[NYTr] Chavismo and Democracy

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Steven L. Robinson - activ-l

The Nation - December 7, 2007
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071224/grandin

Chavismo and Democracy

by Greg Grandin

Last Sunday, Venezuelans went to the polls and narrowly defeated a set
of sixty-nine proposed reforms to their country's Constitution. The
amendments, backed by President Hugo Chavez, were condemned by his
critics at home and abroad as a tyrant's power grab. Gloating headlines
and gleeful postmortems hailed the wisdom of common Venezuelans rising
up to snatch back democracy from the brink. "Freedom wins!" ran a
statement released by Florida Republican Congressman Connie Mack. Roger
Noriega, the old Iran-contra hand who as George W. Bush's Assistant
Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs helped organize the
2004 coup against Haiti's Jean-Bertrand Aristide, predicted that Chavez
would be "slashing in every direction and will provoke another crisis."

But Chavez has so far responded with poise, going on TV to call the
results a sign that "Venezuelan democracy is maturing." As Ezra Klein
points out on his blog, "referenda meant to increase the powers of the
executive do not, in fact, fail by two percent. And when they do, the
dictator does not, in fact, say, 'I congratulate my adversaries for
this victory. For now, we could not do it.'"

Whether this graciousness is sincere or forced, lasting or fleeting, an
honest accounting of the referendum--even as it signaled a defeat for
the specific strategy that the Venezuelan president chose to pursue
following his landslide re-election last December--was a triumph for
the general model of political accountability that Chavez has tried to
consolidate since coming to power, as well as a showcase for the kind
of deliberative democracy that he has played no small part in fostering.

That model entailed the rotation of power away from decentralized party
politics and toward a greatly fortified executive branch and a
mobilized and empowered citizenry. Venezuela's Constitution, adopted
during Chavez's first year in office, requires a plebiscite on any
treaty that would infringe on national sovereignty, including
free-trade agreements, and establishes transparent mechanisms to recall
politicians (used by the opposition to try to recall Chavez in 2004).
Political scientists can debate the viability of direct, or
"protagonist," democracy, but they would have a hard time making the
case that politicians in Latin America's traditional representational
systems are more accountable to their citizens. Throughout the 1990s,
candidates for president repeatedly ran on antineoliberal platforms
only to capitulate to the IMF and Wall Street once in office. And what
system of checks and balances controls the monopoly power of Latin
America's corporate media, as much a political as an economic force, or
the "veto" that bond managers and banks have over a country's financial
sovereignty? Hate him or admire him, Chavez at least tells voters what
he plans to do: he made clear that in his re-election campaign he
planned to introduce legislation that would allow him to seek yet
another re-election.

Many of the criticisms of the reforms focus on amendments that would
extend this model, either by strengthening the executive branch or
granting political power to local grassroots organizations such as
communal or workers' councils. Expectedly, Chavez's foes singled out
the proposed bolstering of the president's ability to declare a state
of emergency as a step toward dictatorship. And just as expectedly,
Chavez defenders say this power--which would have remained subject to
the approval of the national assembly--is needed to defend Venezuela
against destabilization campaigns, such as the failed April 2002 coup,
sponsored or encouraged by the United States. It is true that as
originally written, the reform would have extended worrisome powers to
the executive branch. Yet lawmakers in the National Assembly revised
the proposed changes to make them conform to international norms
governing states of emergencies as described in a 2005 report by the
Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces. In fact, as
they were voted on, the proposed reforms to the rules governing the
suspension of liberties during emergencies are practically
indistinguishable from those found in Venezuela's earlier 1961
Constitution, which was held up by Washington as a model for the rest
of Latin America. As Gregory Wilpert writes in a sober analysis of all
sixty-nine proposals, "contrary to most news reports," any declared
state of emergency would still include "the right to defense, to a
trial, to communication, and not to be tortured. This is more than one
can say for the current situation in the U.S., where the president has
the authority to arrest people without due process, according to the
recently passed Military Commissions Act."

