[NYTr] TIME on Hugo Chavez - Don't get your panties in a twist

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

excerpted from VIO Venezuela Daily News Roundup - August 20, 2007

[Constitutional reforms proposed last week by President Chavez are not a
detriment to democracy in Venezuela, according to a Time Magazine
article.  The possibility of continual reelection has caused alarm
among those opposed to the reforms; however, the article points out
that Brazil and Colombia have made similar reforms without incident.
An egalitarian vision for "21st Century Socialism" would not mirror
communism, either; Chavez biographer Bart Jones is quoted as saying,
"Chavez does want to create a more equitable society, even a socialist
society, but I think he can only create a mixed economy. He inherited a
very capitalist-minded country that has always aped U.S. culture." -VIO]


Time Magazine - August 17, 2007
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1653937,00.html


Chavez's Push for Permanence

By Tim Padgett

As Hugo Chavez was being re-elected to a second six-year term as
Venezuela's President last December, I had a long talk with National
Assembly Deputy and constitutional lawyer Carlos Escarra inside the
legislature's colonial-era chamber in downtown Caracas. Escarra, a
close Chavez ally, is a driving force behind the campaign to eliminate
presidential term limits in Venezuela ? a reform that Chavez's critics
fear would let him rule for life and create a left-wing dictatorship.

You've got to admit, I said, given Latin America's brutally autocratic
history, that whenever an oil-rich, radical populist like Chavez makes
it easier for himself to rule indefinitely, it raises more flags than a
Caribbean regatta. "But we're not Cuba," Escarra insisted. "How many
times do we have to prove that? President Chavez has now won three
elections [including his original 1998 victory] and a recall
referendum, and all were declared transparent by international
observers. So he could still lose the next election [in 2012] because
it's still up to a majority of the voters."

Escarra was telling me then what Chavez himself told his critics this
week from his lectern at the National Assembly, as he formally proposed
the term-limit reform and a host of other constitutional changes: "I
recommend," said Chavez, "that they take a Valium." In other words,
Chill out. If French Presidents can seek re-election indefinitely, say
the chavistas, why can't Venezuela's? If Americans could re-elect
Franklin Roosevelt four times, they ask, why can't we re-elect Chavez
as many times?

On the one hand, they've got a point. If Chavez had a reputation for
winning the presidential palace by trashing the ballot box ? like, say,
most Mexican Presidents of the 20th century ? then the news this week
would be genuinely alarming and the Bush Administration's attempts to
pair Hugo with his buddy Fidel Castro might be more credible. But
respected groups like the Carter Center in Atlanta have deemed his
victories fair, the result of a remarkably incompetent Venezuelan
opposition rather than rigged voting. And rather than ramrod the
constitutional amendments by fiat, he'll put them to a national
referendum. Just as there was a good chance that Chavez could have been
ousted by the recall referendum in 2004, there is at least the
possibility ? one that would never exist in Castro's Cuba ? that voters
could reject his term-limit proposal as well. "At the end of the day,"
says Bart Jones, author of a new Chavez biography, Hugo!, "it's still a
democratic process."

Nor does the argument completely hold that unlimited re-election for
Hugo would somehow create a destabilizing trend in Latin America. A
chronic succession of caudillos, dictators and other strongmen in the
region's history did lead it to embrace the one-term presidential limit
for much of the latter 20th century. But in the past decade, four major
South American countries, including the biggest, Brazil, have changed
their constitutions to allow re-election; and one of them, Colombia,
may even permit a third term.

Still, unlimited re-election is another matter. More of a concern, says
Jones, is the reason that Chavez's measure will probably pass. Jones
notes that one of the fundamental weaknesses of Chavez's leftist,
anti-U.S. Bolivarian Revolution is "its inordinate dependence on
Chavez, its one-man show aspect. If he were to leave the scene, there's
a feeling the whole revolution would unravel tomorrow." That's why
Chavez supporters, especially the majority poor who feel politically
and economically enfranchised for perhaps the first time in the
nation's history, may be more prone to give him the presidential
multi-ride ticket ? and just as willing to tolerate what many Venezuela
observers call an erosion of governmental checks and balances.

Already, every member of the National Assembly is a Chavez ally ? which
is largely thanks, however, to the opposition's boneheaded boycott of
the last parliamentary elections ? as is just about every Supreme Court
justice. As a result, keeping Chavez in power until 2021 (his stated
goal, the 200th anniversary of Venezuelan independence) if not longer
could eventually make him, by default, a kind of "democratator," a
democratically elected dictator. At the very least, says Jones, "it's
bound to set off some alarms about the constructs of democratic
government."

Those bells are louder after Chavez recently revoked the license of an
opposition television network, RCTV. The problem wasn't that RCTV was
pulled off the air ? it loudly encouraged a coup attempt against Chavez
in 2002, something the FCC probably wouldn't condone in the U.S. ? but
that Chavez failed to put the license up for bidding by independent
broadcasters. Instead, he used it to create another pro-government
network. In an interview with TIME last fall, after he called President
Bush "the devil" at the United Nations, Chavez almost gushed about free
expression in Venezuela: "My God," he said, "'Devil' is the least of
things the opposition is allowed to call me on the air." And he was
right. But filling RCTV's air with a chavista mouthpiece wasn't the
best way to make the international community feel good about his bid
for unlimited re-election.

Critics say other constitutional reform proposals ? like one that
appears to let Caracas suck governing authority from the very states
and municipalities Chavez once pledged to empower ? are part and parcel
of the harder left turn he's taken after his re-election, which has
seen the nationalization of utility companies and oil ventures. But
backers point to his proposals to reduce laborers' working hours and
create new grassroots governing councils as proof of his more
egalitarian "21st-century socialism."

Either way, Chavez can't yet be fingered as the new Fidel Castro. "For
one thing," says Jones, "the Venezuelan people would never accept it.
Chavez does want to create a more equitable society, even a socialist
society, but I think he can only create a mixed economy. He inherited a
very capitalist-minded country that has always aped U.S. culture." But
nor can Chavez be stroked for leading, as he claimed this week, "a
democracy more alive" than any "on this planet." As Escarra stressed,
the democrats of the world shouldn't freak out over Chavez. But, Hugo
being Hugo, they're not likely to chill out, either.