witnesses at 95% of the audits and pro-Rosales witnesses at 92% of them. Witnesses for both candidates attended 90% of the audits, and members of the general public saw 62% of the audits Ojo monitored.
- There was no discrepancy between the automated tally and the audited tally in 64% of the mesas they observed.
- In the other 36%, discrepancies were small and tended to cancel each other out rather than benefiting one candidate systematically.
- Formal objections (impugnaciónes) over the audit results were lodged in just seven out of the 337 mesas Ojo observed. Three of those complaints were raised by pro-Chavez representatives while the other four were raised by opposition representatives.
December 4, 2006
Tibisay Lucena's Election
Quico says: One refreshing thing about last night's election is that, for the first time in years, the National Electoral Council itself was far from the center of the debate. As in futbol, the best referees are the ones you don't much notice. CNE chairwoman Tibisay Lucena's self-effacing style paid off.What's more, the aggressive audit of the e-voting machines' paper trails left little scope for unsubstantiated fraud allegations. As Teodoro Petkoff points out, the accumulation of evidence from two separate exit polls, one quick count, and real-time reports from 33,000 witnesses watching over 17,000 hot audits all over the country armed Rosales with far better information than the Coordinadora Democratica had in August 2004.
Overall, transparency was substantially improved last night, and that's to Lucena's credit. The opposition should take last night's level of transparency as a derecho adquirido. No backsliding on this can be accepted in future elections.
Let the analyzing begin...
Katy says: First off, the CNE website is already publishing detailed results by voting center. This is a welcome change, and we are finally seeing the result of all the money that was spent on these high-tech machines.
Here are some interesting things I am picking up at 1:40 pm Monday, Venezuela time:
- Chávez appears to be winning in every state. States where Chavez's margin of victory is closest: Zulia (Chávez by less than a percentage point), Táchira (1,5 percentage points), Mérida (3 percentage points). One surprise for Chavez was Nueva Esparta, a place where the opposition still holds a governorship but that went to Chavez by 17 percentage points.
- Large states where Rosales did particularly poorly: Aragua (71-28), Lara (64-35), Bolívar (66-32), Monagas (70-29).
- Rosales trounced Chavez in opposition strongholds Baruta (75-23), Chacao (76-23), Los Salias (69-30) and El Hatillo (79-20).
- Sucre, a big Caracas municipality, went to Chavez by a hair, 51-47.
- Municipio Libertador went to Chavez by roughly the same margin as the rest of the country, according to current results: 61-38. Carabobo state went to Chavez, 60-39.
- Surprisingly, the most chavista state in the union is Portuguesa, where Chávez won by a whopping 74.87%. Close runners-up are more expected: Delta Amacuro, Amazonas and Sucre.
- Venezuela's political parties, according to the percentage of the popular vote they got in this election:
1. MVR (Chavez) - 40.93% of the vote
2. Un Nuevo Tiempo (Oppo) - 13.48%
3. Primero Justicia (Oppo) - 12.24%
4. Podemos (Chavez) - 6.3%
5. PPT (Chavez) - 4.76%
6. PCV (Chavez) - 2.93%
7. COPEI (Oppo) - 2.21%
Here are some interesting things I am picking up at 1:40 pm Monday, Venezuela time:
- Chávez appears to be winning in every state. States where Chavez's margin of victory is closest: Zulia (Chávez by less than a percentage point), Táchira (1,5 percentage points), Mérida (3 percentage points). One surprise for Chavez was Nueva Esparta, a place where the opposition still holds a governorship but that went to Chavez by 17 percentage points.
- Large states where Rosales did particularly poorly: Aragua (71-28), Lara (64-35), Bolívar (66-32), Monagas (70-29).
- Rosales trounced Chavez in opposition strongholds Baruta (75-23), Chacao (76-23), Los Salias (69-30) and El Hatillo (79-20).
- Sucre, a big Caracas municipality, went to Chavez by a hair, 51-47.
- Municipio Libertador went to Chavez by roughly the same margin as the rest of the country, according to current results: 61-38. Carabobo state went to Chavez, 60-39.
- Surprisingly, the most chavista state in the union is Portuguesa, where Chávez won by a whopping 74.87%. Close runners-up are more expected: Delta Amacuro, Amazonas and Sucre.
