Refounding the Republic: The Political Project of Chavismo
Lander, Luis E. & López-Maya, Margarita
After more than a year in power, Chavez retains a great deal of popular support, especially among the poor. But the hostility of the rich is strong-and growing. "The corruption took all the...
...JockChivez was easily able to achieve his immediate eying over who was chosen for the various electoral short-term objectives: convening a Constituent posts up for grabs in the May mega-elections caused Assembly and getting a new constitution approved, serious fractures in the alliance, if not a definitive which the President saw as the first steps in the rupture...
...People...
...The opposition is too weak to pose any credible government confronts the consequences of this challenge to the new hegemony represented by Chavtragedy will say much about its social sensitivity and ismo...
...ChAvez does not hold back when confronting his political opponents, using adjectives like the "negative ones" in reference to those who campaigned against creating a National Constituent Assembly and "puntofijistas" to vilify a range of political actors that may in fact have very different political histories...
...The reference to "the corruption" is highly illustrative of how the average Venezuelan citizen perceives establishment parties and the politiMargarita L6pez-Maya is a research historian at the Center for Development Studies of the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) in Caracas...
...Indeed, its oil wealth notwithstanding, Venezuela is undergoing a deep economic recession...
...Given the absence of mechanisms to resolve conflicts within the MVR aside from the direct intervention of ChAvez himself, there remain serious doubts about the ability of this electoral movement to consolidate itself into a viable political party...
...Elite disdain for Chivez became evident when, after serving two years in jail for his involvement in the coup attempts, he became publicly involved in politics in 1994, but has turned visceral since he was elected president...
...This presence has been an important source of support and stability in ary officials ernment ay than at time since 58...
...Popular sectors identify with his working-class roots, and he constantly refers to the need to incorporate excluded social sectors in national development...
...9. Angela Zago, La rebeli6n de los angeles, pp...
...Not only are the traditional political parties that have dominated Venezuelan politics for the past 40 years, Democratic Action (AD) and the Social Christian Copei, considered corrupt, they are also blamed for the deep socio-economic crisis that has plagued Venezuela for the past two decades...
...The strong decline in internal consumer demand caused a marked decrease of economic activity: 10% in manufacturing, 20% in construction and 16.5% in commerce.' 3 There were some positive signs in 1999: Inflation remained low, there was a surplus in the balance of payments ($724 million), the fiscal deficit was lower than originally estimated and international reserves remained stable...
...The stark difference between national-level support for Chavez and his candidates in contrast to upper-class support for the opposition reveals a marked polarization along class lines in Venezuela...
...El Nacional, July 7, 1999, p. El...
...Indeed, Chavez has carefully constructed a political discourse based on symbols and images reinterpreted from historic and cultural references that have great popular appeal...
...But these indicators are largely attributable to the increases in oil Vol XXXIII, No 6 MAY/JUNE 2000 27REPORT ON VENEZUELA prices and a policy of fiscal austerity that belies the government's stated commitment to devise economic policies that improve the well-being of Venezuela's poor...
...Aside from the first of these, the November 1998 elections for members of Congress, state governors and legislative assemblies, each electoral process has served to establish and solidify popular support for Hugo Chavez...
...Finally, the use of military images and symbols-battles, tactics and strategy, the ambush, unsheathing the sword, putting one's boots on-are means to transmit ideas of order, discipline, efficiency, ability, organization and planning...
...2 In each subsequent vote, Chavez has won more than 3.3 million votes, out of a total number of actual voters that has fluctuated between five to seven million (due to changing abstention rates...
...The corruption took all the money, so President Chavez has a serious problem," said an elderly man, one of hundreds of pensioners protesting in downtown Caracas on a warm summer day in March 1999...
...As with the displacement In the wrangling over the May elections, for examof the old elite, the approval of a new constitution in ple, the MVR showed little interest in supporting the such a short time was surprising, but key to consoli- re-election bid of three incumbent state governors dating Chivez's power...
...tion was left homeless...
...In 1999 the gross domestic product (GDP) fell an estimated 7.2% and the fiscal deficit was 3.1% of GDP...
...Over the course of the past 18 months, Venezuela has experienced no less than five electoral processes...
