(MintPress) – Hugo Chavez, the leftist Venezuelan president, won a fourth term, capturing 54 percent of the vote and defeating the more moderate challenger Henrique Capriles. After battling cancer and a growing political opposition, the charismatic Venezuelan leader, one of the central guardians of the New Bolivarian political order, will face major international challenges during his next six years as president.
As neoliberal economic privatization and deregulation shows visible cracks in the U.S. and EU, Chavez will have six more years in what could be his final term to make his case for the New Bolivarian “mixed economy,” a form of socialism widely lambasted in the North American press.
While the mix of central state planning and free markets has helped to lift many Venezuelans out of poverty, rampant crime and widespread housing shortages will test the limits of this unique economic philosophy. While income has been more evenly distributed over the course of Chavez’s presidency, some economists believe that the nationalization of private industry will leave Venezuela a poorer country in the long run.
Six more years of Chavez, the implications for the US
Chavez previously announced that he would be building a “million man army” in an effort to deter a U.S. invasion. While the U.S. has not publicly threatened to invade Venezuela, Washington has a long history of using covert tactics and guerrilla paramilitaries to overthrow democratically elected governments.
Rep. Maria Corina Machado, a former presidential candidate, leaked plans of the massive Venezuelan army to El Universal Newspaper after receiving a copy earlier this year. According to the leaked documents, Venezuelan leadership believes there is an imminent threat of a U.S. invasion as early as 2013.
The plan may seem like paranoid posturing by the Chavez government. However, the U.S. has a long history of using military force to overthrow popularly elected leftist governments in Latin America, especially if those governments threaten U.S. corporate exploitation of labor, land and resources in Latin American countries.
During the Reagan administration, the Sandinista government in Nicaragua was threatened with forceful removal when Washington employed the Contras, a right wing paramilitary group, in an attempt to overthrow the democratically elected government.
In Cuba, a pacified regime that poses no legitimate threat to U.S. security after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, is subject to a crushing embargo that has become a collective punishment against the island’s 11 million citizens. Various assassination plots have failed to eliminate Fidel Castro, as the CIA has plotted sundry missions to depose the Cuban leader since his ascension to power after the Cuban Revolution in 1959.
Preserving the revolution
Now 58 years old, Chavez, as the defacto guardian of the Bolivarian philosophy and economic approach, may feel an urgency to secure the legacy of the movement amidst increasing U.S. hemispheric influence. The former general continues to support increasingly isolated allies with aging leadership in Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia and other states throughout Latin America.
Some analysts see the next six years as the biggest test of the Bolivarian economy, a mix of highly regulated centralized state planning and a limited free market. The Bolivarian approach also values used resource endowments, namely oil, to cut poverty, illiteracy and crime across the South American nation.
Since 1999, there has been a 50 percent drop in Venezuela’s poverty rate, attributable to the government’s robust spending on social programs. Additionally, Chavez was instrumental in implementing universal health care for all citizens leading to sharp decreases in infant mortality and raising the average life expectancy. The number of doctors has increased twelvefold over this same period.
Chavez has been a major proponent of strengthening intracontinental ties with other South American states. By building strong trade relations with other countries, particularly other Bolivarian states, within the Mercosur union.
Founded in 1991, Mercosur has provided a way for Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela to partake in free trade. Similar to the European Union, Mercosur also allows for the easy flow of people, services and currency among member states, allowing Venezuela and other signatories to reduce economic reliance upon North American countries.
Chavez took bold moves in 2007, nationalizing the telecommunications and electricity industries. Cantv, the largest telecommunications company in Venezuela, was owned by Verizon, an American corporation. However, Verizon and other American corporations have lost holdings throughout Chavez’s time in office. “Let it be nationalized. All that was privatized, let it be nationalized,” said Chavez shortly after the Cantv takeover in 2007.
This alternative, an alternative to multinational corporate control, has allowed Venezuela to more evenly distribute gains during periods of economic growth.
