Overlooked poor bite back at Chávez
By Richard Lapper and Benedict Mander in Caracas
Published: December 3 2007 20:39 | Last updated: December 3 2007 20:39
Visibly shaken by his referendum defeat, President Hugo Chávez tried to put on a brave face early Monday morning.
Seeking inspiration perhaps from Simón Bolívar, the 19th-century independence leader whose image hung behind him at the Miraflores Palace, Mr Chávez promised to turn a difficult moment into a moral triumph.
That speech triggered the emergence of Mr Chávez as an alternative political leader, eventually leading to his first election victory in 1998. But it could be more difficult for the Venezuelan president to pull off a similar trick in the face of adversity this time.
In 1992 Mr Chávez was a political unknown whose popular style and anti-corruption message struck a chord in a society tired of corruption and worried by the possibility of austerity.
By contrast, he began 2007 at the height of his popularity, having won 62 per cent of the vote in last December’s election. He has now been in power for nine years, for much of that time enjoying the benefit of surging oil prices and bumper government revenues.
Some of that support has looked more fragile in recent months. A year ago the inhabitants of poor urban areas streamed out en masse to vote Mr Chávez into office for another six-year term. This time many of them stayed at home, contributing to an abstention rate of more than 44 per cent. “Abstention was going to hurt the opposition but in the end it defeated us,” Mr Chávez conceded on Sunday.
Analysts suggest that the urban poor were unenthusiastic about the constitutional proposals that would have granted the president sweeping new powers, including the ability to be re-elected indefinitely, and accelerated the introduction of “21st century socialism” into Venezuela.
“Chávez was out of step with the wishes of the poorer sectors of the population that support him,” says Edgardo Lander, a leftwing political scientist at the Central University of Venezuela. “He had interpreted his election victory in 2006 as a kind of carte blanche to do whatever he wanted, but in reality it’s not like that.”
Others suggest that economic distortions resulting from price and exchange rate controls and a sharp fall in private investment in farming and manufacturing have hit the government hard. Despite the oil bonanza, in the state-run supermarkets where the poor shop many basic foodstuffs – such as milk and sugar – are in short supply.
Steve Ellner, a political scientist at the Oriente University in Venezuela, says the government may need to pay more attention to problems such as refuse collection and crime in poor areas.
“With all their lofty ideals the Chavistas are maybe paying less attention [than they should] to these tangible and specific things.”
In addition, although Mr Chávez last year won a strong popular mandate to press ahead with reforms, his radicalism has alienated many erstwhile supporters and created new opponents.
Leftwing socialists – members of small parties that had supported Mr Chávez’s governing alliance – baulked at efforts to force them into a single party and came into open opposition over the constitutional changes.
Mr Chávez’s radicalism in another area has also created a new group of opponents. The decision to take RCTV, a rightwing but very popular television station, off the air served to spur the growth of activism by university students. These distanced themselves from the traditional parties ousted from power in 1998, as well as other rightwing groups who backed campaigns to force out the leader in the early part of this decade.
“The students have been very important for their enthusiasm. They have helped renovate the opposition’s leadership and they got people out to vote,” says Michael Penfold, a political scientist at the IESA business school in Caracas.
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