Venezuela Takes the Next Step
ELLNER, STEVE
OVERCOMING PEREZ' LEGACY Venezuela Takes the Next Step BY STEVE ELLNER Caracas Achain of events here between late May and mid-June has bolstered Venezuela's sagging democracy and heightened...
...More fervently even than Peru's President Alberto K. Fujimori and Ross Perot in the United States, the Radical Cause ascribes all the nation's ills to politicians, whom it derisively refers to as "the political class...
...In what was surely a traumatic experience for many of its members, COPEI on June8 then virtually expelled its elder statesman, along with three other prominent national leaders...
...Furthermore, all are outspokenly critical of party machines (which, in the case of the two major parties, opposed the nominees...
...By casting himself as a defender of the poor, Caldera has also clashed with the business sector over the 1991 Labor Law he drafted—in particular the article requiring an employee's severance payment to be his last monthly salary multiplied by the number of years he worked for the company...
...Velasquez has replaced nearly the entire Cabinet with independents...
...Perez' neoliberal program of widespread privatization and drastic tariff reductions has deeply divided his own AD Party...
...In last December's Caracas Mayoral elections, the candidate of the Radical Cause—a militant Leftist party that employs a strongly anti-establishment rhetoric—upset incumbent Claudio Fermin, who was subsequently named the AD's Presidential standard-bearer...
...By picking him over members of the country's two main political formations, the ruling Democratic Action Party (AD) and the opposition Social Christian Party (COPEI), legislators bowed to the popular demand that Perez' AD relinquish the helm...
...As the country was jubilantly celebrating Perez' ouster, however, COPEI and its candidate, Oswaldo Alvarez Paz, sought to cast off the neoliberal label by declaring Social Christian doctrine incompatible with neglecting the poor...
...Then the Court, after sitting on graft charges against ex-President Jaime Lusinchi for three years, announced that it would shortly decide whether to initiate formal proceedings...
...Steve Ellner, a new contributor to the NL, directs the Center for Administrative and Economic Science Research at the University of Oriente in Venezuela...
...Most laymen feel there is no reason to make private donations, he lamented...
...Many bishops, for instance, have called for a complete overhaul of the present electoral system because it limits voters to a choice of party slates...
...Thus what appears to be preoccupying Venezuelans, at present anyway, is improving their lot by preserving their democracy...
...Statements issued by senior figures in the Church hierarchy increasingly reflect a pointed polemical stand...
...At the other extreme is Rafael Caldera Rodriguez, President of Venezuela from 1969 to 1974, whose name was long considered a synonym for COPEI...
...The leading parties are similarly being condemned for their nefarious actions...
...OVERCOMING PEREZ' LEGACY Venezuela Takes the Next Step BY STEVE ELLNER Caracas Achain of events here between late May and mid-June has bolstered Venezuela's sagging democracy and heightened interest in the campaign for December's Presidential and Congressional elections, now officially under way...
...And the AD's Fermin, who is starting out in the polls behind Alvarez Paz and Velasquez, is bound to benefit from his party's powerful organization now that the campaign is moving into high gear...
...But to a considerable degree this was a response as well to a breakdown of many of the society's institutions beyond the Presidency...
...COPEI, they alleged, traded favors far more exclusively...
...Next, in an unprecedented move the Senate voted unanimously to suspend him from office...
...Under Perez a staggering 80 per cent of the population has fallen below the povby George A. Miller, NL, March 8.) Alvarez Paz' campaign manager has been saying that neoliberalism is passe and that COPEI, keeping pace with the times, has embraced "postneoliberalism"—a term he fails to define...
...Perez stirred particular resentment because these policies, set forth soon after he was returned to office in 1989, contrasted sharply with his promises of economic intervention and a revival of the oil-boom years that marked his first term...
...The scheme bilked the treasury of billions of dollars—enough to have paid off most of the foreign debt...
...Most important, the fresh styles of the hopefuls on the hustings, combined with the suspension of Perez, have succeeded in easing tensions here...
...The direct election of individual candidates, they argue, would assure the loyalty of public officials to their constituencies, instead of to their parties...
...Perez, of course, did not appreciate the Church's entering his territory...
...Today he is the foremost critic of Perez' "economic package...
...Parishioners do not seem to realize, he explained, that just as declining oil prices have had a devastating effect on the economy, they have necessarily reduced government funds available to the Church...
...The study goes on to point out that income disparity, corruption and institutional ineffectiveness have become more conspicuous here than elsewhere in the continent...
...First came the Supreme Court's decision to indict President Carlos Andres Perez for corruption...
...A report released earlier this year by the influential Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue, for example, notes that "it is not events in Peru or in Haiti that caused the greatest alarm among democratic leaders of the Hemisphere," but rather the two attempted coups in Venezuela...
...Mean while COPEI, the largest opposition party yet a firm backer of the strategy, has said it wants to go further by "aggressively pursuing" foreign capital for the state-run oil industry...
...He will serve until February '94, when the winner of the December balloting is inaugurated —unless the suspended President's trial is completed earlier and ends in his exoneration...
