Return Of The Chavitos: The Brotherhood Of Chavez

Soon after Hugo Chavez went to prison in February 1992 for his failed military uprising, it was carnival time in Venezuela and hundreds of largely young boys dressed up in military fatigues with a red beret as Chavitos (little Chavez) or Chavecitos (the latter usually refers to a balancing Chavez doll), an army of Chavez look-alikes. In one commando operation Chavez had inserted himself in the Venezuelan popular imagination. 

A Chavito

Chavecitos

He mentions this in one of his prison letters: “Those were the days of being born. Those were the days… that children were dressed up. I remember very clearly we were at the San Carlos barracks; it was the carnival and there we could watch television and there was a journalist speaking with a child. It is not easy speaking to children, but they were on the streets and the child with his mother, the child dressed as Chavecito or Chavito. Then the journalist arrives and comes up to the child, you know how the journalists are like, and then tells him:

‘And you, what’s your name and what are you dressed up as?’

“The child with a beret tells the journalist:

 ‘Are you an idiot? Don’t you see that I am Chavez?’

“And then the journalist tells him:

‘Sure, I know that you are in disguise. But who is Chavez?’

“The child gives a beautiful reply:

‘Chavez is there among the trees. He walks there and I’ll go with him.’

“Those were the days. You know that Chavez is something more than Chavez… I’m merely a human being of flesh and bones, no more than anyone of us. In truth, this is what we are as individuals: dragged, pushed and impelled by the revolutionary hurricane.”

Twenty years later, the Chavitos are effectively in power, not the carnival children, but a new generation of young leaders standing in for their leader absent from Venezuela. And they have a project: creating a brotherhood of Chavez. This is not a deduction; it has been publicly announced by Chavez’s principal heir and chosen apostle, Nicolas Maduro, the current Vice-President.

The Brothers 

Nicolas Maduro

Diosdado Cabello

Elias Jaua

There are two other men who stand alongside Maduro as the principal executors of Chavez’s political will, activated even though he is alive. Diosdado Cabello, speaker of the National Assembly, former soldier-mutineer and a natural expert in psychological warfare, and Elias Jaua, brand-new Foreign Minister and beloved of the Chavista base who also appeals to the young. There are no women in the first rank but four of the twenty Chavista state governors are women. The governors, two of them the last chiefs-of-staff and nine others former soldiers, were handpicked by Chavez to develop local bases and deny the Opposition any hinterland. They are the second rung of the leadership pool and committed to building the brotherhood. There are a few other second-rank leaders in the PSUV (the United Socialist Party of Venezuela), the national government and in the armed forces who are part of this talent pool. 

'I am Chavez'

Chavez postponed an emergency surgery and returned to Caracas from Havana for a day on December 8 last year and asked Venezuelans to accept Maduro as his successor if he did not survive. He met his military high command with the sword of Bolivar in hand, reiterated his choice of Maduro and in a symbolic moment handed the sword to Maduro. That was the precise moment in which power was transferred, even if temporarily, in Venezuela to the next generation. A few days later Maduro almost broke down at a public event, fearing that Chavez was dying of post-operation complications, and first spoke of creating the brotherhood of Chavez, swearing an oath of loyalty “to always accompany Chavez, if necessary, even beyond this life”. On January 10, the day Chavez was to have taken oath in parliament but could not make it, hundreds of thousands of Chavistas arrived at the Balcony of the People at the Miraflores presidential palace, constitution in hand and declared, ‘We are all Chavez’. The brotherhood of Chavez was consecrated that day. 

The brotherhood is structured on a very personal and, simultaneously, very ideological foundation. Loyalty to Chavez, unquestioning and permanent, will bind the brothers of the same ‘political father’. The President, Maduro said, had changed their lives, made them “better human beings” and turned them from idealistic young men and women to Socialists capable of handling power and using it to construct Socialism. But Chavez is what the assassinated Colombian leader, Jorge Gaitan, was: not just a person but also a people. The brotherhood of Chavez has at least three clear influences: the anti-imperialism of Simon Bolivar, Christianity and Marxism. Venezuela is dreaming the Bolivarian, Christian and Marxist dream that seeks to create a fiercely independent nation living on the principles of social justice based on a radical interpretation of Christianity (Christ was the first Socialist, as Chavez has so often said) and recognising that class struggle must lead them to social ownership of the means of production and a just distribution of riches based on the Marxist notion of from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs. Borrowing a line from the iconic Venezuelan singer, Ali Primera, the brotherhood of Chavez seeks to “make humanity more human”.