- Venezuela's political parties, according to the percentage of the popular vote they got in this election:
1. MVR (Chavez) - 40.93% of the vote
2. Un Nuevo Tiempo (Oppo) - 13.48%
3. Primero Justicia (Oppo) - 12.24%
4. Podemos (Chavez) - 6.3%
5. PPT (Chavez) - 4.76%
6. PCV (Chavez) - 2.93%
7. COPEI (Oppo) - 2.21%
Bitter Medicine
Quico says: Last night, the Recall Referendum season was finally closed. Rosales' concession marked the end of the long, barren, surreal period in the wake of the recall debacle when the opposition single-mindedly repeated to itself that only chavista foul play stood between us and power. The passing of that illusion made for a bitter moment for many of us...but, hard though it is to accept, I'm confident in time we'll come to realize last night was good for us.
For the last two and a half years too much of the opposition has seen too little reason to change its message, to rethink what we said or how we said it in order to court support from a broader set of people. After all, the thinking went, we were already the majority! The real task - the only truly relevant task - was to figure out a way to pressure the government into recognizing that basic, over-riding fact.
Last night, as Manuel Rosales conceded the election, that entire mode of thinking became unsustainable. Two and a half years after the Recall Referendum, the collective penny finally dropped: yes the government plays appallingly dirty, but the measure of the trouble we're in is that that's not even our biggest problem. We have to build a majority first - only then does it make sense to worry about defending it.
This is a painful realization for a lot of us; one we've been postponing for too long. Really it's a debate we needed to have in the second half of 2004. If we had, the headlines this morning might read a lot different.
But it's better we learn this lesson late than never: our movement can't generate a serious challenge to Chavez until we accept that we cannot build a majority simply by repeating our own deeply held beliefs to poorer Venezuelans who have heard them a million times and never quite bought into them.
Because, when it comes down to it, for all the barrio marches and Mi Negra spots, Rosales's discourse wasn't really about resonating with poorer voters. Too often, Rosales simply took rhetoric that resonates with middle class people and repeated it in a barrio setting. This, it seems to me, is too often what passed for appealing to the poor.
On the eve of the election, for instance, Rosales was still framing the choice voters would face as one between democracy and "Castro-Communism" - a differentiation that, whatever its merits, public opinion researchers long ago realized riles up middle class antichavistas only and leaves barrio audiences pretty much cold.
Even a slogan like "Atrevete" - with its implication that only fear would prevent you from voting for Rosales - reflected a set of distinctly middle class concerns and anxieties. Because when it comes down to it, it's the TasconListed middle class that fears Chavez. Politically uncommitted poorer voters - the key to any opposition candidate's chances - consistently express distaste for the divisiveness of Chavez's discourse and anger at his willingness to spend oil money abroad; very rarely do they express fear of him. As any number of focus groups, barrio interviews and just plain common sense shows, the predominant feeling towards Chavez among the poor is not fear but a heady mix of admiration and gratitude. Atrevete? Dare to chuck out the guy giving you cheap groceries and free doctors? What sense does that make?
The long shadow of the Recall Referendum prevented Rosales and much of the opposition movement from quite grasping these realities. Believing we were already a majority, we saw little reason to change and broaden our discourse in order to build bridges to other constituencies.
But there is a silver lining. If we learn the right lessons from them, last night's results could become a kind of road map to power for us. We need to think outside the mental ghetto Globovision has built for us, understand the need to create a broad alliance of the middle class and the disaffected poor in order to counter Chavez. And we need to grasp clearly that we can't build that alliance by force-feeding middle class concerns down disaffected poor throats.
It's become almost a cliché, but it's true: Venezuela does not end today. Quite the contrary: if we learn the lessons of last night, the opposition's long march to power begins now.
For the last two and a half years too much of the opposition has seen too little reason to change its message, to rethink what we said or how we said it in order to court support from a broader set of people. After all, the thinking went, we were already the majority! The real task - the only truly relevant task - was to figure out a way to pressure the government into recognizing that basic, over-riding fact.
Last night, as Manuel Rosales conceded the election, that entire mode of thinking became unsustainable. Two and a half years after the Recall Referendum, the collective penny finally dropped: yes the government plays appallingly dirty, but the measure of the trouble we're in is that that's not even our biggest problem. We have to build a majority first - only then does it make sense to worry about defending it.
This is a painful realization for a lot of us; one we've been postponing for too long. Really it's a debate we needed to have in the second half of 2004. If we had, the headlines this morning might read a lot different.
