(11/07/09) - Venezuela: Where did the dream go?
Opinion polls show that Venezuelans are growing tired of Chavismo.
Gabriela Perdomo – You can still find people who defend the achievements of Hugo Chávez’s 10 years in office as Venezuela’s head of state. Literacy, education, food subsidies for the poor and access to health services, they say, are areas in which the Chávez administration has visibly improved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. But those who still see a champion in the president are dwindling in number as well as in enthusiasm.
Gabriela Perdomo – You can still find people who defend the achievements of Hugo Chávez’s 10 years in office as Venezuela’s head of state. Literacy, education, food subsidies for the poor and access to health services, they say, are areas in which the Chávez administration has visibly improved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. But those who still see a champion in the president are dwindling in number as well as in enthusiasm.
A wide array of recent opinion polls suggests that Venezuelans might be getting tired of their omnipresent leader. Though Chávez’s grip on power is tighter than ever, the head of the Bolivarian revolution is losing his personal touch. According to Hinterlaces, three-in-five Venezuelans want the president to step down in 2012, when his current term expires. A different pollster shows that most people want Chávez to be either ousted in a recall referendum next year, or leave at the end of his current term, in 2012. The same poll reveals that only 39.8 per cent of Venezuelans would vote for Chávez in the next election.
Another series of indicators suggests that a new narrative is emerging to describe the Chávez administration that could harm the president’s permanence in power—which he will undoubtedly seek—come the 2012 election. A majority of respondents to an August poll say Chávez is really a dictator. Three-in-five Venezuelans told a different pollster that freedom of expression is not fully protected in the country, and a majority think the media operate with limited or no freedom at all. Most respondents to another survey said recently that the actions of the national government threaten Venezuela’s democracy.
The cracks in the Chávez brand are not just conceptual. Venezuelans have recently awakened to a harsh reality involving food shortages, electricity blackouts, water rationing and, perhaps most troubling, a spike in crime in urban areas, most notably in Caracas. The latter has become one of the most dangerous cities in the world, with 130 killings per 100,000 residents reported last year. Foreign Policy magazine deemed Caracas the "murder capital of the world."
The Chávez name that might have seemed inspiring to many left-leaning politicians in Latin America just a few years ago is also losing currency. Increasingly, Chávez and Venezuela are becoming isolated from the mainstream as more moderate—and more successful—political leaders on the left have emerged as better role models.
The tables appear to be turning against Chávez. But the feisty heir presumptive of Simón Bolívar is unlikely to give up any time soon. In fact, he still enjoys a remarkable popularity rate considering there is so much going wrong with the country at this time. With over one year left in his current term, there are plenty of opportunities for Chávez to plan his next move.
Meanwhile, the opposition continues to fail to offer a clear picture for a post-Chávez Venezuela. After all, there is no question that some of the programs introduced by the current government have made a positive difference in the lives of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Venezuelans. It would also be short-sighted to think that the sorry state of affairs in the country is the making of one man only. Chávez’s ascent to power, and the eagerness with which people embraced his promised revolution, was only possible in the context of the deeply unfair, elite-driven oil-rich society that Venezuela had become in the previous decades.
Venezuela’s current chaos is as much a Chávez offspring as it is the fault of the traditional establishment. If the opposition refuses to acknowledge this simple fact, it will fail horribly—again—in 2012.
