Chavez's big mistake

Joaquin Villalobos:

Hugo Chávez has committed a grave error in closing down the opposition TV station, which has been on the air a half-century. Like it or not, this was not a frontal attack on the economic elite but rather a blow to the cultural identity of millions of Venezuelans--and it will have severe consequences for the government. Trying to replace popular soap operas and game shows watched by the poor with pathetic "revolutionary" programming is as bad as leaving them without food.

What Chávez has got wrong is his belief that he has made a revolution when in fact he's simply won some elections. And even those victories are more attributable to an arrogant, bejeweled opposition that lacks mass adherents than to Chávez. This has allowed Chávez to dominate some state institutions and to change some of the rules of the game, but it doesn't give him the leverage needed to impose the sort of drastic ideological sea change he clearly intends.

In Venezuela there has been no revolutionary rupture, as there was in Cuba and Nicaragua, two countries where there was no democratic history. In Cuba the change was violent and encompassing; all of the institutions were recast. And to date there is no real Cuban opposition--nor are there real elections, freedom of the press or private property. In Nicaragua the change was equally violent, and though mistreated, the institutions of press freedom, political opposition, elections and private property all survived.

Venezuela might be experiencing a period of extreme polarization and social conflict, but that is not a revolution. In revolutionary times, violence becomes prevalent, first in the form of rebellion and later in the form of counterrevolution. So far in Venezuela, political violence has been more verbal than material.

Forty years of peaceful transitions of government power created a democratic culture among Venezuelans that has, fortunately until now, made violence unnecessary. The rule of law might be weak, but there is nevertheless the rule of law. The mistake made by the opposition in the attempted coup of 2002 was precisely to undervalue this democratic tradition. Overthrowing governments is no easy task, nor is peacefully modifying the basic pillars on which they are built. A revolutionary rupture creates a situation of great social exaltation that--for better and worse--opens up spaces to change many things, including prevailing ideologies and cultural traditions. But short of revolution, these things are difficult to change.

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Chávez lacks a revolutionary party and instead depends on a fragmented political structure rife with different ideologies. To his right is the military, to his left some intellectuals and below him a politically diverse base. Converting this into a unified party would mean butting heads with a lot of local bosses who like to disagree. Chavismo has accomplished something important by giving power and identity to thousands of Venezuelans who had been marginalized, but it is not cohesive, either ideologically or historically. Rather, it is held together by petrodollars.

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The author claims that oil cannot buy him a revolution. However he is using his petro dollars to buy leftist victories in neighboring states which will ruin the economies in those states costing even more petro dollars to keep them in power. By squandering the assets of his country and seizing more assets he also weakens Venezeula. Someday he will pay a price for that too.