But it's better we learn this lesson late than never: our movement can't generate a serious challenge to Chavez until we accept that we cannot build a majority simply by repeating our own deeply held beliefs to poorer Venezuelans who have heard them a million times and never quite bought into them.
Because, when it comes down to it, for all the barrio marches and Mi Negra spots, Rosales's discourse wasn't really about resonating with poorer voters. Too often, Rosales simply took rhetoric that resonates with middle class people and repeated it in a barrio setting. This, it seems to me, is too often what passed for appealing to the poor.
On the eve of the election, for instance, Rosales was still framing the choice voters would face as one between democracy and "Castro-Communism" - a differentiation that, whatever its merits, public opinion researchers long ago realized riles up middle class antichavistas only and leaves barrio audiences pretty much cold.
Even a slogan like "Atrevete" - with its implication that only fear would prevent you from voting for Rosales - reflected a set of distinctly middle class concerns and anxieties. Because when it comes down to it, it's the TasconListed middle class that fears Chavez. Politically uncommitted poorer voters - the key to any opposition candidate's chances - consistently express distaste for the divisiveness of Chavez's discourse and anger at his willingness to spend oil money abroad; very rarely do they express fear of him. As any number of focus groups, barrio interviews and just plain common sense shows, the predominant feeling towards Chavez among the poor is not fear but a heady mix of admiration and gratitude. Atrevete? Dare to chuck out the guy giving you cheap groceries and free doctors? What sense does that make?
The long shadow of the Recall Referendum prevented Rosales and much of the opposition movement from quite grasping these realities. Believing we were already a majority, we saw little reason to change and broaden our discourse in order to build bridges to other constituencies.
But there is a silver lining. If we learn the right lessons from them, last night's results could become a kind of road map to power for us. We need to think outside the mental ghetto Globovision has built for us, understand the need to create a broad alliance of the middle class and the disaffected poor in order to counter Chavez. And we need to grasp clearly that we can't build that alliance by force-feeding middle class concerns down disaffected poor throats.
It's become almost a cliché, but it's true: Venezuela does not end today. Quite the contrary: if we learn the lessons of last night, the opposition's long march to power begins now.
December 3, 2006
Rosales concedes, I think
Katy says: Manuel Rosales has just given the weirdest speech. It started out being very non-comittal one way or another, then he said he is going to hit the streets, which made people applaud widely, but then he said he conceded defeat. He said he doesn't believe the margin is actually as wide as the CNE is saying, but he says nonetheless he recognizes they were defeated today.
Is it just me, or was his speech confusing? In fact, confusion may have been the only way out of this tight situation.
Is it just me, or was his speech confusing? In fact, confusion may have been the only way out of this tight situation.
The Rosales camp does message control
Katy says: In light of today's events, where people linked to the campaign were echo to rumours giving victory to Rosales and declaring massive fraud with no evidence, the Rosales campaign announced an hour and a half ago what it should have announced months ago: that only Rosales will speak for the Rosales campaign.
First Official Report: Chavez 61%, Rosales 38%
Quico says:
With 78.3% of actas tallied...
Chavez: 61.4% (5,936,000 votes)
Rosales: 38.4% (3,716,000 votes)
A fucking debacle...
With 78.3% of actas tallied...
Chavez: 61.4% (5,936,000 votes)
Rosales: 38.4% (3,716,000 votes)
A fucking debacle...
Real vote update: Chavez 61% - Rosales 39%
Quico says: That's with well over half the actas tallied. Expect a first CNE bulletin soon.
Real votes: Chavez ahead by 20 to 24 points
Quico says: Sources with access to CNE's tallying room say Chávez is ahead by at least 20 points, perhaps 24 points. This is not an exit poll. This is on the basis of real vote tallies, with over half the machines reporting.
Evans/McDonough Exit Poll: Chavez 58% - Rosales 40%
Quico says: Or that's what Reuter's has, anyway.
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teleSUR says Chavez 67%, Rosales 33% - Rosales campaign denies it
Quico says: After months of government threats to shut down TV stations that publish elections results before http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifCNE announces official results, turns out it's a government TV station that breaks the rule.
“If some media begins with their destabilization plan, any type of media…if they begin to emit exit poll results. If they do it, it is because they are in the midst of a plan to destabilize the country, they must assume the consequences.”
-Hugo Chavez, December 1st, 2006
Teodoro says...