...To understand President Chdvez's continued high standing with Venezuela's popular sectors, we will outline the different elements that contribute to his popularity...
...Chavez uses aggressive, dismissive language against well-known personalities and traditionally powerful groups and institutions, displaying a level of belligerence that is unprecedented in recent Venezuelan public life...
...It has become routine practice in any public act of importance, especially in support of or opposition to the government, to display the national flag, sing the national anthem, and wear red, yellow and blue, the colors of the Venezuelan flag...
...Relations between these political are so discredited that the presidential candidates organizations were never smooth...
...More military officials, both retired and active-duty officers, hold government posts today than at any other time since 1958...
...ChAvez tried, but ultimately failed, to resolve the conflict...
...4. National Electoral Board, "Resultados electorales" (1999...
...The way the ject...
...This dire situation was compounded in December, when one of the worst natural disasters in Venezuela's history struck...
...Divisions have emerged within his movement, most notably the defection of retired Lieutenant Francisco Arias CArdenas, a former Chdvez ally and a co-conspirator in the 1992 coup attempts, and now ChAvez's principal rival for the presidency...
...The most significant rupture took place on February 4, 2000, the eighth anniversary of the failed coup, when the party's main leaders, Yoel Acosta Chirinos and Luis Miquilena mutually accused each other of engaging in corrupt dealings...
...refounding of the Republic...
...I do not have obligations to anyone but the people...
...I d obligations but the i viated, is almost the same phonetically as MBR...
...He deliberately seeks to invoke pride in his listeners by linking today's working classes with heroic nineteenth-century narratives, especially those of the struggle for independence and the Federal War of 1859-1863, suggesting that today's militants are the direct heirs of the brave soldiers who fought in these wars...
...Rarely in contemporary Venezuelan history has a charismatic leader with such strong popular support as Chdvez elicited such repudiation from intellectuals and from the upper and middle classes...
...Yet even though in which, accompanied by high-ranking government poverty increased and unemployment rose during the officials, he presented his plans to jumpstart the econ- government's first year in power, expectations remain omy by reactivating manufacturing, tourism and agrihigh among the popular sectors...
...April referendum, while 81.7% nation-wide voted in favor of creating a Constituent Assembly, in Chacao, Baruta and El Hatillo, only 55.8%, 52.4%, and 45.1% voted in favor of the President's proposal...
...In February, few achievements in economic policy that point to a President Chdvez called a series of press conferences sustainable model of development...
...Chavez has carried out several of the political Plans to ensure the other priority, the reactivation objectives proposed by his movement, but of the economy, are already underway...
...Simultaneously, Chivez seeks to include the popular sectors, highlighting "the people" as the subjects of history and the agents of transformation...
...the process, but it has also caused unresolved tensions regarding different conceptions of the process between the civil and military sectors of Chavismo and within the military itself...
...And perhaps more importantly, where are the changes attempted by this charismatic leader taking the country...
...This begs the questions: What makes Chdvez deserving of such popular fervor...
...tary is clearly defined...
...Another key component of Chdvez's popularity is his oratory style and the confrontational content of his speeches...
...The upper and upper-middle classes in particular reject Chivez's efforts to appeal to the poor, reflecting a class and racist bias toward excluded social sectors...
...that has not intermarried with European migrants who arrived during the course of the twentieth century...
...4 The majority of these more than three million "hard votes" for Chavismo come from the popular sectors...
...El Nacional (Caracas), June 15, 1999, p. Al...
...Chavez places his persona in this discourse as merely a "piece of straw in the wind," a Venezuelan expression which suggests that his role is minimal in the larger process of social and political transformation...
...We will also evaluate the changes implemented by the government so far, based on its goal of constructThe print ar media are fi of Chavez, permanent r is curiously the popul evidenced f elections a po ing a new political hegemony-that is, a new political system based on new understandings of power and authority and an alternative model for development...
...Chivez effectively articulates an aggressive anti-system discourse, which resonates with a population that is fed up with the status quo...
...state of Vargas, where the rainfall in two or three days exceeded the annual average, remains comfortably in the lead...