If Chavez returns and lives awhile, the project will recede, only to germinate again when he passes away. Perhaps he will have better luck with his succession that either Lenin or Mao; perhaps it was not mere luck or chance that this has happened; perhaps he prepared for it right from the start of his illness; perhaps he will have more time to cement his legacy.

Chavistas Score Another Famous Victory

There are as many ways of explaining election results in Venezuela as there are of reading tea leaves. There are some obvious features of the December 16 elections for 23 state governors in that country, the second-most important electoral event after the October presidential elections. Some of the changes are harder to quantify, but real nevertheless, and there is political evolution of which it is still too early to come to a conclusion.

First, the PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela), Chavez’s political creation, won 20 of the 23 governorships at stake and steamrolled the Opposition and its own dissidents. The Chavista influence extended to 298 of the 334 municipalities, a pointer to what will happen in next May’s mayoral elections. In 15 of these 20 states, the Bolivarian candidates won by more than 55% votes that they had achieved during the presidential elections. The Chavista votes increased in the three states where it lost to the Opposition. Henrique Capriles, the Opposition presidential candidate, was the winner in Miranda, the state adjoining Caracas and with the largest concentration of the moneyed classes in Venezuela but with a reduced number of votes and only a four-percent victory margin. His challenger was Elias Jaua, a former Vice-President who, along with Nicolas Maduro, current Vice-President and Hugo Chavez’s successor if his health fails him, sits right at the top of the emerging generation that will rule Venezuela. Elias is far from politically finished; his candidature went down very well with the Bolivarian social base nationally and he will surely mount another challenge in 2016. Capriles retains his presidential option but is weakened, diminished in stature, and despised outside the Caracas oligarchy which controls money and media access for the Opposition.

The PSUV did not lose any of the 15 states it held and took five states from the Opposition or deserters from its own ranks. And what states. The victory in Tachira and Zulia, bordering Colombia, deprives the Right of resources that organised crime fetched for them. With victory in Merida, where the Communists mounted a challenge, the Andean region has returned to PSUV fold. Zulia is the most populated state, oil rich and an agricultural powerhouse. The state of Carabobo is part of the country’s limited non-petroleum industrial base and losing it will hurt the Opposition financially. Eleven of the winning governors are former soldiers, two of them former Chiefs of Staff, one of whom in the Andean state of Trujillo won with over 80% of the votes and the other who unseated a long-serving Opposition governor in the island of Nueva Esparta, Venezuela’s tourist hub. There are four women governors this time, the double of four years ago. The Bolivarians have taken control of all but one of the state legislatures, among these Miranda, which will restrict Capriles’ freedom of action.

The Opposition has been pushed back territorially and also to its rabid upper class core voters. The Chavistas have put the reverses of 2007-8 behind them when they lost a constitutional referendum and important states in the last state elections. Abstention was surprisingly high this time, about 46%, and seems to have affected both camps. Various theories have emerged overnight to explain it: voter fatigue, disillusionment in the Opposition camp and dissidence in Chavista ranks. Most of these are hypotheses for now but surely one certainty is that both camps have been reduced to their core voters and, while the PSUV emerged as by far the largest party securing close to half the votes, its mobilising powers are still not extensive as is thought. There are many, many Venezuelans who vote for one side or the other in different elections, suggesting that the voters are not always as polarised as the politics.

The biggest significance goes beyond numbers, in what Venezuelan political analysts describe as the emergence of Chavismo, a political force forged definitively in these elections. Chavez’s party secured this triumph in his absence. Chavismo has emerged as a durable phenomenon: it adheres to a set of values based on inclusion and social justice, a loyal support base, a mean election machinery and a leadership without any major discernible fissures nationally. But its strength is precisely its greatest weakness. It remains an electoral machinery and many join it like the civil service, hoping to further their political careers.