Quico says: Teodoro Petkoff, speaking for Rosales, says the day's voting went well, but there have been some problems after the end of voting. He adds it's a waste of time to try to re-open a polling station after it has been closed, because the machines won't record any more votes once they have been shut down.
Money quote: "Those who believe you can add extra votes to a machine after it has been closed are pissing out of the pot" (están pelando bola.)
He stressed that Rosales has witnesses in every single polling station in the country. He asked for patience from everyone, and promised that Rosales will speak to the nation once results are clear and the audits are complete - which will take some time.
Money quote: "Those who believe you can add extra votes to a machine after it has been closed are pissing out of the pot" (están pelando bola.)
He stressed that Rosales has witnesses in every single polling station in the country. He asked for patience from everyone, and promised that Rosales will speak to the nation once results are clear and the audits are complete - which will take some time.
Glorified chisme: Chavez wins
Quico says: Is it still gossip if Reuters is carrying it?
Yes, PDVSA pays the bills, but Evans/McDonough is a serious pollster.
Consultores 30.11 coordinated an exit poll with Evans/McDonough Co., a U.S. pollster paid by the Venezuelan state oil company.
Their two pre-election opinion surveys published last month showed a lead for Chavez of around 20 points.
"The trend confirms the electoral scenarios presented by the two (pre-election) surveys done by the consultancy Evans/McDonough," Campos said of the preliminary exit poll data.
Yes, PDVSA pays the bills, but Evans/McDonough is a serious pollster.
Yowza: Serious Allegations from the Rosales Camp
Quico says: Rosales campaign representatives are on TV right now saying that Plan Republica (military) officers have forced poll workers to re-open polling stations that had already been closed, while buses come around with "extra" voters. They say they have been complaining privately about this to CNE board members and the head of Plan Republica, but received little satisfaction.
May cooler heads prevail...
May cooler heads prevail...
The nerviest hour...
Quico says: Yes, it's hair-pulling time. CNE's ban on publishing exit poll results has stuck better than anyone could've expected. As soon as I have something I can confirm I'll post it.
Probably, though, when the leaks start they'll start all at once.
Probably, though, when the leaks start they'll start all at once.
CNE Says...
Quico says: The "blank votes" problem is coming about because people are using the voting machines wrong. You have to press the oval next to the candidate's name, not on the candidate's photo or the party label.
Rosales says...
Quico says: Manuel Rosales has just told the press that they've noted cases where people who vote for him get blank paper receipts. He urged people to check their paper receipt carefully before depositing it.
He reported unusual delays due to problems with the voting machines in 36% of polling stations that have traditionally favored the opposition, 20% of polling stations that have traditionally split roughly evenly and 5% of polling stations that have traditionally favored the government
Provocation? Fraud? Fluke? A bit of each?
He reported unusual delays due to problems with the voting machines in 36% of polling stations that have traditionally favored the opposition, 20% of polling stations that have traditionally split roughly evenly and 5% of polling stations that have traditionally favored the government
Provocation? Fraud? Fluke? A bit of each?
Today
Quico says: Well, the big day is here. The tense wait, the hours and hours of increasingly nervy wondering...it's an election day tradition.
I'm actually fairly jittery. One part of me desperately wants to believe a last minute upset is possible. Of course, the more rational part of me know the odds against this are very long. But the prospect of six more years...hell, el talibancito que llevamos todos por dentro knows full well what that means.
I'll be working hard to get you nice chismes as soon as they're available today. (And don't be niggardly with stuff you hear - you know my email.) In particular, I'll be keeping an eye on Descifrado, which is promising to leverage its awesome gossip-mongering powers from 2 p.m.
CNE says we can expect a first official bulletin 3 hours after the last polling stations close, which could mean anything between 7 p.m. and 4 or 5 a.m. tomorrow.
Veremos.
I'm actually fairly jittery. One part of me desperately wants to believe a last minute upset is possible. Of course, the more rational part of me know the odds against this are very long. But the prospect of six more years...hell, el talibancito que llevamos todos por dentro knows full well what that means.
I'll be working hard to get you nice chismes as soon as they're available today. (And don't be niggardly with stuff you hear - you know my email.) In particular, I'll be keeping an eye on Descifrado, which is promising to leverage its awesome gossip-mongering powers from 2 p.m.
CNE says we can expect a first official bulletin 3 hours after the last polling stations close, which could mean anything between 7 p.m. and 4 or 5 a.m. tomorrow.
Veremos.
