Features » December 26, 2008

Chávez Wins Again (cont’d)

Priorities and tradeoffs

The opposition’s claim that Chávez reduced the elections to a referendum over his own popularity misses the point. The president’s social programs, which local Chavista candidates ardently supported and which municipal and state governments help finance, heavily influenced voters’ preferences.

The social programs – such as education, healthcare and food distribution, which are referred to as “missions” – reach out to millions of the underprivileged and operate at a fraction of the cost of the same services provided elsewhere. Voters back these programs, even though in some cases they sacrifice quality in favor of quantity. Lina Gfeller, who is a principal in one of the education “missions” in the eastern city of Barcelona, says “the enormous popularity of the missions, even among some middle-class people, shows how much support there is for the proposition that education and health should be free and open to all.”

A makeshift university program called “Sucre Mission” offers evening courses in public schools throughout the country. Lacking library facilities, few teachers assign reading from books, so students of all majors carry out assignments in the community, such as designing public works projects that are then used to apply for grants. For the first time since it was founded in 2003, 30,000 Sucre Mission students were awarded university diplomas in 2008, while 100,000 receive small stipends to help them continue their studies.

Chavista candidates hail this program along with the other “missions,” such as the literacy campaign for the nation’s 1.5 million illiterates and the Ribas Mission for adult high school students. Caracas candidate and former Education Minister Aristobulo Istúriz, speaking with the president of the Ribas Mission at a student graduation ceremony at the outset of the campaign, stated: “Each one of these graduations constitutes an important event for the revolution; they highlight universalization of rights.”

The most recent and innovative program injects state money into community councils, which design and execute their own public works projects. Twenty-seven thousand councils have sprung up over the last three years mainly among non-privileged sectors of the population. Common priority projects, which are ratified in neighborhood assemblies, include the construction of roads, sidewalks, community houses and family housing. The community councils insist that companies contracted for these projects employ residents of the same neighborhood when possible.

In September 2007, Chávez decreed federal matching funds for all municipal and gubernatorial grants for community council projects. From a cost-benefit perspective, the program is open to criticism. The money allotted could undoubtedly reap better immediate results in the hands of private contractors. But the councils promote the Chavista goal of popular participation in decision- making.

Has the opposition evolved?

Public opinion surveys indicate that social programs are the most popular feature of Chávez’s rule. This popularity has undoubtedly influenced some opposition leaders to pledge themselves to continue the missions. Manuel Rosales, who had run against Chávez in the 2006 presidential elections – and who was elected mayor of Maracaibo this time around – assured mission students that their stipends of about $100 U.S. per month would not be endangered. Nevertheless, several years ago the pro-opposition Medical Federation of Venezuela went to the courts in an attempt to expel from the country the 15,000 Cuban doctors who staff much of the health mission program.

During the campaign, opposition leaders made a concerted effort to focus on local problems and avoid incessant references to Chávez. This strategy broke with the past when the opposition seemed obsessed with Chávez’s personality. In this respect, it has come a long way since 2002 to 2004, when it promoted a coup, an indefinite general strike and even street warfare. In 2005, it boycotted congressional elections and, in the weeks leading up to the 2007 referendum, some of its members shut down highways and threatened post-election insurgency.

But opposition leaders continue to call Chávez authoritarian, to criticize all of his words and actions (the educational “missions” being an exception), and to warn of the danger of Castro Communism.

As has been the case since the outset of the Chávez presidency, the opposition still lacks a program that defines its strategy. It has yet to demonstrate how it would avoid a return to the misguided rule that preceded Chávez’s advent to power when corruption and social inequality intensified.

This failure may be a mixed blessing. It avoids infighting between the opposition’s parties – such as between Primero Justicia (Justice First), which supports explicitly conservative economic policies, and others that attempt to demonstrate greater concern for social problems. But unlike the Chavistas – who held primaries in which 2.5 million voters chose their candidates for governor and mayor – the opposition’s candidates were selected largely by political elites. Some opposition politicians objected to the unfair role played by TV magnate Alberto Federico Ravell of “Globovision” in favor of the candidates of the UNT headed by Manuel Rosales and Gerardo Blyde.

What’s ahead?

Since assuming power in 1998, Chávez has followed electoral victories by implementing popular, radical measures. This time, however, his triumph was less than absolute and he is now subject to financial restraints as a result of falling oil prices.

To maintain the momentum of his rule, Chávez could crack down on corrupt government officials, including Chavista ones. The Chavista rank and file – as well as the Venezuelan population – has long clamored for action along these lines. And during the campaign, Chávez threatened to purge his government and party of self-serving members. This is not the first time Chávez has announced these intentions. But history demonstrates that Venezuelans are less tolerant of corruption during periods of economic downturn, such as what the nation now faces, than in years of oil-induced bonanza.

During the past 10 conflict-ridden years, Chávez’s bold initiatives in the aftermath of victories have never failed to invigorate his movement. The coming year is unlikely to be an exception.