These elections also saw some of the PSUV allies, principally the Communists, challenge the official candidates in some of the states and campaign against the PSUV while professing loyalty to Chavez. The emergence of a non-Chavista Left comes at a curious time, when Chavez is still alive and as revered by his people as ever. These parties cannot win on their own, or defend the revolution on their own, but can electorally damage the PSUV. They secured respectable votes in at least four states, claiming to be still loyal to Chavez but left one question unanswered: by splitting the votes are they willing to let he Right sneak into governorships or mayoralties, or some day into the presidency?  Voting numbers suggest that the Venezuelan Communists and some other Leftist parties will feel that they can only grow at the expense of the PSUV by sheltering its dissidents.

The Opposition increasingly resembles a one-legged man in a kick boxing competition. Chavismo has made its transition to a new generation but the unity of the broad Left is not so assured and the PSUV, contrary to appearances of a hegemonic domination, remains a fragile creation.

El gobierno roba

La policía mata

La prensa miente

Escrito sobre una pared en la República Dominicana durante 

manifestaciones hace poco tiempo

Venezuela: un pueblo y su corazón

Traducido por  Atenea Acevedo

Hoy decir Venezuela es invitar comentarios sobre Hugo Chávez. El comandante, como lo llaman sus seguidores, tiene una reputación que se las trae: es el dirigente perpetuo de un país inundado de petróleo; es el rey del culto a la personalidad; Caracas, la ciudad capital, es también la capital mundial de la inseguridad; quiere transformar a Venezuela en un país socialista y eliminar la propiedad privada; es amigo de los presidentes que Estados Unidos desaprueba. Al gobierno estadounidense se le cuecen las habas por deshacerse de él, pero el comandante ejerce derecho de réplica… una vez, en un programa transmitido por televisión en directo, llamó “burro” a George W. Bush.

Hace años que sigo lo que sucede en Venezuela y mi idea de este país sudamericano dista mucho del vox populi mundial. Las elecciones presidenciales de octubre de este año me brindaron a oportunidad de poner mis impresiones personales a prueba.

Mi vuelo a Caracas iba lleno de venezolanos de la oposición que iban a Venezuela a votar. Una pareja joven me habló de su negativa a votar en el consulado en Londres porque “el personal ahí es chavista”. Después otras personas me dijeron lo mismo. Curiosamente, tratándose de una supuesta dictadura, los opositores venezolanos se expresan con total libertad ante perfectos desconocidos, ya sea en sus casas o en las calles. Los taxistas y guías de turistas que se oponen a Chávez apagan la radio en cuanto se oye su voz. En casa de la señora que me alquiló una habitación la hija cambiaba el canal de televisión en cuanto Chávez aparecía en pantalla. La madre simpatiza con Chávez, pero prefiere no decir nada.

La mayoría de los principales diarios, las televisoras más populares y prácticamente todas las estaciones de radio estaban con la oposición. Los titulares reflejaban su partidismo y su cobertura de la campaña de Henrique Capriles, el joven rival de Chávez, era aduladora. Me resultaba cada vez más difícil entender cómo encajaban las palabras “dictadura” y “restricciones a la libertad de expresión” en ese contexto.

Los detractores de Chávez parecían obsesionados, especialmente al conversar con los extranjeros. Todo lo bueno de Venezuela siempre había estado ahí, pero todo lo que andaba mal era culpa de Chávez. Lo odian y en serio. Esta vez creían tenerlo contra las cuerdas por el cáncer y la falta de popularidad. Me decían una y otra vez que sus seguidores lo habían abandonado y perdería las elecciones… exactamente lo mismo que oían de los medios privados. A fin de cuentas, Chávez ganó por mucho las elecciones e incluso la oposición las reconoció como un proceso libre y justo.

Si ganó, seguramente tenía respaldo. No resultó difícil encontrar a los seguidores de Chávez: formaban multitudes en la pequeña ciudad de Mérida, donde pasé la mayor parte de mi estancia, estaban entre los pescadores de las islas turísticas y eran aún más en Caracas, con sus llamativas camisetas y gorras rojas donde se leía ‘Chávez corazón del pueblo’. El amor por su comandante se sentía personal, algo íntimo entre la gente y el presidente, sin intermediarios y sin esperar nada a cambio. Nunca vi algo parecido y de no haber estado en Venezuela no podría dar fe de su autenticidad. No se trata del culto a la personalidad impuesto desde arriba, sino de una especie de nueva religión latinoamericana que surge desde abajo, de entre los pobres. Para ellos, Chávez es su Mesías.