December 2, 2006
An update from pollsters
Katy says: Inside sources confirm that the latest private DATOS poll puts Chavez's margin at 11 percentage points, down from 22 or so. Seijas also puts Chavez's margin at somewhere between 9 and 13 points. Both pollsters are more optimistic about Rosales's chances.
The dreaded predictions thread
Quico says: For reasons I can't understand, the formatting goes all out of whack when I post a web poll. Please scroll down to register your predictions for tomorrow.
Chavismo as Eschatology
JayDee says: I've seen Chavez speak in person twice in the last few weeks. Both times, he had his audiences eating out of his hand, weak-kneed in the thrall of his charisma. What's disconcerting, though, is that the first time, he was dealing with revolutionary students - the second, with foreign journalists.
The first speech was a few weeks back at the Teresa Careño - Caracas' flagship theater. Arriving there I saw hundreds of students clad in red, chanting in unison, waiting for El Presidente. There was something creepy about the energy in that hall. The scariest thing was the chants, though. My favorite? El que no salta es un yanqui! He who is not screaming is a yankee! Shudder.
This went on and on and on unabated, with boundless enthusiasm, for the full hour and a half we waited for the event to start.
The scene reeked of group think. You saw men and women turned into cogs of an ideological machine, chanting repetitive, empty, meaningless slogans again and again and again. To think these are the folks celebrating higher education!
Suddenly Chavez turns up, dressed in loafers, casual slacks, and, of course, a red shirt. The crowd goes batshit insane when it sees him. I lean over to a fellow journo and ask if he thinks the man will open with "Satisfaction" or save it for the final encore.
He gets to talking:
Simon Bolivar -> Imperialism -> Caracazo -> the 1992 coup -> Chavez!
It is Francis Fukuyama turned on it's head, a sort of End of History where all the forces of history conspire (perhaps following Christ's divine will) to produce their crowning achivement: the Bolivarian revolution, the saving grace of humanity. Chavismo is the purpose of history.
The second time I saw him, Chavez waltzed into a Press Conference in Miraflores, the presidential palace, in a finely tailored dark suite and bright red tie. About 150 international and domestic journos applaud as he works his way into the room. Is that normal?
Instead of heading for his desk, Chavez takes a sharp turn and wades into the crowd of journalists. Everyone goes apeshit, crashing in on him, scratching and clawing, pushing to get in close, while photographers and cameramen scream from the back and sides, "SIT DOWN."
Security looks on nervously.
Journalists totally lose their cool around the guy, pushing and shoving each other like children.The grown, educated, professional, impartial men and women of the supposedly hard-bitten international press just about swoon around the guy.
The foreign correspondent next to me leans over and says, "I have never seen anything like this"
And people wonder about his cult like effect on the poor!
Chavez sits down in front of a portrait of Bolivar. Half his cabinet sits behind him and to his right, the other half in front and to his right. How bored must they be?!
Then his speech:
"In the 70's, Venezuela was like Soddom and Gomorrah." The crowd titters. "This palace was a pleasure dome, a place for business and parties."
He lectures on Carlos Andres Perez for a good 20 minutes.
Finally...
He moves on, not having answered the question. Come to think of it, he never answers the question he's asked. The questioning rules are strict, and time is limited. There's no chance for a follow-up. There will be only 8 questions, and, following his intro and first answer, we are already 90 minutes into this shit.
Suddenly, I realized the game we were playing. This wasn't really a press conferences at all. Amidst this cult of personality, there's no such thing as a real press conference. Journos here are no different from the students at the Teresa Carreño. In his presence, we're reduced to being just another audience.
The first speech was a few weeks back at the Teresa Careño - Caracas' flagship theater. Arriving there I saw hundreds of students clad in red, chanting in unison, waiting for El Presidente. There was something creepy about the energy in that hall. The scariest thing was the chants, though. My favorite? El que no salta es un yanqui! He who is not screaming is a yankee! Shudder.
This went on and on and on unabated, with boundless enthusiasm, for the full hour and a half we waited for the event to start.
The scene reeked of group think. You saw men and women turned into cogs of an ideological machine, chanting repetitive, empty, meaningless slogans again and again and again. To think these are the folks celebrating higher education!
Suddenly Chavez turns up, dressed in loafers, casual slacks, and, of course, a red shirt. The crowd goes batshit insane when it sees him. I lean over to a fellow journo and ask if he thinks the man will open with "Satisfaction" or save it for the final encore.
