The End of Chavismo

by Carlos L. Diaz

Living conditions in Venezuela have been on a steady decline since the death of caudillo turned demigod, Hugo Chavez. Apparently the statements made by Diosdado Cabello, the gang’s head minion and president of the National Assembly, were spot on. Back in March, a few weeks before the elections,  Cabello warned the opposition about their prospects after the death of “El Comandante,” he told them that Chavez was the “retaining wall” for his “crazy ideas.” Now that the wall is underground and Cabello’s puppet, Nicolas Maduro, is president the “crazy ideas” and their consequences can be seen in action everywhere.

We have learned that basic products like eggs, sugar, milk, flour, and, most recently, toilet paper have become scarce in the country with the world’s largest oil reserve. The cause for this scarcity is simple, the government has implemented price controls on the price of goods. Many times the price is below that of production and producers refuse to lose money. Now the Catholic Church is saying that it is having a hard time finding the wine it needs to perform mass, this time the scarcity lies solely on the government’s shoulders again.

It turns out that other things are rapidly vanishing as well. Since Chavez took power in 1998, the Venezuelan press has been losing freedom and today it has lost most of it. The last bastion of anti-government rhetoric was Globovisión, but that changed recently. The sale of Globovisión to investors with close ties to the regime was the coup  de grâce to the opposition. Friday night one of the network’s hosts was fired after transmitting a speech by opposition leader Henrique Capriles–yes, broadcasting Capriles is now a crime. When political tactics have failed in silencing different opinions, Cabello has turned to techniques that are more fitting to his bully personality. There have been various reports and videos of members of parliament being physically assaulted inside the assembly for speaking against the regime. When it comes to silencing voices, the current Venezuelan government even attacks its own. Recently a video was released in which Mario Silva, Chavismo’s favorite journalist, is heard talking ill of Cabello with a Cuban intelligence officer. On his next appearance Silva claimed that his show would not continue, citing a health problem as the cause.

This state of affairs gives hope to many that Chavismo will finally die and democracy will be established, or reestablished, depending on your view of the past. It is true that the leadership of the government is in disarray and some fault lines seem to be emerging, but there is no clear sign that the end is near. The death of this regime will probably come, but in a slow manner. Popular support has been dwindling and the recent shortages only contribute to this trend. Other indicators which hit people where it hurts most, like crime, inflation, and corruption, have also been on the rise.

All of us who promote and support the virtues of pluralism and liberal democracy should pay close attention to the developments in Venezuela. Nicolas Maduro’s six year term seems to be headed for an early end. What or who replaces him is the key to knowing what the future of Venezuela will look like. I think that Venezuela can come out of this looking like other Latin American countries, such as Peru, Uruguay, Brazil and Chile. In those nations the link between the left and totalitarianism has been erased. They have elected leaders who are avowed leftist but have no dictatorial aspirations, as a matter of fact they are defenders of democracy and even free market policies.

The Aftermath of the Election in Venezuela

by Carlos Diaz

This past Sunday millions of Venezuelans all over the world went to the polls to decide who should lead their country for the next six years. But the election was  about much more than that. It was the first election since Hugo Chavez’s death. The election was supposed to answer several questions. Can there be Chavismo without Chavez? How divided is Venezuela? How much would the centralization of the state apparatus at the hands of Venezuela’s Socialist Party (PSUV) influence the election? These questions and others were answered on Sunday. But a bigger one presented itself. Who won the election?

Shortly after midnight eastern time, Venezuela’s election authority the CNE announced that interim president and Chavez’s hand-picked successor Nicolas Maduro had won the election. The president of this body emphasized that this decision was “irreversible”. That would have been fine, except for the fact that Maduro’s advantage was about 1% or 235,000 votes. The opposition candidate Henrique Capriles did what many candidates do all over the world in a similar situation, asked for a recount of the votes. His demands were ignored. Shortly after the results were announced Maduro went on television and delivered his victory speech, in which he stated that a “victory is a victory.”

Thousands of Capriles’ supporters took to the streets in protest of these results. These marches took a violent turn and now the Venezuelan authorities are accusing Capriles and his supporters of causing these protests, which have claimed the lives of at least eight people. The opposition candidate had call for a march to the CNE, but cancelled it citing the violence which had taken place.

The response from Maduro and his minions has been utterly belligerent. The president of the National Assembly and the party’s number two, Diosdado Cabello, prohibited opposition members of the Assembly to speak until they recognized Maduro as President. He also called members of the opposition fascists and two of them were attacked by pro-government representatives- one of the victims received more than fourteen stitches in his forehead. Maduro has threatened with “radicalizing the revolution” and has said that he now does not recognize Capriles as governor of the state of Miranda- a position he’s held since 2008. The country’s Supreme Court has also given hints that Capriles could be put in prison for his “actions”.

The United States, the European Union, and the Organization of American States have not recognized the results of the election yet.

It is hard for me to understand why a recount has not been allowed. More likely than not, even if the votes are counted again Maduro will still be the winner by a narrow margin. From the over-blown actions taken by the government it looks like they are trying to use this issue to solidify their power and instill more fear in the population. Although I doubt that Maduro and his minions committed significant fraud in the actual elections, this race was far from  being a clean one. The PSUV’s candidate used countless state resources to his advantage including media- coverage was about Maduro 95% of the time- and material gifts- thousands of houses, cars and other items were handed out by the government within days of the elections.

Henrique Capriles should have been the winner of this race not because he received more votes, but because he was a better candidate. Maduro proved to be what I had expected him to be, a total imbecile. He went around claiming to see Chavez in the form of a little bird, showing a lack of knowledge of Venezuelan geography, rapping, and acting like knock-off version of the deceased Caudillo. Christopher Hitchens’ description of George W. Bush can easily be applied to Maduro “He’s unusually incurious, abnormally unintelligent, amazingly inarticulate, fantastically uncultured, extraordinarily uneducated, and apparently quite proud of all these things”- by coincidence they both refused to allow a recount in a close election. Capriles was far from perfect, but the reality is that anyone could have beaten Maduro if it wasn’t for the near total control the executive branch has acquired in Venezuela since 1998.