Despite its advocacy of a strong executive, what distinguishes Chavismo
is its fragility. As an evolving movement that came to power through the
ballot, it had to make significant compromises with entrenched power
blocs in the military, the decomposing and discredited political
establishment and the civil, educational and foreign-service
bureaucracy. Chavez is often presented as if he were omnipotent, when
in fact the state he presides over and the political movement he
nominally leads is exceptionally weak and fragmented. Many of the most
controversial of the defeated reforms were designed to limit abuse and
incompetence committed by local party bosses and Chavista officials,
including governors and mayors. These included doing away with
presidential term limits (while keeping those on other elected offices)
and giving the presidency the power to appoint some officials and
redefine the political divisions of the nation. They also entailed
devolving administrative and budgetary responsibility away from
regional and local government officials to communal and workers'
councils, mandating, for example, that "municipalities are obligated to
include in their activities the participation of councils of popular
power" and that civil society organizations have a say in political and
judicial nominations.

Other proposed amendments would have reversed many of the compromises
the left wing of Chavismo made with conservatives and moderates in
order to ratify the 1999 Constitution, and would have established a
wide array of political and economic rights that Chavez couldn't
introduce when he first came to power. The reforms would have lowered
the voting age from 18 to 16; prohibited discrimination based on sexual
orientation, race or disability; established gender parity in
candidacies for elected office; provided social security for workers in
the informal economy; guaranteed free university education; shortened
the workweek from forty-four to thirty-six hours; and recognized social
and collective forms of property (as opposed to the strict definition
of private property in the current Constitution).

Aside from the anti-Chavez irreconcilables, who over the last nine years
have acted as if they were living through some kind of biblical plague,
it seems that a significant amount of opposition to the proposed
reforms came from Chavista party and government officials who
understood the amendments as an attempt to weaken their private
fiefdoms. There are reports that many mayors, for instance, did not
mobilize voters as they did for Chavez's re-election last December.
There is also evidence that the opposition, funded by national and
international corporations and Washington "democracy promotion" grants,
mounted an effective disinformation campaign. In addition to
exaggerating the power the reforms would give to the executive branch,
rumors spread throughout the country designed to capitalize on common
prejudices and fears, that the state, for instance, would do away with
all private property, legalize gay marriage and take away the rights of
parents over their children.

But it also seems that the reforms, many of them baroquely worded and
vague, met a good deal of thoughtful opposition from committed
Chavistas who continue to support Chavez--even opposition polls admit
that his popularity continues to hover around 60 percent
notwithstanding the results of last week's referendum. (Between his
election in 1998 and his re-election in 2006, the number of Venezuelans
voting for Chavez doubled, from more than 3.5 million to nearly 7.5
million, from 56 to 63 percent of the electorate.) "I'm celebrating
because the 'no' won," said one voter to the New York Times, "but I
still have President Chavez."

Critics of Chavez inevitably dismiss his support as the product of
emotive populism, as did Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, who, with more than a
whiff of condescension, wrote in a report for The Nation's website that
the Venezuelan president serves as a "mirror for the wretched of the
earth, and they are joyous when he succeeds at being the vulnerable
ideal he projects." Others, such as Teodoro Petkoff, who ran the
campaign of Chavez's opponent in last year's presidential election,
talk about Chavez's "magical realist" hold over the poor, who are
apparently entranced by the baubles their president dangles in front of
them. But what can be more populist than a plan supported by Petkoff
designed to weaken Chavez's support by promising millions of poor
Venezuelans a black debit card called Mi Negra, backed by the national
treasury, which would give them access up to $450 per month (call it
neoliberal populism, giving to the poor just enough to force the
defunding of state services). This promise alone should be enough to
end once and for all the charge that Chavez is an irresponsible
populist. That the vast majority of citizens rejected this proposal in
favor of a more organized form of state-backed economic redistribution
should confirm that it is critical thinking, not populist enchantment,
that accounts for Chavismo's support.

Actually, "Chavismo" is not an adequate description of the social
movement that makes up Chavez's political base, since many
organizations predate his rise to political power, and their leaders
and cadre have a sophisticated understanding of their relationship with
Chavez. Over the last couple of years, a number of social scientists
have done field work in urban barrios, and their findings confirm that
this synergy between the central government and participatory local
organizations has expanded, not restricted, debate and that democracy
is thriving in Venezuela.

