Caracas, Venezuela -- The political opposition's elation after Sunday's referendum that denied President Hugo Chavez the sweeping new powers he needed to accelerate his socialist revolution is evaporating quickly.
Despite a narrow victory that rejected 69 proposed constitutional reforms that would have allowed Chavez to stand for re-election indefinitely, create new forms of communal property, handpick local leaders under a redrawn political map and suspend civil liberties under extended states of emergency, those changes could still be implemented through a series of California-style voter propositions, Chavez noted this week.
"Prepare yourselves, because a new offensive is coming," Chavez told viewers of the state-run VTV television station Wednesday. "These reforms are not dead."Chavez then explained that although current law prohibits him from attempting another referendum to change the Constitution, he could still achieve his reforms via a series of "popular initiatives" by which each reform would be voted on by the Chavez-controlled congress after acquiring signatures of 15 percent of the electorate, or 2.4 million voters. If approved by the congress - known as the National Assembly - it would become law if passed by a majority of voters.
Analysts also say Chavez could push through many of the rejected reforms by presidential decree, which he can exercise for another six months as stipulated by a previous decree issued in January.
The political opposition had hoped to use the momentum of its marginal victory to galvanize popular support against Chavez. With 90 percent of the ballots counted, official figures stand at 50.7 percent against the reforms and 49.3 percent for the yes vote.
But Greg Wilpert, director of a left-leaning news Web site, Venezuelanalysis.com, predicts that not much will change. "The opposition is celebrating right now, but the fact is they are still as powerless as ever," he said. "They have no seats in the National Assembly, and they only have one governor. They will probably gain some seats in the gubernatorial elections in 2007, but that won't make much difference, because real power lies with the federal government. The next election for the National Assembly is in 2010, and that is still a long time away."
Jorge Perez, a member of a pro-Chavez political radio cooperative called First Free Black Radio, also points out that the opposition lacks credible leadership and policies to attract the masses."The opposition has yet to find a leader that can match Chavez's magnetic personality and charisma," Perez said. "They are united and energized only when they stand against him. They need to start developing their own policies and solutions to Venezuela's problems."
Any chance of increased cooperation between government and its political opposition appeared to disappear Wednesday when a defiant Chavez dismissed the "no" vote victory with several expletives. "You should administer your victory properly, but already you are covering it in s-. It's a s- victory, and ours - call it, defeat - is one of courage, of valor, of dignity," he said at a news conference at the presidential palace. "We haven't moved a millimeter, and we won't. ... They have nothing to celebrate, and we have lost nothing."
Some analysts have also described the proposed use of popular initiatives to achieve change after losing the referendum a violation of the Constitution that would eventually involve a Supreme Court decision. Even though the court is stacked with Chavez loyalists, it has occasionally shown a streak of independence. Popular initiatives "would be fraudulent," said constitutional lawyer Rafael Chavero.
Elenis Rodriguez, national secretary for the opposition party Justice First, says Chavez's insistence on pushing through his reforms reveals his true desire: to stay in power indefinitely."He doesn't really need a new Constitution to implement most of his socialist principles - he can do so using decree powers and the legislature," she said. "But the only way he can stand for re-election is to change the Constitution, and the only way to do that is to encourage his supporters to implement proposals of their own (popular) initiative. It's a very underhanded strategy."
On Thursday, Chavez's ex-wife said she will propose her own popular initiative to shorten presidential terms from six to four years and allow presidents one chance for re-election. Marisabel Rodriguez, who divorced Chavez in 2004, said her ex-husband, who assumed power in 1999, has been in office long enough.
This article appeared on page A - 15 of the San Francisco Chronicle on 7th December 2007
Monday, 10 December 2007
Despite defeat at polls, Venezuela's Chavez holds all the cards
Thursday, 6 December 2007
Chávez loses - for now
Caracas, Venezuela -- By a majority of just 150,000 votes, the Venezuelan electorate rejected a complex package of reforms to the constitution which would have allowed President Hugo Chávez to stand for indefinite re-election. The 2 December vote was Chávez's first setback, suggesting that some of his usual support peeled away.