He gets to talking:
We are here to fight against imperialism, to defend el pueblo, that is why we celebrate education.It was the first time I quite grasped the way Chavez's reinterprets history, crafts it into a narrative that puts him at the center, even when he's talking about events that have nothing to do with him. El Caracazo - the outbreak of mass urban looting that took place for four days in 1989, happened three years before the man's shadow darkened the national consciousness, but you'd never guess that it listening to him: it's now been assimilated entirely into the revolutionary redemption story. As far as he's concerned, history moves in a definite direction. And the trajectory is clear: from light, to darkness, to light again.
One day Bolivar, having seen his dream of a unified America shattered, said: Our hour hasn't arrived. Well, today it has. This is the hour of el Pueblo, of Simon Bolivar, Socialism, Christianity, the Bolivarian Republic.
The imperialist corporations are trying to steal our wealth. So, we have to study, to know our history better, to know how to defend ourselves.
There are two worlds. One of capitalism, of man for man, of exclusion. And ours, where humanity and Christianity rule. We are here to celebrate your training for carrying forward 21st century socialism. Today, we celebrate a new generation of students more aware, more conscious, students prepared to break the neo-liberal model. That is our collective path. We will never again go down the path of savage capitalism.
The neo-liberal plan was the 'final plan'. 1989 was the resulting revolt, but El Caracazo wasn't enough. It was just the beginning of our movement. Children, Men, Women shed there blood for a better world. And the coup of '92 was next.
And now we are posed on the verge of another historic epoch. We have consolidated the revolution in these last seven years, and the next era will stretch forward to the year of 2021, realising Simon Bolivar's dream, forever rejecting a role as a colony of the North.
Simon Bolivar -> Imperialism -> Caracazo -> the 1992 coup -> Chavez!
It is Francis Fukuyama turned on it's head, a sort of End of History where all the forces of history conspire (perhaps following Christ's divine will) to produce their crowning achivement: the Bolivarian revolution, the saving grace of humanity. Chavismo is the purpose of history.
The second time I saw him, Chavez waltzed into a Press Conference in Miraflores, the presidential palace, in a finely tailored dark suite and bright red tie. About 150 international and domestic journos applaud as he works his way into the room. Is that normal?
Instead of heading for his desk, Chavez takes a sharp turn and wades into the crowd of journalists. Everyone goes apeshit, crashing in on him, scratching and clawing, pushing to get in close, while photographers and cameramen scream from the back and sides, "SIT DOWN."
Security looks on nervously.
Journalists totally lose their cool around the guy, pushing and shoving each other like children.The grown, educated, professional, impartial men and women of the supposedly hard-bitten international press just about swoon around the guy.
The foreign correspondent next to me leans over and says, "I have never seen anything like this"
And people wonder about his cult like effect on the poor!
Chavez sits down in front of a portrait of Bolivar. Half his cabinet sits behind him and to his right, the other half in front and to his right. How bored must they be?!
Then his speech:
This has been a happy, jubilant, positive campaign.The audience is vastly different, but it's the same theme: Chavez as saviour.
Venezuela ended the 20th century as a lost Republic, a nation that had lost it's morals, it's righteous economic and social ways, lost its direction.
"The country was shattered, mired in poverty and only functioning for the elite. With the exception of CUBA, Lat Am was under the boot of neo-liberalism.Somebody gets up and asks, "The people believe in you, but not your ministers. They say they are corrupt. Will you sack any of them?"
Have we made mistakes errors? Yes. Have started things and not finished them? Yes. But we have brought democracy to a land where there wasn't any.
"In the 70's, Venezuela was like Soddom and Gomorrah." The crowd titters. "This palace was a pleasure dome, a place for business and parties."
He lectures on Carlos Andres Perez for a good 20 minutes.
Finally...
One of the things we will have to assume with greater responsibility in this era is the fight against corruption. Corruption is a product of capitalism, or the desire to be rich, this is the birth of the cancer that is corruptionNext question.
He moves on, not having answered the question. Come to think of it, he never answers the question he's asked. The questioning rules are strict, and time is limited. There's no chance for a follow-up. There will be only 8 questions, and, following his intro and first answer, we are already 90 minutes into this shit.
Suddenly, I realized the game we were playing. This wasn't really a press conferences at all. Amidst this cult of personality, there's no such thing as a real press conference. Journos here are no different from the students at the Teresa Carreño. In his presence, we're reduced to being just another audience.
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