Ese amor no es gratuito. Desde que llegó al poder, hace 13 años, Chávez ha mejorado notoriamente la calidad de vida de los pobres, sector que constituye la mayor parte de la población. Vi centros de salud en todas las ciudades y pueblos que visité, fueran grandes o pequeños, dotados en su mayoría de médicos cubanos que brindan atención y medicamentos básicos sin costo; aun en los pueblos andinos más remotos había nuevos espacios de esparcimiento para los pequeños; los colegios estatales están limpios y son grandes, y todos los niños de primaria reciben una computadora portátil gratis llamada “canaimita”.

La comida no es barata en Venezuela. La economía sigue siendo especulativa por el dinero fácil proveniente del petróleo. La inflación es alta, pero los pobres pueden, al menos, adquirir alimentos en las tiendas estatales donde los subsidios pueden alcanzar 80% del precio en el mercado de productos básicos como aceite, harina y azúcar. Además, ahora el Estado ha empezado a instalar panaderías y a vender arepas, el tradicional alimento básico de maíz del desayuno venezolano.

Se están construyendo miles de apartamentos espaciosos en toda Venezuela. El plan es levantar tres millones de viviendas en los próximos seis años y cientos de miles de personas ya se han mudado a una casa nueva. Algunas de las viviendas están en pequeños grupos de edificios, otras parecen ciudades nuevas al contar con su propio colegio, centro de salud básica, transporte, parque de ocio e incluso iglesia. El diseño de estas viviendas no desentonaría con el de ningún país europeo, pero aquí son para los pobres y cuentan con un subsidio masivo. En Caracas pude ver nuevos bloques de apartamentos en los mejores distritos empresariales. Era como si las viviendas públicas de pronto hubieran aparecido al costado del Museo Británico en Londres.

La lista podría ser mucho más larga, pero fueron tres las cosas que llamaron más mi atención. Mientras vemos que en Europa se retrasa la edad de jubilación, en Venezuela se adelantó dos años la edad para empezar a recibir la pensión del Estado. Esta medida incluye a las personas que se dedican al comercio informal. Los derechos laborales están en la mira de los gobiernos occidentales y la reforma laboral en Venezuela dificulta el despido de personal. Es imposible despedir a una persona que tenga un hijo discapacitado so pretexto de ahorrar costos. Los empleadores que violan la nueva ley no solo enfrentan multas, sino la posibilidad de ir a la cárcel. Nada de esto ha causado un desastre económico: el país crece a un ritmo de casi 6%, cifra que no obedece únicamente al alto precio del petróleo.

Además, Chávez sí está poniendo el poder en manos del pueblo. Por ley, los venezolanos pueden crear consejos comunitarios con importantes facultades en sus localidades. En Mérida fui testigo de cómo un consejo comunitario de gente de clase media consiguió detener la construcción de unos nuevos bloques de torres porque la constructora había dañado las vías locales. Ni siquiera el alcalde de la ciudad pudo salvar el pellejo de los responsables. La Venezuela de Hugo Chávez pretende enlazar a los consejos comunitarios para formar comunas que tengan sus propias empresas de propiedad social, leyes locales, moneda local y voz ante el Estado nacional.

Esa es la nueva realidad venezolana, pero lo nuevo convive con lo viejo. Vi muy poca pobreza extrema, pero demasiada riqueza obscena: nuevos centros comerciales de gran lujo, restaurantes caros, aparatos electrónicos de lo más moderno y lustrosas camionetas cuatro por cuatro. Los ricos y la clase media se quejan del poder que ahora tienen los marginados, como llaman a los chavistas. Por su parte, estos se quejan de la corrupción, la burocracia y la arrogancia de muchos de sus dirigentes locales.