...Nor is it likely to serve as an effective counterits commitment to the people...
...For them, references to "the people" as the principal actors in the new political process are 25 25 Vol XXXIII, No 6 MAY/JUNE 2000REPORT ON VENEZUELA read as evidence of demagogic populism...
...8. Angela Zago, La rebelibn de los angeles (Caracas: Fuente Editores, 1992), p. 14...
...8 This precise physical profile could be easily used to describe Venezuelans of mixed Black and Indian ancestry found within the dominated sectors of society throughout Venezuelan history...
...He also openly defied the National Electoral Board when it fined him for his active campaigning for candidates for the Constituent Assembly...
...NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 22REPORT ON VENEZUELA cal system in general...
...37-38...
...3 In July, Assembly members were elected, and Chavismo won another overwhelming victory: 125 of the 131 candidates elected were members of the President's coalition, the Patriotic Pole...
...Since the beginning of Chdvez's presidential campaign, his team of advisors opposed the apertura petrolera, the oil policy of the 1990s which sanctioned the selling of shares in the state-owned oil company, Venezuelan Petroleum (PDVSA...
...poor neighborhoods, middle-income housing grabs have weakened the Chavista alliance, and it developments and entire towns were buried by the will certainly not do as well in May as it did in last mudslides and more than a third of the state's popula- year's election for Constituent Assembly members...
...After taking office in February 1999, Chdvez announced a referendum to approve the holding of a National Constituent Assembly to rewrite the country's Constitution...
...The print and electronic media are fiercely critical of Chivez, expressing a permanent rejection that is curiously at odds with the popular support evidenced for him in elections and the opinion polls...
...In the ar support three municipalities of Chacao, or Chavez in Baruta and El Hatillo, however, he won a substantial majority, nd opinion with 60.4%, 65.9% and 71.9% of valid votes respectively...
...Coming in the wake of the defection of Arias Cardenas, this split could prove costly to the Patriotic Pole...
...While official electoral data does not provide categories to analyze the results using class-based categories as indicators, we can obtain a sense of the different bases of support for Chavez by sampling the three municipalities of Chacao, Baruta and El Hatillo, which rd electronic form the eastern part of the metercely critical ropolitan area of Caracas and contain the highest-income popuexpressing a lation of the city...
...Arias Cirdenas has cut into Chivez's support, but public opinion polls held in Vol XXXIII, No 6 MAY/JUNE 2000 23REPORT ON VENEZUELA March and April place Chdvez well ahead in the runup to the May 28 election.7 In light of these figures, the President's leadership seems to rest on solid ground-at least in the short term...
...Chavez won the December 1998 presidential election with 3,673,685 votes, or 56.2% of the valid votes...
...1 0 After one of many head-on confrontations with the Catholic Church hierarchy, Chivez claimed that certain bishops were possessed by the ss does not devil...
...Chivez's informality is identified with improvisation and his military language as an expression of authoritarianism...
...This continual use of nationalistic symbols has contributed to the emergence of a kind of patriotic culture in the country...
...And I know he will find it because he is a very intelligent man...
...All along, PPT leaders grumbled about decisions More milit 1 they saw as marginalizing their candidates and threatening the hold gov promise of a popular, democratic posts tod 4 project...
...In March 1999, under the firm guidance of Energy Minister Ali Rodriguez, a veteran oil expert and PPT activist who was recently named president of OPEC, the newly appointed board of directors of PDVSA implemented production cuts agreed to by OPEC and other independent oil-producing countries in order to boost oil prices on the international market...
...As a result, the Patriotic Pole may lose several state and city governments it currently controls in the May elections, and will probably not do as well as expected in other contests...
...The challenge dering the substantial political capital it has enjoyed by his former comrade-in-arms aside, Chavez until now...
...Conflicts within the MVR itself are perhaps the most evident sign of the problems within the proChavez alliance...
...years has been displaced...
...He also skillfully manipulates powerful symbols and cultural references that tap into Venezuelan nationalism...
...The fact that both of the principal presidential candidates are of military origin has heightened the tensions within the military, a situation that will not be resolved until the role of the miliThese differences aside, it is important to note that there is one issue that seems to draw consensus rather than conflict among the different groups linked to the ChAvez government--oil policy...
