Via the BBC: Venezuelan leader wins key reform
With 94% of votes counted, 54% backed an end to term limits, a National Electoral Council official said.Mr Chavez has said he needs to stay in office beyond the end of his second term in 2012 so he can secure what he calls Venezuela’s socialist revolution.
Critics say that would concentrate too much power in the presidency.
Critics have a point, but assuming these are accurate results, the voters have spoken and he’ll get the chance to stay in power.
It will be interesting to see how well the “revolution” goes if oil prices continue to stay low–and that is not intended to be a snarky comment, but rather a legitimate observation. The scare quotes around revolution are there for the following reasons. First, I don’t think that there can be said to have been a revolution, in any real sense of the word, under his time in office. There have been changes to the institutions of governance and there have been some changes in social policy and any number of other important policy decisions. However, none of them are revolutionary in the true sense of the term. As such it is a technical/political science observation: there has been no revolution. Second, for the most part his government has not been marked, as best as I can tell, by a revolutionary ideology or even a coherent approach to politics apart from a) consolidating power and b) using oil rents to further that goal. As such, not even a revolution in the making, at least I don’t see it as such.
At any rate, it seems likely that he will be around for while, assuming he can navigate the global financial crisis and the collapse in oil prices.
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February 16th, 2009 at 6:26 am
[...] speaking of Hugo Chávez: “How long is WTI going to be cheaper than Venezuelan oil? Than Canadian?” asked [...]
February 17th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Second, for the most part his government has not been marked, as best as I can tell, by a revolutionary ideology or even a coherent approach to politics apart from a) consolidating power and b) using oil rents to further that goal. As such, not even a revolution in the making, at least I don’t see it as such.
We can quibble over what constitutes a “revolution”–however, Chavez has certainly changed course when it comes to social investment, hasn’t he?
I don’t know too much about Venezuela, but if the Center for Economic and Policy Research is to be believed, there have been significant improvements in a number of human development indicators under Chavez [50% cut in the poverty rate, increase in higher education opportunities, increase in social security beneficiaries].
This is all the result of a 3-fold increase in social spending.
Furthermore, I am not sure what the significance is of the government’s utilization of “oil rents.” Since Sweden’s largest economic sector is information technology, do we say that their social spending is a result of “IT rents”?
I’ve said before that I think Chavez is a bit of a megalomaniac (but, are there any poltiicans who aren’t to some degree??). But I think the “Chavez-as-Dictator” meme is a bit simplistic given the significant shift against neo-liberalist dogma that he has exhibited in his actual policies.
Here is the link to the Center for Economic and POlicy Research Study: http://www.cepr.net/index.php/press-releases/press-releases/report-examines-economy-and-social-indicators-during-the-chavez-decade-in-venezuela/
February 17th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
I am not at all disputing the shift in social spending, although I wouldn’t call it a revolution. I note the oil rents specifically, because I think that it is wholly unclear that what he is doing is sustainable because the model appears to be built on historically high oil prices rather than substantial structural change to the Venezuelan economic model. Part of my skepticism is vested in the fact that part of what helped the previous political order to come tumbling down, giving Chavez the opening he needed to get elected in the first, was because of sloppy reliance on oil revenues and promised made by presidents about how such revenues would transform Venezuela.
I actually avoid calling him a dictator, as I don’t think that that is the appropriate appellation. Instead, he is a populist with, as you note, megalomaniacal tendencies who has consolidated a great deal of power around himself, in ways that I think are likely unhealthy for Venezuelan democracy over the long haul. I think he does aspire to a type of authoritarianism, but I also think that, to date, he has largely used democratic means to achieve his goals.
February 17th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
I actually avoid calling him a dictator, as I don’t think that that is the appropriate appellation.
After reading my comment, it came off that I was accusing you of this–I didn’t mean to give off that impression. I was speaking more broadly (and probably too flippantly) about the tendency in the US media to group him in with Castro, Kim Jong Il, Saadam as some crazed dictator.
I agree that “revolutionary” is a bit exaggerated of a descriptor for Chavez–but, hell, as far as self-proclaimed revolutionaries go, he fits the bill more clearly than, say, Newt Gingrich.
Interestingly, that study that I referenced above claims that Venezuela has enough cash reserves to finance its account deficits for at least two years given today’s depressed oil prices. If the global economy turns around sooner, of course, the price of petrol will rise and there will be no need to fund spending out of reserves.
Another interesting element from that study is that Venezuela relies very little on foreign direct investment from the US or the EU, making them less vulnerable to the global recession than other third world countries with strong resource bases (e.g. Mexico). In addition, the study asserts that the Venezuelan economy has diversified under Chavez with non-oil private enterprises growing at a higher rate than the oil sector. I think these elements can be attributed to Chavez’ anti-Neoliberal agenda and his interest in building regional trading blocks.
I guess I’m more inclined to think that Chavez is generally motivated by a particular ideology that has emerged as a response to the problems felt in Latin America as a result of two decades of neo-liberalism. Sure he is concerned with his own power, but he’s not like, say, Mugabe in that his policies represent a distinct shift from the previous regimes that had governed Venezuela.
February 17th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Gotcha–and you are correct: press treatments (and US government treatments in the previous admin) of Chavez as belonging in the Kim Jong Il, Castro, Saddam groups is incorrect and problematic. He certainly is no Mugabe (of course, I wouldn’t have thought that Mugabe was Mugabe when he first came to power, and maybe not even a decade into his rule).
And it may be that there is more coherence and more sustainability in his model than I am giving credit for.
Still, it has rarely been the case where a person in power fought to gather large amounts of power to themselves that it has ultimately worked out well for that state over the long haul.