By Joseph BAMAT the 08/10/2012 - 22:01
Voters in Venezuela on Sunday gave President Hugo Chavez another six-year mandate to push ahead with his socialist "revolution", giving the charismatic leader the chance to cement himself as a dominant figure in modern Latin American history.
President Hugo Chavez has established himself as one of the most important figures of Venezuela and Latin America’s recent history, winning another presidential election on October 7 that will see the charismatic leader at the helm of the oil-rich country for another six years.
After stifling the Venezuelan opposition’s best opportunity to unseat him, Chavez is now expected to forge ahead with his left-wing policies, which have already led to the nationalisation of most of the country’s key industries and massive investments for the poor.
With three successive presidential terms and two decades in power under his belt by 2019, will Chavez succeed in fully bringing about his Bolivarian revolution?
A decisive win over opposition challenger Henrique Capriles, coupled with a large turnout on election day, has given the president a strong mandate to impose his vision.
But observers have questioned whether Chavez’s government is capable of tackling Venezuela’s most pressing problems, such as rampant crime and corruption, or if it can afford to spend on social programs at previous levels.
Can the party outlast the host?
Before Chavez is sworn in for a third term in January, his PSUV party will face another electoral battle in December, when regional elections take place. That poll, and local elections for mayors in March, means that the president’s efforts will remain focused on extending political gains in the short term.
“There are difficult times ahead for Venezuela’s opposition,” said Hugo Perez, a Sociology Professor at the Universidad Catolica Andrés Bello in the capital of Caracas. “As much because of the opposition’s internal divisions as Chavez’s usually aggressive position against his opponents.”
While Capriles led a broad centre-right coalition during the presidential campaign, other formidable candidates he defeated in a primary in February are waiting in the wings. “They supported Capriles, but will now say ‘it’s our turn’,” Perez said.
According to Jean-Jacques Kourliandsky, a Latin America specialist with the Paris-based French Institute for International and Strategic Relations (IRIS), the coalition Capriles led “failed to convince voters” because it “lacked a strong ideological platform”. Kourliandsky added that the presidential victory was likely to set the tone for the upcoming ballots.
If few analysts see a prosperous future for the opposition, the eventual fate of the ruling PSUV party in a post-Chavez era is also a source of doubt. And the question of an attractive successor could come to a head before 2019 given Chavez’s recent struggles with cancer.
“Nobody really knows the answer to the question ‘Can the PSUV continue to win without Chavez?’” noted Perez. The scholar said that while the party was unified and had “an enviable electoral machine”, its other main leaders paled in popularity next to the president.
Turning down the tap?
According to Barclays analyst Alejandro Arreaza, the fast approaching regional and local elections could result in the opposition losing previous gains. “Such a scenario would mean a broader Chavez model,” Arreza warned investors immediately following Chavez’s presidential victory.
Buoyed by his new mandate Chavez may push to nationalize Venezuela’s food industry, one of the few key sectors that remain in private hands. However, analysts agree that Venezuela’s ability to exploit its vast oil wealth will continue to be vital for Chavez’s agenda.
According to IRIS’s Kourliandsky, the next few years should see major new investments in the country’s aging oil infrastructure and an even bigger role for the state-owned company PDVSA. Chavez has said he would ramp up production in order to double output from Venezuela’s current level of three million barrels per day to six million barrels per day by 2019.
While the president has shown some interest in foreign investment for the purposes of exploiting untapped reserves, Professor Perez stressed that such a move would not involve easing the state’s grip on the energy sector. “Chavez firmly believes in the need for state control over the means of production,” the scholar said.
PDVSA’s revenues have bankrolled Chavez’s myriad social projects in and outside the country’s borders over the past decade, but some analysts say the government has overspent and predict it will have to decrease the welfare flow.
Barclay’s Arreaza said public sector accounts were in trouble and economic adjustments were unavoidable. “Since Chavez seems to lack the confidence of the private sector to cushion any adjustment to the public sector, he will likely have to rely on a devaluation of the currency and spending cuts to rebalance the accounts,” the analyst said, adding that no reforms should be expected before the December elections.
Policing the revolution
Economists have often evoked the threat of runaway inflation as a potential spoiler to Chavez’s Socialist dream, but Perez said inflation did not rank high on the list of ordinary Venezuelans’ list of concerns. “It’s true inflation is high, but people have grown used to it,” he explained. “Since it’s not a big worry for voters, it’s not going to be a big issue for Chavez.”
On the other hand, the president will likely take a hard line on crime, which consistently topped the list of voters’ concerns during the recent campaign. Crime has risen sharply in Venezuela in recent years, with Caracas becoming “the most dangerous city in Latin America,” according to regional experts like Kourliandsky.
The Venezuelan observatory of violence, a watchdog group, counted 14,000 homicides in 2011, four times more than in 1998 - the year before Chavez came to power.
Perez said that Chavez had already taken steps to tackle crime, such as establishing the Experimental University of Security, or Unes, to quickly fill Venezuela’s policing deficit. However, Perez said that Chavez had made the mistake of politicising the security push. Instead of working with opposition leaders at the state level, the effort has once more polarized public actors and citizens.
