Redstate

The game is afoot in Venezuela

By AcademicElephant Posted in Contra Tyrannum — Comments (9) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Yesterday, Manuel Rosales officially registered his candidacy for President of Venezuela. Ten days ago, we might have anticipated this event as more or less the presentation of the lamb who would go through the motions of campaigning against Hugo Chavez before being sacrificed on December 3rd to preserve the pleasant fiction that Mr. Chavez is "duly elected." The opposition was hopelessly fractured and unable to even organize a credible primary to select a candidate. Mr. Chavez seemed firmly in control. This election looked like it might be the last seen in Venezuela for a generation.

But ten days is a long time in politics, even in a nascent dictatorship.

Overnight, the opposition united behind Mr. Rosales and his former opponents joined his campaign. Now he's emerging as a real threat to Mr. Chavez. His registration was hardly an empty gesture; it turned into a spontaneous demonstration as thousands of Venezuelans came out to hear him speak and cheered his words. Caracas is used to mass political demonstrations, but these are usually "official" staged events with participants lured by handouts. Mr. Rosales has no government apparatus in place to assemble a crowd on demand. And he does not indulge in Mr. Chavez' pandering and incendiary rhetoric. But he has things to say that are interesting because of their substance rather than their style. He announced he will not just subsidize the poor of Venezuela so that they remain a dependent and so dependable voting block--he will work to create jobs for them. He proposed a government that will serve all Venezuelans, not just those who wear red shirts. He envisioned an independent Venezuela that does not "sit on the lap" of Fidel Castro or indulge in chest-thumping aggression against the US. He pointed to the dismal failures of Mr. Chavez' administration: rampant crime, endemic corruption and a crumbling infastructure. And he clearly struck a chord. To a population accustomed to Mr. Chavez' theatrics and histrionics, Mr. Rosales' practical realism seems to have come as a proverbial breath of fresh air.

Meanwhile, things are not going too well for Mr. Chavez. The clock is ticking on his campaign to consolidate his position as an international power broker. This effort is fueled by his now-plentiful petrodollars, but as this recent (and extremely informative) Council of Foreign Relations report points out, due to the oil industry's aging infastructure and failure to invest in technology, he may only have 3-5 years of the riches he currently enjoys. And without the oil money, what is he? Fidel Castro without the beard--certainly an ally to anti-American tyrants around the globe, but hardly a major player. Ready or not, he has to make his move now and he knows it; to wit his offer to supply China with a staggering 20% of its oil needs in exchange for its support in his quest to take the Latin American spot on the UN Security Council this October. In terms of the December election, Mr. Chavez has admitted that his stated goal of getting 10 million votes--which would be his de facto election to dictator-for-life--is now implausible fantasy. In order to shore up his position, he has reverted to his regular playbook and released a "poll" that is supposed to make him look invincible, but is so lopsided that it rings hollow--he claims, for example, to enjoy a more than 80% approval rating. He's also trying to stir up fears of lurking American imperialism by claiming that he has apprehended 4 US spies. But Mr. Chavez has no details, just typical Chavista fantasies of beautiful Mata Hari types watching his every move. Where are the miscreants, you ask? Well, Mr. Chavez says he just handed them back to the Americans, who in turn say they have "no idea" what Mr. Chavez is talking about. Like the poll, this little farce rings pretty hollow, especially in comparison to Mr. Rosales' serious and practical rhetoric. Venezuela has heard all this before, and the country might, it just might, be starting to tire of Mr. Chavez' routine.

Mr. Chavez is of course still heavily favored to win on December 3rd. But he may find that democracy, even one as beleaguered as Venezuela's, is harder to kill than he thought. After all, in just ten days, what was shaping up to be a coronation has turned back into an election.