[NYTr] Venezuela: Referendum Failure as Chavez's  "Master Plan"
 
Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2007 19:25:14 -0600 (CST)

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
Rebel Resource via Venezuelanalysis - Dec 6, 2007
http://rebelresource.wordpress.com/2007/12/05/35/
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/2970

Was Failure Chavez's Masterplan?

by Carlos Ruiz
Rebel Resource

Since President Hugo Chavezbs election in 1998, the politics in
Venezuela have been the most active and engaging in the world, with the
radical new direction of the country fiercely contested. On Sunday, a
large section of Chavezbs supporters chose to abstain from voting on a
broad array of proposed constitutional reforms, leaving them unapproved
and raising the very real, and honest question: Was it his intention to
lose all along?

Only one year ago, Chavez was decisively reelected with a record 63% of
the vote and only a quarter of the electorate abstaining. There have
since been a handful of controversies, any of which could potentially
have alienated a small minority of his support. However, Sundaybs vote
was lost through the abstention of a crucial segment that still
supports Chavez, yet wasnbt ready for radical landscape changes in
order to bring about full-blown b21st century Socialismb.

One commentator has blamed this mass abstencion on btirednessb
resulting from excessive rhetoric and not enough action. This canbt be
the case, as those who abstained must represent the more conservative,
moderate wing of bChavismob. A more realistic argument is that the
oppositionbs scare tactics and disinformation made this sector wary of
certain individual proposals. If there had been a significant bNOb vote
over and above the oppositionbs known electoral capacity, perhaps this
would ring true, but there was not; and in any case, propaganda from
the bother sideb is rarely taken seriously. The mass abstention
suggests moderate bChavistasb were simply behaving rationally under the
odd circumstances of the entire affair.

The proposed reforms were, as Chavez quickly admitted, too early and
too ambitious. Most commentators would go further and say they demanded
far too much consideration in too short a space of time. Just months
into Chavezbs final six-year term, an initial reform package of 33
proposals quickly ballooned into a total of 69. They represented an
Aladdinbs Cave containing everything Chavez and his more radical
support could have wished for. But moderates saw that few, if any, of
the important proposals were urgent, that most simply did not require
constitutional status, and that the whole package was desperately
overreaching and thus risky.

Chavez is a savvy character, and it is rather implausible that he could
have compromised this electoral contest (and contradicted his own style
of governance) through such extreme miscalculation or greed. To submit
this raft of significant changes to a public vote in the space of a
little more than a month seems out of step with the modus operandi of a
leader who has been the epitome of patience itself, and who knows the
key to long-term success is consistently rising public approval. Of
course Chavezbs political capital was high, but he is well aware that
the revolution cannot progress in earnest with highly visible drops in
popular support.

It would have been straightforward to advise Chavez on exactly how to
achieve maximum votes: Streamline the reform package into a tidy mix of
social benefits, executive and popular power; try to avoid anything
that is not strictly necessary, that can be achieved by other means, or
that gives the opposition an opportunity to scare the electorate. Float
the ideas around for a few months before the campaign begins some time
after the Christmas period. Make sure there are no international
engagements during the campaign and be sure to participate in public
debates.

Just as importantly, Chavez would have been duly advised to campaign in
the same non-controversial fashion that had won him reelection last
year. Curiously, he insisted on utilising a strange form of blackmail
by asserting any bNOb votes would be against him personally, even for
George W. Bush. That meant if you didnbt want to vote bYESb, youbd
better abstain b otherwise youbre an imperialist/oligarchical lackey.
Surprise, surprise: abstention jumped from 25% in last Decemberbs
general election to almost 45%, with the increase almost exclusively
comprising Chavez voters. In retrospect, was this bblackmailb really
designed to secure the bYESb vote, or to minimise the bNOb vote?
Despite repeated appeals against abstention, this must have only served
to increase it.

If a police detective was investigating the conspiracy theory of a
purposefully lost election (let us not speculate that the election
result could have been manipulated in favour of the opposition, despite
the agonising wait after the polls had closed!), the motives, means and
opportunity all fit like gloves - but especially the motives.
Tellingly, the only alternative explanation for such a stunning loss is
gross and uncharacteristic misjudgment, not to mention elementary
errors of political campaigning. Most people would think Chavez has
enough experience to know better.

