Hugo Chávez again overreached. On May 28, a spine-chilling intelligence decree went into effect. After a week of public uproar and the prospect of mass demonstrations, he withdrew the decree.
Ostensibly issued to deflect national-security threats, the decree threatened Venezuelans who refused to act as informants with up to four years in prison, its most egregious assault on civil liberties. Warrantless wiretapping and other forms of surveillance were green-lighted. A community-based network of spies was in the works.
Chávez has a lot more to fear from peaceful opponents than from any national-security threat. On May 22, his government disqualified about 400 individuals from running in the November 23 elections for supposed “administrative irregularities”. Only more than 80 percent are opponents, and Chavista corruption is running rampant. Citizens have already taken to the streets to cry foul.
A year ago, Chávez erred badly. Taking over RCTV, Venezuela’s oldest commercial broadcaster, turned out to be an overreach: polls showed an 80 percent disapproval of RCTV’s shutdown and hundreds of thousands of students flooded the streets in protest. One thing let to another, and Chávez lost the December 2 referendum which would have allowed his indefinite reelection.
“December 2 put in evidence the incipient weakness of Chávez’s charisma,” says Teodoro Petkoff, editor of the daily newspaper Tal Cual. He is cautiously upbeat about November 23 if the opposition stays united.
Favoring a coup in 2002 and what he calls “an acute abstentionitis” after the 2004 recall referendum cost the opposition dearly. Chávez gained control of almost all governorships and mayoralties as well as a full grip of the municipal councils and the National Assembly. A “disastrous course of action,” Petkoff notes.
In the 2006 presidential election, Chávez bested Manuel Rosales by 14 points. Rosales, nonetheless, won by conceding defeat, recognizing Chávez’s victory and not claiming fraud. In addition, two new previously regional parties —A New Time and First Justice— emerged as alternative national organizations to the much-diminished traditional parties.
Two other factors tipped the balance against Chávez. Tensions within the Chavista coalition surfaced, most notably the defection of former defense minister Raúl Baduel. His opposition to Chávez’s indefinite reelection opened a door that not a few Chavistas stepped through on December 2 to vote No.
Most important were the students Chávez inadvertently mobilized by the RCTV takeover. Though a longstanding and militant fixture in Venezuelan politics, the student movement had laid dormant under Chávez. “These young people running on a full tank and fully embracing democracy refreshed the opposition’s face,” Petkoff concluded.
Chávez is struggling if by no means out. His United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) has further aggravated tensions within the ruling coalition. Three fellow-traveler parties refused to join its ranks. Notwithstanding an ocean of petrodollars, the economy is chafing under the anti-market, Chavista yoke. Crime, which hits the poor hardest, is out of control.
On November 23, the opposition stands to gain six to eight governorships and some 100 mayoralties, the same share held before the abstention strategy set in. Regaining a foothold in the political system after having dealt Chávez his first electoral defeat last December is, however, light years away from where the opposition was in 2004.
Chávez has been an autocrat with a democratic veneer. After winning the 2006 election, he has overreached in authoritarian directions that have offended the democratic sensibilities of most Venezuelans. In part, that’s why three million of his supporters abstained from the polls on December 2.
Disqualifying opponents from the upcoming election and issuing the now-withdrawn intelligence decree further erodes his democratic credentials. The PSUV, moreover, is insisting on a constitutional amendment to allow Chávez’s reelection in 2012 even though 60 percent voted against that specific change last year.
The December 2 results notwithstanding, Chávez still covets the forever presidency. He’s pragmatic so he’ll backtrack when cornered as with the intelligence decree. If united in the November election and does better than expected, the opposition will have dealt Chávez another blow. He’d then have to accept his fate or overreach against the citizenry’s democratic sensibilities. The opposition could, at last, be in a win-win situation.
Marifeli Pérez-Stable is vice president for democratic governance at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, D.C., and a professor at Florida International University.
