Venezuela in Transition
MILLER, GEORGE A.
WAITING FOR DECEMBER Venezuela in Transition BY GEORGE A. MILLER Caracas The specter of chaos continues to haunt Venezuela. As the country gears up for a long and possibly violent political...
...Where it is going remains something of a mystery...
...Speaking of AD and COPEI, he bristles, "It is a fiction that they ever were true opposition parties...
...Our democracy may not be the best, but we want to keep it...
...Joseph Mann, the London Financial Times correspondent here for the past 19 years, offers a less pessimistic view: "Cap has initiated a series of major changes, such as selling government-owned and -run industries to private firms, and in doing so he has taken on a barrel of tigers...
...Perhaps most important, improving the quality of democracy is seen as critical to confronting the problems plaguing this country —approximately the size of Texas and Oklahoma combined...
...Clearly, money is coming in...
...His response, soon after his inauguration in February 1989, was the initiation of a "shock program" that included privatizing state-owned industries, eliminating price and wage controls, deregulating interest and exchange rates, and cutting import duties in half...
...Except here it is not only gobbling up our national income, it is destroying the moral fabric of society...
...We must end the corruption," a young lawyer who requested anonymity told me...
...The public is so fed up with the politicians that experts are predicting a voter turnout of perhaps 50 per cent, a sharp drop from the 90 per cent of past elections...
...None of this had its desired effect...
...Changes are under way as well to reduce the influence of political parties in the selection of members of the bicameral Congress...
...This despite the fact that most students drop out after ninth grade...
...By 1991 four-fifths of Venezuela's roughly 20 million people were living below the poverty line...
...He and several similarly concerned individuals are convinced the right man for the job is the very successful Governor Oswaldo Alvarez Paz of the state of Zulia, who is actively seeking the AD nomination...
...Certainly it is not being spent on the country's limping social services...
...We just wanted to get rid of Cap and replace him in early elections with an honest government...
...Avant-garde office towers and balconied high-rise apartment buildings are shooting up almost everywhere one looks...
...But this time he faced an economy in shambles largely because of the sharp drop in international prices for oil, the source of 90 per cent of the country's export revenue...
...While he is still a powerful political figure, the consensus of the political insiders I spoke with is that the election will come down to an AD vs...
...At 77 he is in excellent health, but his physician reportedly has told friends he would not vote for him because he cannot take pressure...
...An increasingly isolated Perez was being flayed for high food prices, deteriorating social services, and galloping corruption in government...
...It's eating us alive, like the na-tional debt in the U.S...
...It all started with Cap's first administration, which also set the example for credit card living by the masses when he started going to foreign banks to finance his dream of turning Venezuela into a First World industrial power overnight...
...We didn't want to go back to a military regime," explained a gardener I stopped to talk to...
...We must change the electoral system, bring an end to the corruption, and take the justice system out of the hands of the political parties...
...there will be a third attempt to oust Perez before the balloting takes place on December 5. "There still is a chance of a third coup," says Anibal Romero, a professor of political science at prestigious Simon Bolivar University...
...The front-runners, respectively, are Alvarez Paz, 50, and Eduardo Fernandez, 52, a former Caldera protege and ex-Congressman who controls the COPEI party machinery...
...Their staffs continue to draw full salaries, though, because severance pay would cost the government too much...
...Health care has deteriorated to the point where only the rich can afford it...
...Corruption spread like a virus during the following two administrations," the young lawyer continued, "and today we have a President who is being charged with embezzling millions in public funds.' For months now, she pointed out, the newspapers have been filled with reports of how Perez shifted $17 million from one ministry to another, until the money disappeared...
...After speaking with people from all walks of life, many of whom I have known for almost two decades, my own impression is that the two unsuccessful coup attempts have had an extremely chilling effect and Venezuelans are now determined to do everything possible to keep their democratic form of government...
...Inflation and unemployment soared, widening the gap between the rich and the rest of the population...
...As the country gears up for a long and possibly violent political campaign that will culminate next December in its eighth Presidential and Congressional elections—dating from its becoming a federal republic 35 years ago—virtually everybody one speaks to expresses concern about preserving constitutional government...
...What voters want is someone who can solve their problems...
...Democracy has been hanging by a thread here since mid-level officers of the Armed Forces launched unsuccessful coups against President Carlos Andres Perez in February and November of 1992...
...The matter is currently being investigated by the Comptroller's Committee of the Chamber of Deputies (the lower house of Congress) , by the Public Property Safeguard Court and by the Public Prosecutor...
...I can't foresee a strong voter turnout...
...It is a tough period because Venezuelans have become used to paternalism from the state...