...Interview with Hugo Chavez in El Nacional, February 12, 2000, p. D1...
...The new name is, in effect, a proposal to found a new Republic by abolishing the "fourth republic," which was founded in 1830 with the separation of Venezuela from Gran Colombia-the short-lived country consisting of present-day Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama that won independence from Spain in 1821-and which presumably disintegrated under the puntofijista democracy...
...Acosta Chirinos, one of the commanders of the February 4 attempted coup and a long-time colleague of President ChAvez who came to be national coordinator of the MVR, left to back Arias C~rdenas' candidacy, taking with him a significant part of the MVR's original military wing...
...3. National Electoral Board, "Resultados electorales" (1999...
...Chivez spares no chance to reiterate this idea, as he did during a recent clash between the top advisors of his party and his government: "The process does not belong to me...
...An atypical weather phenomenon caused persistent unseasonal rains, producing flooding and the overflow of rivers in various regions of the country...
...The them...
...While acknowledging that it will not be an easy thing to do, the pensioner's expression of confidence reflects the hope of millions of Venezuelans that Chavez will overcome both the corruption and the misrule of the traditional parties while resolving Venezuela's economic crisis and social malaise...
...The viabiliadvance in pursuit of his political and social project...
...Unemployment reached 15.4% at the end of the third quarterthe highest rate in four decades-and the informal sector now constitutes 51.7% of the employed population...
...This in itself is astonishing, Chdvez's larger objective--consolidating a lasting because despite the weakness and decomposition evi- political project-may flounder on the rocky shores denced by the old elite in the past 15 years, it did not of alliance building...
...Any Venezuelan can immediately identify Hugo Chivez as a man of common extraction by his physical features: "Tall, broadly built, but not stout, he has the look of a nineteenth-century Venezuelan mestizo Chivez playing baseball with friends in Nene Padr6n Stadium, Caracas in 1999...
...Chivez's charisma, culture...
...Refounding the Republic 1. Base de Datos Marco Cultural de la Protesta Popular Venezolana en la Era Neoliberal (Marco Cultural, 1999), p. 359...
...It belongs to the people...
...Hillsides in Caracas Chavez's "Bolivar 2000" project uses the military to improve public health and were washed away and in the infrastructure, giving free medical exams and repairing roads...
...C hdvez clearly sees his gov- ernment as constituting a new political system based on new understandings of power and authority...
...A year and a half opposing Chdvez in the May elections have dismissed into the Chivez Administration, debates to establish a the possibility of being publicly backed by either of common program have largely been abandoned...
...After a year in power, Chivez and his program for change retain a great deal of popular support...
...Translated from the Spanish by NACLA...
...putes and defections resulting from the process of The topography of the central coast was irreversibly choosing candidates for the over 6,000 posts up for altered...
...The government has also made many attempts to make February 4, the date of the first failed coup led by Chdvez, part of the pantheon of national holidays...
...But first, we must ask what it is about Chivez that the popular sectors find so appealing...
...Miquilena, a long-time leftist, has occupied important positions in the new administration, first as Minister of the Interior and Justice, then as president of the National Constituent Assembly...
...But it is an unquestionable reality that, as a pro-government Assembly members realized that the result of the five electoral processes held over the past sooner the document was finished and the referendum 18 months, the traditional political elite that dominat- held, the more favorable the outcome would be to the ed Venezuelan politics and society for the last 40 government...
...And in a referendum held last December, the new Constitution was approved by 3,301,475 votes...
...Chivez uses the term "puntofijistas" to minimize the pact's importance in ending years of dictatorship and establishing the bases of democratic rule, associating it rather with the corruption and clientelism that developed later...
...The opinion of this 20%, however, carries significant weight, making it crucial to understand why a man so popular among the poor and working classes is so vehemently rejected by the well-to-do...
...The other key component of the new government is the military...
...6. National Electoral Board, "Resultados electorales" (1999...
...5. National Electoral Board, "Resultados electorales" (1999...
...Luis E. Lander is a social researcher at the Economics and Social Science Faculty at the UCV...
...It be people...