Lo que no vi es una sociedad acobardada por el miedo, que es lo uno esperaría en una tiranía o en un país superado por la delincuencia. El venezolano es un pueblo alegre que bebe mucho alcohol y gusta de tocar música a todo volumen en aparatos enormes, odia el cinturón de seguridad del auto, respetar las vías al conducir y detenerse en los cruces peatonales.

Vi gente expresar su opinión en voz alta y con toda claridad, manifestar su desacuerdo con la política y debatir sobre el futuro de su país. El apoyo a la revolución está muy arraigado, pero lo mismo puede decirse del odio de los ricos y la clase media. Fui testigo del veneno que los medios privados dejan correr día tras día en contra del gobierno, pero no vi muchas pruebas de censura. Vi muchos soldados en las calles, pero la mayoría no portaba armas y estaba en compañía de civiles. Todos los días, durante un mes, viví en un país multifacético.

La víspera de mi partida el país fue alcanzado por el coletazo de una tormenta tropical. Estaba en las afueras de Caracas, en casa de Tony, uno de mis nuevos amigos venezolanos. Tony trabaja a veces como guía de turistas y otras como vendedor. Habíamos organizado una fiesta aquella noche, pero nadie pudo llegar. Pensamos en reponernos de la desilusión haciéndole los honores a una de las muchas deliciosas botellas de ron venezolano para prepararnos una Cuba Libre. De pronto nos sorprendieron los asustados gañidos de los perros y los gritos de los loros y el mono que hace de mascota. Salimos a toda velocidad y advertimos que la lluvia había desgajado un cerro y la tierra desprendida se dirigía directamente a la casa de Tony con un montón de rocas. Corrimos para escapar a la muerte, pero milagrosamente la avalancha se detuvo antes de llevarse la casa por delante.

Mojados y asustados, volvimos a entrar. Esa noche Tony estuvo comprensiblemente taciturno. Apuré alguna excusa para irme y dejar a la familia a solas, pero Tony soltó una sentida carcajada venezolana. “Amigo, la casa está en pie. Estamos vivos y hay un mañana. ¿Y si ponemos música y cantamos?” Por supuesto, la canción no fue otra sino Chávez Corazón del Pueblo.

When Less Is More: How Chavez Stumbled Onto A “Perfect Victory”

Before the presidential elections of October 7, Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez had spoken of a “perfect victory”, setting himself a target of 10 million votes from an electoral register of about 19 million and promising a knockout blow to the Opposition. He fell almost two million votes short of his own target. His victory percentage this time was a little over 11% — not bad after 14 years in office — but his lowest ever. This could not have been the perfect victory that he wanted or was it, by the law of unintended consequences, just that?

The Opposition achieved their best presidential results ever, both in the number of votes and the voting percentage. So why are they sporting such long faces? The answer goes back to 2004 when they thought they could get rid of Chavez through a recall referendum and staked everything on it. The Opposition then played, just like this time, a now-or-never game and lost. The result was Chavez winning the presidential elections of 2006 with a record 63%. 

REPEAT MISTAKE

A year later, Chavez narrowly lost a referendum on constitutional reforms and the Opposition was handed the opportunity to regroup. In 2008, the Chavistas lost the more populated states like Miranda, Zulia and Carabobo, Venezuela’s electoral corridor. Two of their governors would later switch to the Opposition. In 2010, the Chavez and Opposition votes in the parliamentary elections were roughly equal though the Chavistas achieved a large majority in the national Assembly.

This time, the Chavistas have regained some ground from the Opposition in many of the states they had lost four yeas ago and are predicted to take some of them back in the December state governor elections. The challenger to Chavez, Henrique Capriles, even lost in his own state of Miranda. It was left to the veteran Opposition leader, Ramos Allup, to point out that the Chavista votes had increased among the middle and upper classes by 4% while the Opposition votes in the popular sectors had fallen by 7%. 

 

[In red, Chavez votes, in blue Opposition votes, in green the margin  Source: Left Futures]

The depression in the Opposition ranks, and the enormity of Chavez’s victory, extends beyond mere numbers. They threw everything into the campaign: more unity than ever more, financial resources to make the U.S. presidential candidates envious and saturation coverage by the private media and a million phone calls on the two days before the elections when campaigning was prohibited. It will be difficult for them to manufacture another candidate with trajectory who can take on Chavez six years on if he runs for office. They find that neither armed adventures nor ballot boxes will get rid of the President overnight. Victory will be a slow slog; perhaps this man cannot be beaten in his lifetime. There is little appetite among Opposition supporters for street violence as a means of toppling Chavez. The private media remains the Opposition’s last bastion but the alternative popular media has more presence these days: it is harder to get away with barefaced lies.