However, some scholars have begun to question to the effectiveness of a once potent economic philosophy. Slovenian-American philosopher and social critic, Slavoj Zizek, believes that “Venezuela’s ‘Bolivarian’ experiment is regressing further and further into caudillo-run populism.”
On this point, leftists like Zizek have raised criticisms similar to other, more moderate politicians in the U.S.: An aging Chavez may be more concerned with his regime’s survival amidst pressure from the military establishment and Western capitalism.
Other groups, including Jewish-American and conservative groups inside the U.S. have expressed concern over Chavez’s close alignment with Iran and strong support for Palestinian statehood. The Venezuelan president has previously equated Zionism with racism, calling Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians a “genocide.”
The sometimes enigmatic champion of anti-imperialism will also head the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), an oil cartel representing the collective decisions of the largest petroleum exporting countries in the world.
Challenges going forward
The true test of Bolivarianism will not come through fire and brimstone speeches, lambasting former U.S. President George W. Bush as “the devil” but rather through the effectiveness of political and economic policies.
Faced with soaring crime rates and housing shortages, Chavez’s government will have to increase public commitments to improving the quality of life for millions of Venezuelans.
Additionally, while there appears to be relatively little interference in the previous election, the incumbent regime will have to uphold transparency and democratic elections; first and foremost to assuage public concerns but also to demonstrate good models of governance to trade partners and the broader international community.
Freedom House, an independent rights organization based in the U.S., labels Venezuela as “partly free.” If the government takeover of private industry is not managed collectively by the people through a democratic process, then the economic power stemming from oil wealth could allow the Chavez regime to extend his time in power, taking public power away from Venezuelan citizens.
The U.S.-Venezuelan relationship has not improved markedly during the Obama years, mainly because much of the president’s attention was focused on economic recovery at home following the 2008 financial collapse.
On July 5, the 201 year anniversary of Venezuelan independence from Spanish rule, Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney offered a congratulatory message to Venezuela but used the opportunity to criticize Hugo Chavez saying:
“My best wishes are with Venezuelans around the world today as they celebrate the 201st anniversary of their nation’s independence. Americans of Venezuelan heritage have greatly enriched the culture and history of the United States.”
Romney continued, saying, “We acknowledge, however, that Venezuela’s current leader dishonors the ideals of liberty upon which Venezuela was founded. Hugo Chavez is leading a movement in Venezuela and throughout Latin America that seeks to undermine freedom, diminish prosperity and expand tyranny.”
While President Obama has not markedly improved relations with Venezuela, he has maintained a cautious pragmatism by not overstating the risk of Iran using Venezuela as a destabilizing proxy in the Western hemisphere. Earlier this summer, the president remarked on this issue in a public statement saying:
“We’re always concerned about Iran engaging in destabilizing activity around the globe. But overall my sense is that what Mr. Chávez has done over the last several years has not had a serious national security impact on us.”
The president continued, adding, “My main concern when it comes to Venezuela is having the Venezuelan people have a voice in their affairs, and that you end up ultimately having fair and free elections, which we don’t always see.”
Many Hispanic-American lawmakers, including Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) have criticized the president for being “out of touch” on the issue and “soft” on an increasingly hegemonic government. However, intervention both overt and clandestine carried out under the guise of “democracy promotion” emboldened U.S. opposition in Latin America, especially during the Reagan administration.
While Venezuela may take a stance against “Yankee imperialism” and American hegemony, a foreign policy of non-interference and respect for national sovereignty, will go a long way in repairing the broken relationship.
While the U.S. maintains an economic embargo on Cuba, Obama demonstrated a willingness to ease travel restrictions and resume aid shipments to the island during his first term. Relations with Havana remain moribund, but Cuban President Raul Castro has said that he is willing to negotiate with Washington on any issue, including the release of political prisoners as long as it is a conversation “between equals.”
A similar gradualist approach to thawing relations and discussing issues as equal sovereign nations should be well received by Caracas in the coming four years should Obama be re-elected.