...Nevertheless, Mann notes that Caldera, thought by some to regard himself as the de Gaulle of Venezuela, could prove a spoiler...
...Once during those heady days, I had occasion to participate in a meeting in Perez' office...
...For one thing, Perez' power to issue decrees should not be underestimated...
...Last May, between the two coups, Congressmen from the country's major political groupings, Perez' Democratic Action Party (AD) —which he also has alienated—and the Social Christian Party (COPEI), even briefly considered legislation to cut short the term of the man everyone calls "Cap...
...On the surface at least, this city of 4 million appears to be prospering...
...The level of cynicism is very high," she concluded...
...A founder of COPEI and President from 1969 to 1974, Caldera quit the party because he felt it had betrayed him...
...Over coffee in his book-lined study, Uslar takes the darkest view: "Democracy in Venezuela is undergoing its greatest crisis, and the present government doesn't know how to solve it...
...Keeping democracy going is more important than voting a particular party line,'' cautions Arreaza...
...Presidential) control...
...Privatization proceeded slowly due to the inability to sell off many decrepit state industries, depriving the government of anticipated funds...
...The poor are hurting because of the high price of food and the middle class is being squeezed out of existence...
...WAITING FOR DECEMBER Venezuela in Transition BY GEORGE A. MILLER Caracas The specter of chaos continues to haunt Venezuela...
...The gardener had immigrated from Italy after World War II...
...Cap is so hated by so many that he could be killed...
...We need a President who understands what has to be done and will do it...
...In a surprise step, the Social Christians have decided to open their April 25 primary to all registered voters, regardless of the party they belong to...
...He remembered very well the 10-year dictatorship of General Marcos Perez Jimenez, who was overthrown in January 1958...
...Thus, reasons Romero, the victor "probably will need a coalition to govern, and that would weaken the Presidency...
...COPEI race...
...Now some residents of this fast-paced, glitzy capital are wondering whether George A. Miller, a previous contributor to The New Leader, is a retired Foreign Service officer who was stationed in Latin America for 12 years...
...Everyone is angry...
...Mann, from his more detached journalistic perch, believes Venezuela is "in a transition period that is going to last for a while...
...Educators, for example, complain that over half the education budget is earmarked for public institutions of higher learning, including 17 full-fledged universities...
...It is an absolute disaster," insists the country's leading living novelist, essayist and social critic, Arturo Uslar Pietri...
...In that event, the Military High Command probably would take over, even though the Constitution requires the President of the National Congress to assume the office and call for new elections...
...But this country is very attractive to foreign investors right now, and U. S. firms are the major investors...
...After I commented on a bust of Lincoln adorning the credenza behind his desk, he said, "I'm going to be the Abraham Lincoln of Venezuela...
...But there is no escaping the reality that, ultimately, the survival of democracy in Venezuela will depend largely on the person who is elected President next December...
...No one trusts anyone anymore...
...With the media and the public shifting the focus of their attention to the campaign, however, the likelihood is that Venezuela will enjoy a normal transfer of power...
...Democratic Action will hold its primary April 18...
...Alejandro Arreaza, a fortysomething entrepreneur who has developed a jewel of a resort on the island of Coche and is turning an uncompleted trade school into a vacation hotel on the same island, would not go so far...
...When we come to the election, nobody will win with much of a majority...
...For another, the High Command continues to accept the concept of civilian (i.e...
...An independent Presidential candidate in 1963, the 86-year-old Uslar says, "The system has gotten so bad that I may not vote this year myself...
...The declared independent is Rafael Cal-dera Rodriguez...
...Governors of the country's 20 states are no longer appointed by the President, they are elected by their constituencies...
...But he agrees with other political observers that most Venezuelans have lost faith in the two principal political parties, and that the differences between them have become blurred...
...half may be elected by plurality, rather than by a proportional representation system...
...No public service works here now...
...Romero, an adviser to Fernandez, is "worried that the new President will not be strong enough to carry out the reforms and measures required to strengthen democracy...
...Immensely popular when he held the office during the oil-boom years of 1974-79, Perez was the first former Chief Executive to be reelected after a mandatory two-term hiatus...
...Half the public hospitals designed to serve the vast majority of the population are closed due to lack of funds...
...One encouraging sign is a move toward decentralizing power...
...As I write, the field in December is expected to consist of three party candidates, at the minimum, and an independent . The third party to announce it will compete is the far Left Radical Cause...
...Indeed, every evening one can see U.S., European and Japanese businessmen dining with their Venezuelan counterparts in restaurants that rank as the most elegant in South America...
Vol. 76 • March 1993 • No. 4