This year’s Opposition campaign bore the hallmark of State Department planning. A young, energetic and telegenic challenger against the old beast; a united Opposition with trusted gatekeepers to hand out television time and funds for those who fell in line and a new party, Primero Justicia (Justice First), unafraid of street fights, to take the place of the fractious dinosaurs of the old Opposition: that was how Chavez was to be felled. In the end, Primero Justicia was not even the highest vote-getter among the Opposition groupings and the old guard has come storming back. It’s back to the design board in Washington.

Layers of the Opposition have begun to peel away. About a tenth of the Opposition bench in the National Assembly has broken off from the leaky umbrella of the MUD (Democratic Unity Roundtable). Perhaps this marks the emergence of a moderate Right in Venezuela, something that interests Chavez for the strategic reason that if the Bolivarians ever lose power, it is better to do so to a moderate nationalist Opposition than to the rabid Right, something from which it will be easier for them to recover.

PROTEST VOTE

Chavez’s vote share decreased in this election in percentage terms but his actual votes increased compared to 2006. This was down to the increase in the election register, with 96% of Venezuelans inscribed in it. Chavez argues that his physical condition contributed to the relatively poor harvest of votes. His last round of radiotherapy ended just two days before the start of the campaign and his participation this time was limited. What is more certain is that there was a fairly large protest vote. This is borne out by two post-electoral opinion polls in which two-thirds of Venezuelans said that the country would prosper under Chavez and 59% of them said theirs was a protest vote for the Opposition. Most of these were in states and municipalities where the local Chavista leadership was out of touch. A quarter of the social classes at the bottom of pile, who have benefited enormously from the revolution and who live in barrios where there was no Opposition campaign, voted against the President.  The editor of Venezuela’s largest-selling newspaper, Ultimas Noticias, put this down to the penetration of the Right-wing radio stations. A record number of Venezuelans voted this time but even with the turnout of more than 80% a fairly large number of Chavez supporters abstained, either as a protest or out of triumphalism. Should Chavez be able to deliver more efficient governance in the new cycle, many of those who voted for the Opposition could migrate back to the Bolivarian camp.

Chavez himself says it is still too early to measure the impact of the victory but believes that the Bolivarian revolution is now safe for the rest of the century. The margin of victory perfectly suits him in two ways. It destroys the narrative of stolen elections. The international Right had to concede that Venezuela did have democratic elections. The internal Opposition too conceded that the elections were transparent and clean. It robbed the United States of the excuse to delegitimise and isolate Chavez internationally and plan for a military intervention. The modest but by no means a narrow victory margin also gives him the mandate to purge his own ranks and a decent interval of six years to set things right. Within days of the victory, Chavez came out with three major planks of his new presidential period. Popular power would be strengthened. The community councils would be woven into communes with extensive powers and the ideas and values of socialism reasserted. The people would have to be convinced; there would be no imposition. What defined the Bolivarian revolution was its democratic character, he said in a live telecast of the first meeting of his new Cabinet.

Second, tactics and strategies for the Bolivarian media are being rethought to counter the private media’s permanently hostile campaign. Chavez acknowledged the inefficiencies of the national, regional and municipal governments and promised that he would come down on inefficiency and bureaucracy with an iron fist and that this would be his best period of governance. He has asked the Bolivarians to subject themselves to self-criticism.  The electoral result gives him the legitimacy and the impetus to push through for a revolution within the revolution, long overdue and with popular clamour behind it.

What more would have 10 million votes given him? Perhaps he could have stepped down knowing that his successor would coast to a victory. Most Chavistas have begun to concede that they need to plan for a post-Chavez era but his succession remains undefined. Chavez says it is not for him to appoint his successor and that he would love to hand over to a woman. But for now the Opposition is reeling, Chavez is secure and the socialist revolution has wind in its sails.