...All four Presidential contenders seem to recognize that perhaps Perez' greatest failure was not achieving a national consensus on key issues...
...That in 1988 Perez became the first ex-President to be re-elected after a mandatory two-term hiatus, despite his having been censured by the AD's Ethical Commission and nearly condemned by Congress for malfeasance, attests to the public's nonchalance about matters of morality prior to the economic crisis of the '90s...
...Actually, rampant corruption dates back to Perez' 1974-79 administration...
...The other half relates to the economy—especially such austerity measures as the elimination of price controls on basic products, a proposed sales tax, and mass layoffs in the public sector without programs to facilitate re-employment...
...Moreover, his opposition to conservative economics and advocacy of certain popular programs led him recently to break with most sectors of the party he helped to found...
...With the erosion of confidence in the nation's established leaders, the military and the Catholic Church—traditionally sideline viewers in partisan conflicts—took on new roles...
...In another uncharacteristic step, Archbishop Alfredo Rodriguez of Sucre challenged the AD candidate's claim to victory in his state's gubernatorial contest last December...
...He warned that it "has to take into account what its mission is and to what point it can intervene in political affairs...
...For while most of Latin America was ruled by military dictatorships from the mid-'60s to the mid-'80s, Venezuelan democracy, with its history of political and economic stability, had enjoyed a paradigmatic status...
...In June, too, the National Congress chose an independent Senator, Ramon Jose Velasquez, as provisional President...
...In all probability a COPEI government would hew strictly to a free market system, but would introduce social programs designed to alleviate severe poverty...
...They dismiss with disdain his defense that he is a victim of the petty jealousy of political rivals, who begrudge his being the only Venezuelan in the 20th century twice elected to lead the country...
...Not so any longer...
...People are hurting and are not inclined to treat lightly major scandals involving Venezuela's prominent interest groups...
...Voters felt deceived by his quick about-face—and most, as a result, are inclined to accept the current imputations against him...
...But that could be cut down by competition on the far Left from steelworker-turnedgovernor Andres Velasquez, the Radical Cause candidate...
...They reacted angrily to reports that big business, for one, was a participant in the government's illegal sale of "preferential dollars" (a special exchange rate established for non-luxury imports...
...The 76-year-old lawyer has held a number of Cabinet posts, was the editor of two Caracas dailies, and is the author of several history books...
...But there can be no doubt that for many Venezuelans corruption, electoral fraud and other ethical problems are only half of the dismal picture they see...
...Indeed, the extent of the collapse, and the nature of the widespread discontent it engendered are what sent shivers throughout the nations making up the Organization of American States...
...During this period, as his unsuccessful efforts to privatize and deregulate the economy lost even his party's support, he faced accusations of misusing secret national security funds...
...Finally, the commander of the Air Force, who also has been accused of crooked dealings, was jailed pending his trial...
...For years, he reminds everyone, Alvarez Paz claimed to be the only Venezuelan politician who really understood what a market economy was all about...
...The campaign for this December's contest is already shaping up as a battle over economic issues...
...Whatever the outcome on December 5, Venezuelans have good reason to anticipate a more responsive government...
...Bishop Delgado expressed the fear in April that an implied threat lay behind the President's words...
...The historic indictment of Perez on May 20 climaxed more than a year of protests aimed at forcing him out of office, including two abortive military coups by midranking officers in February and November '92...
...Dismayed by the discovery of 5,000 ballots cast in the names of deceased individuals to the apparent advantage of AD, he joined most organized sectors in Sucre, including COPEI and the business community, to demand that the AD either accept the Movement to Socialism (MAS) candidate as the winner or agree to a rerun...
...This development, Bishop Miguel Delgado of the Diocese of Anzoategui told me in an April interview, "should not be at all surprising, since these are the two institutions that still have credibility here...
...Numerous AD members offered the justification that at least their party was "generous," allowing some affiliated with other political groups to enrich themselves (both licitly and illicitly...
...That in itself should restore some credibility to the political process and could help reverse an alarming trend toward voter abstentionism, exceeding 50 per cent in the last two state and local elections...
...The Venezuelan Catholic Church, he observed, is very vulnerable because of its longstanding dependence on state subsidies...
...The formula, more generous than any other in Latin America, has been attacked by both Perez and Alvarez Paz as repelling foreign investments...
...Age, too, could work against the 77-year-old Caldera...
...The ousted President's prediction that his indictment would generate chaos has proven false, and the threat of a third coup no longer hangs heavy in the air...
...According to public opinion polls published in mid-July, Caldera, who has the support of MAS and several other Left-wing parties, has an impressive early lead in the December race...
...his major rivals, 25 years younger, may simply wear him down in six months of barnstorming...
...One renowned economist, a leading champion of neoliberalism, scoffs at the disclaimers...
...ism"—a term he fails to define...
...At the time, though, oil-generated prosperity induced most Venezuelans to look the other way...
...When a new vote was held on May 30, MAS' candidate won with a majority of more than 60 per cent...
...Following the initial coup, his approval ratings plummeted to a mere 10 per cent...
...The Bishop may be right...
Vol. 76 • July 1993 • No. 9
