Is Venezuela a democracy?
A post in progress

Thursday 10, June 2004

With the announcement of a Recall Election in Venezuela we are witnessing a certain metamorphosis in some of the pseudo opinion makers around the media. For some of them, the fact that Chavez has accepted to run in a Recall Election is a proof that he is a democrat. Never mind that he had been forced into accepting such a thing, that the road to reach such an election is paved with violence, corruption, blackmail and what not. Never mind that August 15 is still far away and that a lot of water will go under that democracy bridge, enough water to sweep it away. Still, this does not stop the publication of ludicrous articles such as Weisbrot accusing the Washington post on lying about political prisoners in Venezuela when every body here knows that a couple of dozen people are sought or held with no trial in sight just because they acted on political grounds. Is he that ill informed? Is he lying himself? Then again he would not be the only one.

Thus I have decided to make a little table where I compare what a democracy should be, what Venezuela currently is and what an authoritarian regime is. The reader will be able to decide where does Venezuela falls.

Note: this post will be an open post. If people can come up with additional aspects to compare I will include them and eventually repost the whole list. Suggestions for a better presentation are of course welcome.

	Democratic regimes	Venezuela	Authoritarian regimes
	Institutional and legal aspects, that could be easily verified by curious international observers
independent and autonomous judicial power	yes	no	no
impartial inquisitory procedures	usually	no	no
timely administration of justice	usually	no	no
clear separation between legislative and executive power	usually	no	no
national budgetary accountability	yes	no	no
elections	yes	yes	maybe
freedom of the press	yes	yes	no
civilian control over the army	yes	no	no
army is a political actor	no	somewhat	yes
respect for private property	usually	no	no
general accounting of government actions at the national level	usually	very limited	none
general accounting for governmental actions at the international level	yes	somewhat	somewhat
	Practical Aspects, real life situations from the above that might not be as obvious for the international observer but that are common knowledge among Venezuelan citizens
fair elections	yes	maybe	no
pressure on public employees depending on their political opinions	rare	yes	yes
political blackmail for governmental favors, jobs	possible	yes	yes
clean elections	yes	maybe	no
effectivity of the press when denouncing governmental abuse	yes	no	not applicable
safety for journalists doing their job	yes	no	no
"cadenas", inadequate use of private networks air time by the government for political benefit	no	yes	yes
freedom of travel	yes	yes	partial
freedom to trade	usually	restricted	variable
influence on the political opposition on the application of some public policies	frequent	no	not applicable
corruption	exists, but sanctioned	rampant	usual
political prisoners	rarely	yes	yes
equality in front of the law	generally	somewhat	no
equal access to to public services	usually	limitations	no
private property protection	yes, or with compensation	very limited	no
personal security outside of political activity	a goal	very low	variable
personal security within political activity	usually	weak	none