Never before have the majority of Venezuelans been so involved in the
political life of the nation. Throughout the country, peasant
organizations, cooperatives, women's and gay rights' organizations,
indigenous groups, environmental activists, community councils and
cultural associations argue about the possibilities, limits and perils
of Chavismo. Hundreds of community radio and TV stations provide a
forum for residents to express views, address local issues and learn,
free of charge, production and broadcasting skills. Critics dismiss
these stations as but more mechanisms of patronage and control. But all
empirical evidence points to an extraordinary democratization of free
speech, with little or no monitoring of content, frequent criticism of
the government and uninhibited and robust grassroots participation.
This is confirmed by yet another poll, released last month, by the
respected Chilean firm Latinobarometro: for the third year running,
Venezuelans are behind only Uruguayans in their satisfaction with their
country's democratic institutions (59 percent compared with the
regional average of 37 percent).

Not only has access to the right of communication been widened but the
range of public debate has been greatly expanded. Chavismo has ripped
open the straitjacket of post-cold war Latin American discourse,
particularly the taboo against government regulation of the economy and
economic redistribution. Public policy, including economic policy, is
now open to discussion and, importantly, popular influence. This is in
sharp contrast to Costa Rica, where a few months ago its Supreme Court,
with the support of its executive branch, prohibited public
universities from not just opposing but even debating the Central
American Free Trade Agreement, which soon won a national referendum by
a razor-thin margin. Needless to say, the State Department--as well as
the American media and many liberal intellectuals--offered no protest.

In Venezuela, one research team found that a large majority of their
sample were committed to democratic pluralism, believed in peaceful
methods of conflict resolution and worked to ensure that their
organizations functioned with high levels of "horizontal or
non-hierarchical" democracy. It is common to find committed Chavistas
who are not only members of Chavez's official party but openly hostile
to it, which, theoretically at least, helps keep it responsive and
honest. This stands in sharp contrast to Nicaragua in the 1980s, where
it would have been impossible for someone to oppose the Sandinista
Party and still consider him- or herself a revolutionary. It is this
same independent, critical thinking that may account for the high
abseenteeism that was reported in some traditional Chavez strongholds.
Uncomfortable with some of the reforms, many opted to just not vote; in
much of the reporting from the barrios, it was common to hear some
version of "I'm a Chavista but I'm against these reforms."

Theoretically, last week's vote could strengthen Chavismo as a social
movement in two important ways. First, it could force the government to
forgo its perpetual campaigning and pay more attention to effective
public administration, particularly to curbing crime and rooting out
corruption. As political scientist Steve Ellner put it, as reported in
the New York Times, "what hurt Chavez the most was the lack of
sufficient attention to concrete, tangible problems and an overemphasis
on lofty ideals." There is no reason that many of the best of the
defeated reforms couldn't be enacted in the future through legislation.
Second, it could force the movement to move beyond its dependence on
Chavez's skill as a politician and coalition broker to succeed. This
would include figuring out how to turn the new Partido Socialista Unido
de Venezuela into an effective organization that can truly represent
and mediate between the diverse associations and political tendencies
that make up Chavismo, and cultivate a new generation of leaders.

The referendum's loss takes place in a larger context in which
neoliberals--in Venezuela, Washington and Wall Street--will use it to
go on the offensive. Already on opposition blogs, commentators are
taking their narrow victory as a bugle call to remove Chavez from
office before the remaining five of his six-year term are up. We will
soon see a grouping of the opposition around the students who led the
campaign against the reforms, as well as around Razl Baduel, former
head of Venezuela's armed forces and Chavez ally who came out against
the constitutional reforms. We will also soon witness a strategic
embrace of the language of "social justice," participatory democracy
and economic redistribution--but only as long as Chavismo remains a
political threat. Make no mistake: the goal is not just to limit
Chavez's power or remove him from office; it is to dismantle the social
missions, cooperatives, communal councils and land reform; end the
country's independent foreign policy; and take back what the nation's
ruling elites understand to be theirs: the oil.

But Chavez, while gracious in defeat, is hardly repentant. The
advocates of Venezuela's protagonist democracy have been down before,
and hopefully the same democratic engagement that contributed to the
referendum's defeat will lead to their resurgence.