The Bolivarianism and the Civil Society in Venezuela After Chavez

拉丁美洲經貿季刊第 13 期 Revista Trimestral de Estudios Economía Latinoamericanos N°13 A PYRRHIC VICTORY ? THE BOLIVARIANISM AND THE CIVIL SOCIETY IN VENEZUELA AFTER CHAVEZ Moises Lopes de Souza1 PhD. Student IDAS. NCU,Taipei Abstract The election of Nicolas Maduro as the first president after the death of Hugo Chavez has unveiled new challenges to the Bolivarian cause. The first challenge Maduro is to renew the Bolivarian leadership style and show himself as capable of being the translator of the general will of Venezuelans. Secondly, he necessarily has to bring effective changes in the economy in order to cool down the current social anxieties principally among the poor population. The poor, who have historically been on the side of the Bolivarian cause, sent a strong message that they might be potentially migrating to the opposition camp. The third –and more complex– task is that Maduro will have to include the country’s elite to the political debate and contemplate part of its demands regarding how the democratic game should be, in order to be able to TAO implement all these changes. Key Words: Democracy, Venezuela, Chavism, Bolivarianism. 1Moises Lopes de Souza - PhD. Student National at International Doctoral Program in Asia-Pacific Studies (IDAS). National Chengchi University (Taipei). Associate Researcher of the Center of Latin America Trade and Economy. Chihlee Institute of Technology . Member of the Group of Studies on Asia of the Center of Research in International Relations (NUPRI - Sao Paulo).，感謝作者惠允轉載。 The Quarterly of Latin American Economy and Trade N°13 15 頁拉丁美洲經貿季刊第 13 期 Revista Trimestral de Estudios Economía Latinoamericanos N°13 Introduction “Another such victory and I come back to Epirus alone”. This quote is generally accepted as from the King Pyrrhus of Epirus (c. 318 - 272). After arriving at where is Italy now, the king brought along with him 25,000-30,000 men and more than 20 elephants to defend his fellows Greek allies against the powerful Roman Empire domination. However, after winning the first two battles Pyrrhus realize that it had cost him a large number of his men, including generals and personal friends. Ever since, victories have got different tastes and interpretations. Some victories can come at costs that turns it much more problematic than an eventual defeat. That is what the newly elected president Nicolas Maduro has been experiencing after his narrow victory against the oppositionist Eduardo Capriles in Venezuela. This article argues that the results obtained by the opposition camp in the recent elections in Venezuela are the first consequences of the disappearance of Chavez of the political scene. Moreover, the article's main argument is that the decreasing of circulos bolivarianos, the civil arm of the Chavism in Venezuela even during Chavez’s time, was a sign that the presidential inspiring image and speech was no longer having the same effects it used to. The distance between words and concrete results was already in their inception since 2012, and the classicTAO Bolivarian leadership already started to reveal its weaknesses during Chavez’s twilight. With the end of an emotional moment followed by the announcement of Chavez’s death, Maduro has three primary tasks. The first is to renew the Bolivarian leadership style and show himself capable to be the translator of the general will of the Venezuelans. Secondly, and linked with the first, he has necessarily to bring effective changes in the economy in the way of cooling down the current social anxieties principally among the poor population. The poor, who have historically been on Bolivarian cause side, suddenly sent a strong message that they might be migrating to the opposition camp. And here The Quarterly of Latin American Economy and Trade N°13 16 頁拉丁美洲經貿季刊第 13 期 Revista Trimestral de Estudios Economía Latinoamericanos N°13 is the third and more complex task: in order to operate all these changes, Maduro will have to include the country’s elite to the political debate and contemplating part of its demands regarding how the democratic game should be. The question is how to do it without flirting with liberal policies and thus giving ammunition to Capriles and the Venezuela’s wealthy and powerful elite against himself. The 2012 elections and Its Discontents The victory of Maduro in the most recent and one of the most important elections in Venezuela’s history could probably make the former President Hugo Chavez shake in his grave in Sabaneta, his hometown where he was buried. If the victory guaranteed the continuation of the “chavism without Chavez”, at the same time it launched a thick layer of skepticism over its medium and long term future. Against all forecasts, what really surprised all analysts was not the predictable victory of Maduro, but the amazing performance of the oppositionist Henrique Capriles. Based on Chavez’s performance in 