...The MAS avoided similar problems by reaching a last-minute agreement with the MVR...
...9 In 1997, after the National Electoral Board refused to allow the MBR-200 to register because it used the name Bolivar, ChAvez renamed it the Movement of the Fifth Republic (MVR), another name with great symbolic potential, and which, when abbre"The process belong to Chavez...
...The referendum, which took place in April 1999, was overwhelmingly approved with 3,382,075 votes (81.7% of the valid votes...
...political ambitions of the individuals leading the difGiven the weakness of the traditional parties, ferent parties have not made matters any easier...
...1 2 Chivez has resorted to a number of other ways of establishing a rapport with Venezuelan citizens...
...The two pillars of the Venezuelan for All (PPT), the Movement Toward Socialism biparty system, AD and Copei, find themselves prac- (MAS), and other smaller, mostly leftist, groups, was tically reduced to empty shells, lacking new leaders established just before the regional elections of and bases of support of any relevance...
...6 In the Constituent Assembly elections, the Patriotic Pole's candidates did not fare well at all in the highincome districts...
...D5-8...
...2. National Electoral Board, "Resultados electorales," Boletln Indra del 10 de diciembre (Caracas: Direcci6n de Estadisticas Electorales, 1998...
...He has even accused the Venezuelan Confederation of me," says Workers (CTV), the largest labor belongs to the union federation, of being one of the "most corrupt expressions of o not have the political elite...
...His military background also seems to be an attribute, as does his youthful image and his informal, pedagogic style of addressing his audience...
...Reported by Venezuela's Central Bank in El Nacional, December 27, 1999, pp...
...At a little over a year in power, it is still too early to say where this process of Chavez supporters heckle members of the old Congress, calling them corrupt, change is headed, both because September 1999...
...Not only was oil a strategic concern of the state, they argued, but oil wealth should be effectively channeled to promote socio-economic development...
...His use of humor is seen as a display of vulgarity, and his references to baseball are seen as improper, lacking the sobriety befitting a statesman...
...While this shift in oil policy represents a clear defense of national interests, however, it is not enough to support the Chdvez government's ambitious development model's social goals...
...The pedagogic style of many of his speeches, which are often accompanied by graphs and maps, is aimed at making them accessible to the average Venezuelan, while at the same time lending transparency to the actions of his government...
...weight in defense of democratic institutions and civil liberties should these come under attack by authoriA year and a half into his government, President tarian elements within the government...
...The possibility of drafting a new constitution tion and because of the turbulence of his administra- based on a broad societal consensus was aborted as tion...
...Shortly after he was inaugurated president, for example, Chdvez engaged in strong verbal confrontations with Congress and the Supreme Court, and threatened to shut them down...
...Chavez first asked where he should go to pay the fine, then challenged the Board, saying it would have to put a muzzle on him or put him in prison "because I will keep talking to the people...
...7. The results of five polls were published in El Universal (Caracas), April 14, 2000, pp...
...He has also clashed with intellectuals and to anyone national and foreign journalists...
...In addition, as a llanero-a man from the plains of central Venezuela, where untrained, poorlyequipped troops played a very important role in the war for independence-Chdvez evokes images of heroic, untamed and irreverent characters in popular culture...
...of the short period which has elapsed since his elec- text...
...In reality," he continued, "there is no money, but the President is looking for it...
...He portrays himself as an outsider, untainted by traditional politics...
...Both parties November 1998...
...In effect, the President puts a wide variety of actors into the same sack because he views them as his opponents...
...His pedagogic tone is perceived as primitive and unnecessary, and his lengthy presidential speeches are attacked as little more than endless, empty rhetoric...
...With these cuts and the beginning of economic recovery in East Asia, the price of oil began to rise from the average of $8 per barrel in February 1999 to $23 per barrel in January 2000...
...On the contrary, 1999 was one of the most difficult years the popular sectors have had to endure in the past two decades of crisis and transition...
...In the new Constitution, the Republic has been rebaptized the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela...
...This comment, laced with references to the corruption that has characterized Venezuelan politics in recent years and with confidence that things under current President Hugo Chavez Frias will improve, highlights several of the main features of Chivez's astonishing popularity...
