What is with Venezuela?

• Author: Zett, Lori
• Position: Worldview - Critical essay

UNDERSTANDING Hugo Chavez is not the key to understanding the process that led to his victory in 1998. Whether one sees him as a revolutionary visionary or a demagogic populist, AD (Acci6n Democratica) and COPEI (Christian Democratic Party) prepared the terrain for his election. I heard the comment, "We have had terrible governments," over and over from people at every economic level. "If it hadn't been Hugo Chavez, it would have been somebody else. Someone had to arrive who could disassemble so much hypocrisy, such malignancy, such perverse selfishness."

Since the overthrow of the last dictator, Perez Jimenez, in 1958, Venezuela has been governed by two main parties, AD and COPEI, which took turns in the presidency, but, due to an agreement known as Punto Fijo, after the villa in which it was written, shared power through a coalition government. The pact, signed by Romulo Betancourt for AD, Rafael Caldera for COPEI, and Jovito Villalba for La Union Republicana Democratica (URD), agreed to a formula through which they would govern regardless of who won the elections of 1958. They "also created a mechanism for consultation to decide "all the important political policies, the makeup of the Supreme Court, the Electoral Collage, Cabinet members, military promotions, and party representation in the leadership of the CTV (Confederacion de Trabajadores de Venezuela or Confederation of Workers of Venezuela).

Those who overlook the fact that Betancourt murdered, tortured, and imprisoned thousands of Venezuelans and refer to him as "the father of democracy" insist that Punto Fijo contributed to keeping the Betancourt government afloat. They further maintain that, if the democratic forces had not consolidated around the pact, the dictatorial forces of the fight or left would have destroyed the democratic dream that was beginning anew after the abortion of 1948 when a military coup over threw the elected government of Romulo Gallegos and ended a three-year period of democratic role.

The fact is, Punto Fijo helped neutralize the oppositional value of the parties that were out of power since, due to this agreement, a party only was partially out of power. This stunting of oppositional ability became evident when Chavez entered the scene. He did not form part of any "pact"--he actually had no political party behind him. To comply with electoral regulations that gave standing to parties, not candidates, Chavez agreed to accept the backing of MAS (Movimiento al Socialismo or Movement Toward Socialism). Leopoldo Pucci, secretary of MAS, speaking about the election of 1998, stated, "We will support any candidate ... except Chavez." Therefore, it is not surprising that MAS divided soon after the election. Apologists for the failures of the historic parties during the '98 campaign blame the poor choice of candidates: a beauty queen (Irene Saez, Miss Universe 1981, by Copei) and the president of AD (Luis Alfaro Ucero, a dull man in his 80s with just a primary school education). They named this old man precisely at the moment when Venezuelans were living with the government of Rafael Caldera, another octogenarian, who many felt had lost his faculties.

If one needed an additional demonstration that these two parties were not oppositional but had the same goals, once they saw that Chavez was winning, they dumped their own candidate and got behind Enrique Salas Romer under the umbrella name of "Project Venezuela."

Yet, the indictment goes beyond these shameful electoral choices and the campaign of 1998. The politicians who ran these parties had not offered any new ideas for decades, no solutions to the problems affecting the people. In 1988, AD had no candidate for the people other than a retread, Carlo Andres Perez. Not to be left behind, in 1993, COPEI did the same thing and repackaged the even more worn out Caldera.

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The educational system under both parties was in a shambles. Schools were so overcrowded that students attended in shifts in either the morning or afternoon. The buildings all were in the last stages of disrepair, and private schools that, in the 1950s, almost were nonexistent, had multiplied, as they became the only option for parents--with the cost and sacrifice that such growth represented and the inaccessibility to education that their preeminence implied for the poor majority.

Health care fared no better. The social security system was supposed to provide low-cost medical care for all workers. In real terms, what this meant was two health systems--one for those who could pay and a very different one that meant long lines, impersonal care, and inadequate facilities for those who had to use the "services" of social security. There were no provisions at all for the unemployed. Hospitals separated into private and public. The children's hospital was renowned for its research in tropical diseases, but the building was in disrepair; there were not enough beds, so gurneys were used--with three or four babies tied across its width to prevent them...