Perez said that insecurity - as well as rampant corruption - were likely to get worse during the next years before any improvement is felt.
(Sam F.)
After stifling the Venezuelan opposition’s best opportunity to unseat him, Chavez is now expected to forge ahead with his left-wing policies, which have already led to the nationalisation of most of the country’s key industries and massive investments for the poor.
With three successive presidential terms and two decades in power under his belt by 2019, will Chavez succeed in fully bringing about his Bolivarian revolution?
A decisive win over opposition challenger Henrique Capriles, coupled with a large turnout on election day, has given the president a strong mandate to impose his vision.
But observers have questioned whether Chavez’s government is capable of tackling Venezuela’s most pressing problems, such as rampant crime and corruption, or if it can afford to spend on social programs at previous levels.
Can the party outlast the host?
Before Chavez is sworn in for a third term in January, his PSUV party will face another electoral battle in December, when regional elections take place. That poll, and local elections for mayors in March, means that the president’s efforts will remain focused on extending political gains in the short term.
“There are difficult times ahead for Venezuela’s opposition,” said Hugo Perez, a Sociology Professor at the Universidad Catolica Andrés Bello in the capital of Caracas. “As much because of the opposition’s internal divisions as Chavez’s usually aggressive position against his opponents.”
While Capriles led a broad centre-right coalition during the presidential campaign, other formidable candidates he defeated in a primary in February are waiting in the wings. “They supported Capriles, but will now say ‘it’s our turn’,” Perez said.
According to Jean-Jacques Kourliandsky, a Latin America specialist with the Paris-based French Institute for International and Strategic Relations (IRIS), the coalition Capriles led “failed to convince voters” because it “lacked a strong ideological platform”. Kourliandsky added that the presidential victory was likely to set the tone for the upcoming ballots.
If few analysts see a prosperous future for the opposition, the eventual fate of the ruling PSUV party in a post-Chavez era is also a source of doubt. And the question of an attractive successor could come to a head before 2019 given Chavez’s recent struggles with cancer.
“Nobody really knows the answer to the question ‘Can the PSUV continue to win without Chavez?’” noted Perez. The scholar said that while the party was unified and had “an enviable electoral machine”, its other main leaders paled in popularity next to the president.
Turning down the tap?
According to Barclays analyst Alejandro Arreaza, the fast approaching regional and local elections could result in the opposition losing previous gains. “Such a scenario would mean a broader Chavez model,” Arreza warned investors immediately following Chavez’s presidential victory.
Buoyed by his new mandate Chavez may push to nationalize Venezuela’s food industry, one of the few key sectors that remain in private hands. However, analysts agree that Venezuela’s ability to exploit its vast oil wealth will continue to be vital for Chavez’s agenda.
According to IRIS’s Kourliandsky, the next few years should see major new investments in the country’s aging oil infrastructure and an even bigger role for the state-owned company PDVSA. Chavez has said he would ramp up production in order to double output from Venezuela’s current level of three million barrels per day to six million barrels per day by 2019.
While the president has shown some interest in foreign investment for the purposes of exploiting untapped reserves, Professor Perez stressed that such a move would not involve easing the state’s grip on the energy sector. “Chavez firmly believes in the need for state control over the means of production,” the scholar said.
PDVSA’s revenues have bankrolled Chavez’s myriad social projects in and outside the country’s borders over the past decade, but some analysts say the government has overspent and predict it will have to decrease the welfare flow.
Barclay’s Arreaza said public sector accounts were in trouble and economic adjustments were unavoidable. “Since Chavez seems to lack the confidence of the private sector to cushion any adjustment to the public sector, he will likely have to rely on a devaluation of the currency and spending cuts to rebalance the accounts,” the analyst said, adding that no reforms should be expected before the December elections.
Policing the revolution
Economists have often evoked the threat of runaway inflation as a potential spoiler to Chavez’s Socialist dream, but Perez said inflation did not rank high on the list of ordinary Venezuelans’ list of concerns. “It’s true inflation is high, but people have grown used to it,” he explained. “Since it’s not a big worry for voters, it’s not going to be a big issue for Chavez.”
On the other hand, the president will likely take a hard line on crime, which consistently topped the list of voters’ concerns during the recent campaign. Crime has risen sharply in Venezuela in recent years, with Caracas becoming “the most dangerous city in Latin America,” according to regional experts like Kourliandsky.
The Venezuelan observatory of violence, a watchdog group, counted 14,000 homicides in 2011, four times more than in 1998 - the year before Chavez came to power.
Perez said that Chavez had already taken steps to tackle crime, such as establishing the Experimental University of Security, or Unes, to quickly fill Venezuela’s policing deficit. However, Perez said that Chavez had made the mistake of politicising the security push. Instead of working with opposition leaders at the state level, the effort has once more polarized public actors and citizens.
Perez said that insecurity - as well as rampant corruption - were likely to get worse during the next years before any improvement is felt.
(Sam F.)
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