To attempt to drive this truckload of reforms through en masse with,
say, 55% of the vote, which is what many were expecting and what could
theoretically have been achieved, would only have caused increased
anger and civil strife in the country. At this important stage of the
revolution, Chavezbs blossb has in fact done the complete opposite,
swiftly ensuring peace and stability in Venezuela by effectively
tranquilizing an opposition student movement that was close to boiling
point. Their most frequent message was that they bjust wanted peaceb,
and now they have it. On the other hand, Chavez has lost nothing and
gained everything.

It now bodes extremely well for his international image in particular.
Aside from quelling all dictator/fraud charges for the foreseeable
future, his reputation as a dignified democrat and conciliatory
statesman has increased tenfold, with fauning praise from most regional
leaders. Meanwhile, the basic manifesto for his current term has been
articulated in full, thereby initiating an informal process of debate
that will continue over months if not years. Though the reform
proposals were hardly grassroots choices, the method and style of the
entire process gave an important lesson to the population, who are
presumably now expected to make use of their constitutional power to
initiate their own proposals (having been given enough ideas).

Of course Chavez wants to deepen the revolution, and it should be
emphasised that nearly half of all voters were ready to grasp b21st
century Socialismb with both hands. However, to conclusively legitimise
the journey onwards, the essential bmoderate wingb needs to be picked
up, or btaken on boardb, as Chavez said himself during a call-in to
state TV the day after the vote. What better way to identify and
address this moderate wing than to set up an electoral test which the
moderates are not going to approve? Chavez now knows exactly how many
remain to be convinced of an all-out socialist project, and presumably
even who they are and where they live.

Chavez is an outstanding statesman with a powerful ability to build
consensus for his ideas and policies, and what he proposes to achieve
is no secret: in thousands of hours of media appearances his visions of
social justice, true popular power and a diversified economy have been
well explained. Clearly not all have been sufficiently persuaded, but
the most important step with which to enable an systematic process of
persuasion has now been achieved through losing this election. The
crucial signs are that Chavezbs base of opposition has not expanded,
and those sympathetic to Chavez remain open to further persuasion.

We can now be sure that Chavezbs supporters are far from mindless
sheep. Those that voted bYESb were fully informed and ready to go ahead
with the reforms. We can assume they are willing to dispose of
capitalism and try a different experiment. Meanwhile, those that
abstained were of sufficiently firm disposition to disassociate the
reforms from Chavez, in spite of his contrary efforts, and thus made a
neutral decision based on their perceived benefits/potential pitfalls
in relation to the current state of Venezuelan society.

Venezuela is ripe for socialism, but to be a truly demonstrative
international example, slim majority support will not suffice. b21st
century socialismb may be based on popular power, but even that cannot
be achieved without democratic consent. In fact, increasing executive
power will be necessary in order to overturn the politics, economy and
society into a revolutionary landscape of real grassroots
decision-making. In the present society, overflowing with disposable
income and increasingly catered for by rapidly expanding social
missions and the largest oil reserves on the planet, moderates are
liable to ask: How much better can it really get? Do we need to change
a bunch of other things? Might that not be a risk?

The sector of Chavezbs support that has yet to acknowledge the inherent
problems with the capitalist model, or alternatively the inherent
benefits of socialism, might well overlap neatly with the sector that
abstained in this constitutional reform vote. Perhaps they need to be
convinced of the need for increased executive power and the
democratic/other benefits of eliminating presidential limits. Whatever
their concerns, we know that Chavezbs excessive rhetoric has not been
sufficient to alleviate them b the answer now appears to be diversified
means of education targeted directly at the buncertain moderatesb, and
just as importantly, demonstration by example.

Clearly, the overriding failure of the reforms was not any individual
proposals but the general intensity, scope and pressure of the package
in the given circumstances. Chavez still has decree power for the next
six months at least, and will surely use it to effect the most urgent
proposals. The opposition still has the constitutional power to strike
down any legislation if the electoral force is behind them, though the
election results show that they remain a limited minority. Practically
all bNOb votes came from the limited block of stridently anti-Chavez,
pro-capitalist views which may represent only a third of the entire
Venezuelan population.

Though the opposition feels empowered, it will prove to be an illusory
experience and the position of the socialist movement with five years
of Chavezbs provisionally final term remaining is even stronger than
before. In the ambience of reduced attacks from both domestic and
international opposition and perhaps the invaluable extermination of
the bdictatorb charge once and for all, most of the intended advances
will inevitably be achieved with or without constitutional imperative
(imagine a successful popular initiative to eliminate presidential term
limits), and positive results will almost certainly ensure the big
hullabalooza: Chavezbs reelection in 2012. bFor nowb, Chavez says,
Venezuelans have to bmature, and continue constructing our socialismb. 

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