2012 and after the high emotional demonstrations on Venezuela’s streets after his death, Chavez’s followers believed that another landslide and reaffirming victory were on its way. However, the results showed that Bolivarianism will have to find its own path in case it wants to survive beyond the shadow of the “comandante”. The emotional toneTAO of the demonstrations in the streets after former president Hugo Chavez was pronounced dead was just another proof of a regime that was and still is highly based in emotions. Or, better placed, a regime that always knows how to access the emotions of the majority of the population and make it works in favor of the government projects and world view. Since his theatrical coup d’etat attempt in 1992, Chavez had consistently used emotional expedient to communicate with his supporters and his dramatic battle for his life was his final act. By using such emotive elements in a high volatile environment followed by his successive landslide electoral victories, Venezuela The Quarterly of Latin American Economy and Trade N°13 17 頁拉丁美洲經貿季刊第 13 期 Revista Trimestral de Estudios Economía Latinoamericanos N°13 seemed totally immersed and taken by Chavez’s ideas of Bolivarianism and twenty-first century socialism. But the last election showed that this is not necessarily true. Chavez consecutive electoral victories concealed an important aspect present in the 2012 elections. During that year, and for the first time, the opposition in Venezuela surpassed the barrier of 37% of the votes. Different from all other elections that Chavez has won since 1998, in 2012 Henrique Capriles started to be able to conquer votes that also contemplate parts of the poor people that traditionally have been seduced by Chavez’ eloquence. Capriles performance gets more clear when analyzed in historic perspective compared with the performance of all other candidates from the opposition camp since the advent of the chavism. In the 1998 elections, Chavez garnered 56.4% of the votes while the second, Henrique Salas, stayed with 39,9%. Later in 2000, already under a new constitution promulgated in 1999, Chavez got an impressive 59.8% of the votes, while the opposition candidate, Francisco Arias, stayed with a distant 37.5%. Later, in 2006, the chavism saw its best electoral performance since its first election in 1998. In that election, Chavez garnered 62.8% while, again, the opposition stuck with 36.9% at that time with Manuel Rosales as their candidate. In 2012,TAO although keeping comfortable of difference of 12% from its opponent Henrique Capriles, that election showed what now seems like a trend. Chavez, with 55.1%, experienced his lowest performance while with Capriles the opposition overcame the barrier of 37% of electorate jumping to 44.3%. Follow the decline tendency in 2013, Maduro garnered 50.6% while Caprilles got surprisingly 49.07 % of the electorate. The difference now was only about 1,5% very distant from the comfortable and secure 12% that Hugo Chavez have had in 2012. In absolute numbers, Maduro won with only 234.935 votes. In 2012 Chavez had The Quarterly of Latin American Economy and Trade N°13 18 頁拉丁美洲經貿季刊第 13 期 Revista Trimestral de Estudios Economía Latinoamericanos N°13 8,191,320 million votes while Capriles got 6,591,304 votes. In six months, the opposition in Venezuela gained about 680,00 votes while the government lost about 700,00 votes (Maringoni, 2013). To know why this migration happened is absolutely vital for the “Bolivarian Revolution”in Venezuela, mainly because the majority of more than 7 million votes that Capriles garnered in the last election is composed of poor people. The Seeds Of Decline Despite of criticism of the flamboyant personality of the former president Hugo Chavez or about his populist speeches, it is undeniable that his presidency was able to operate profound changes in the Venezuelan society, for good and bad at the same time. According to the UN-Habitat Report of 2012, in 1999 –first year of Chavez as president– Venezuela had 49% of its population in the poverty and indigence. In 2010, this percentage was reduced to 28%. The capital Caracas is among the 26 Latin American cities with the lowest Gini index with 0,40. Performing better than many cities in Brazil for instance, that on average has Gini Index of 0,5. What means that the social inequality in Caracas at least, is lower than many citiesTAO in Latin America. Still, the UN-Habitat reported that in Venezuela, 80% of the residences are occupied by their own owners. In countries like Colombia for instance this number never surpassed by 50%. At the same time , the basic sanitation (sewage) infrastructure in Latin America is in average available for 80 to 85% of the population. In Venezuela this number is about 95%, with Caracas also performs very well in urban garbage collection staying in the top of a list of 21 cities (Maringoni, 2013).

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