A night of high drama saw the Venezuelan president concede victory by the slimmest of margins. The result means he will have to stand down when his term of office expires in January 2013.
It was the president's first defeat since he took office in 1998 and the first opposition election victory in 12 public votes. Until now, public support for the government has seemed insurmountable. Analysts believe that Chávez was partly let down by the high percentage (44 per cent) who chose to stay home rather than endorse or reject the wide-ranging reforms, but also say that moderate Chavistas had become alienated by their president's extreme rhetoric.
"Chávez waged a very confrontational campaign that turned off a lot of voters," says Elenis Rodríguez, national secretary for the opposition party Justice First. "He said if you do not vote for the reform, you are a traitor."
Rodríguez also believes that some people stayed home because they were worried about voter privacy. "Many did not agree with the reforms but were scared to vote for fear of losing their jobs." Jorge Pérez, a Chavista member of a political radio co-operative, notes that Chávez lost the media war: "The Chavistas did a very poor job of informing the public on the more positive aspects of the constitutional reform, like social security for the informal economy and the right for decent housing.
"The opposition did a very effective job of highlighting the most controversial articles, like indefinite re-election and the status of private property. If you read the proposed constitution you would see that the right to private property is guaranteed, but if you followed the media campaigns you would think that the government wanted to confiscate all property," he says.
The Chávez campaign focused on international disputes, a strategy that would have appealed only to dedicated supporters whose votes were already guaranteed. At his closing rally, the president declared that "a vote against these reforms is a vote for George W Bush" and threatened to cut off oil supplies to the US if it attempted to "destabilise" the country after the elections.
There were also threats that Spanish banks in Venezuela would be nationalised if the King of Spain did not apologise for telling Chávez to shut up, and that diplomatic relations with Colombia might be cut off after President Álvaro Uribe's interference in his mediations with Colombia's FARC guerrillas. "Many in the barrios are Colombian immigrants who felt that Chávez disrespected their entire country, not just its president," says Rodríguez.
But the main problem with the reforms, according to Luis Eduard Monsano, a student activist, was that they did not offer solutions to the pressing issues of crime and unemployment. "Our groups went to a lot of barrios and many people told us, 'Chávez yes, reform no.' We got the sense that a lot of these communities felt abandoned by him. They had supported him because of the social programmes he has implemented, but many were asking, 'What's next?'"
In fact, the reforms did include popular measures to guarantee housing rights for families and to implement a 36-hour working week, but the bulk of the 69 amendments consisted of wordy clauses on restructuring state power and administering finance - in such detail that they failed to strike a chord with the less ideologically orientated moderate Chavistas.
Many felt that instead of tackling the main problems of 21st-century Venezuela, where gun crime and corruption are rife, Chávez had attempted to enshrine socialism in the country's constitution. According to Monsano, the schism between the president and his core voters started to emerge back in May when he chose not to renew the broadcasting licence of the opposition-aligned channel Radio Caracas TV.
"Four million people in the barrios and shanty towns watched RCTV's news programmes and soap operas. In the aftermath of the closure, the student movement sprang up out of nowhere, demonstrating that the young were not with the revolution. This is significant because throughout history all successful revolutions depended on, or were led by, the young."
Although students had been involved in isolated incidents of violence in the run-up to Sunday's vote, their passion and determination appear to have electrified Chávez's floundering political opponents.
"The opposition up to that point was demoralised after repeated election defeats. But suddenly the students felt democracy slipping away and decided to take action," says Monsano. Out of the referendum is emerging a consensus between the government and opposition leaders that now is the time for reflection and the start of the long journey towards reconciliation. "Chávez has done a lot of good things. He has given the poor an outlet to express themselves. We need to recognise that and build on it," says Monsano.
Chávez conceded defeat magnanimously, congratulating the victors and admitting that it was too soon to introduce such radical reforms - though his message was more one of calm determination than humbled compromise. In 1992, the year of his failed coup attempt, he quipped on live television that he had only failed "por ahora" - for now. Last weekend he reassured his devastated supporters: "This is not a defeat, but another por ahora."
This article appeared in the 10th December 2007 edition of the New Statesman