...The investment necessary to That means Chavez and his allies will have to conrebuild and relocate families that lost their homes tend with the reality of negotiating with other adds an extra burden to the substantial sums already actors--old and new-who oppose the Chavista pronecessary to reactivate the economy...
...This is remarkable, given that the Patriotic Pole's candidates won the top ten slates from the state of Miranda, in which these three municipalities are located...
...At the same time, however, who belong to the PPT, clearly the most significant the haste with which the President and his allies draft- group in the Patriotic Pole after the MVR...
...For example, the ideology of his first political movement, the Revolutionary Bolivarian NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 24REPORT ON VENEZUELA Movement 200 (MBR-200) was a "tree" based on "three roots"-Sim6n Bolivar and two other nineteenth-century Venezuelan heroes, Sim6n Rodriguez and Ezequiel Zamora...
...As Venezuela braces for yet another election, in which, as mandated by the new Constitution, all elected posts, from president to a new unicameral congress to local-level mayors, are up for grabs, Chavez remains highly popular...
...Just two ed and sought approval for the new document gener- weeks before the mega-elections, in a move that may ated conflict and tensions, and many were dissatisfied have long-term consequences for governability, the with what they perceived as weaknesses in the final PPT withdrew its support for the President in his bid 26 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICASREPORT ON VENEZUELA for re-election...
...He has black curly hair, narrow eyes, thick lips, and a streamlined nose...
...Last December, PPT secretary general Pablo Medina made any other a public statement expressing his concern that the military was gain- 19 ing undue influence in the new administration...
...Nationalism lies at the heart of the Chavista symbolism...
...The government is making an effort to clearhis communication skills and his appeal to ordinary ly link macro-economic policy with other goals in Venezuelans have given him political capital to energy, infrastructure and social welfare...
...In this context, some economic benefits country's old political elite and replacing it with fresh must be felt soon if the government is to avoid squanleadership that supports their project...
...Tensions soon erupted, however, leading to defections within both parties...
...The Patriotic Pole (PP), an seem possible that there could be such a rapid shift in alliance composed of Chivez's MVR, the Homeland political power...
...5 In the ills...
...This did occur, but later, by order of the newly approved Constitution...
...Still, tensions, dis- mudslides and flooding caused thousands of deaths...
...1-12...
...Chivez and his movement see the life conditions of the 80% of the population living these elections as a means of finally displacing the in poverty...
...ty of Chtvez's larger social and political project will The government's second year is dominated by two depend on his government's success on the economic priorities: winning the May mega-elections and reac- front, which will be measured by improvements in tivating the economy...
...he is now president of the "congresillo," the temporary Congress appointed by the Assembly to legislate until new congressional elections take place this May...
...He also criticized the military's failure to coordinate relief efforts with the governor of the state of Vargas, PPT militant Alfredo Laya, in the aftermath of the December floods...
...In fact, the most-voted Patriotic Pole candidates came in ninth in Baruta, sixth in Chacao, and fourteenth in El Hatillo...
...Yet the President is widely popular, and the disapproval of him and his government seems to be concentrated primarily in the 20% of the population who are relatively well-off...
...If an outside observer picked up a Venezuelan newspaper or tuned into a Venezuelan news program, he or she would receive an image of a leader who is repudiated by the majority of the population...
...In his public speeches, Chivez constantly attacks traditional political elites, who he and his followers call puntofijistas in reference to the Punto Fijo Pact of 1958, the first step in the construction of Venezuela's two-party democratic system...
...This contentious discourse has been clearly directed toward confronting and excluding traditional elites, considered by Chdvez and his movement as a corrupt oligarchy...
...He frequently uses baseball images-a favorite sport among Venezuelans-and has played the game in public on more than one occasion...
...The upper and middle classes, on the other hand, are more likely to vote against Chdvez...
...These very elements provoke, to varying degrees, rejection, disdain and even indignation among ChAvez's enemies...
...In the presidential elections of ejection that 1998, Chavez's principal oppoat odds with nent, Henrique Salas R6mer, won 40% at the national level...
Vol. 33 • May 2000 • No. 6
