Monday, June 06, 2005

How long has Chavez ruled Venezuela, in fact?

Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, is particularly fond of repeating to whomever wants to hear him that there is an international media campaign whose only objective is to destroy his reputation, to misrepresent his accomplishments and to block him from doing the reforms so needed by Venezuela. Maybe. But what people also should know is that Chavez is leading a counter campaign of his own, using public funds, rewarding, rumor has it, many a hired pen. That campaign has for double objective to hide its incompetence by blaming his failures on an obstinate opposition to his programs, while it tries to make him a world leader.

In additions of this orchestrated effort there are those writers, paid or not, who are just enamored of Latin Revolutionaries from the safety and comfort of their European or East Coast chic meeting quarters. As long as it does not touch their wallet, many people support many causes that they would not tolerate for a second at home. A recent installment in this glorifying prose comes from Richard Gott in an article published in UK Guardian. My colleague Gustavo Coronel has made a brilliant job not only to debunk this faltering article, but to unmask Mr. Gott as well, either for his blind love or his shoddy work "a la" Golinger. No need for me to go into more details.

However Gustavo did write the following sentence which made me want to elaborate on it:
In order to calibrate properly the article by Gott, we must remember that Chávez has already been in total political control of Venezuela for almost seven years. This is a longer period than that of any other elected president in Venezuelan history and is getting close to equal the 10-year military dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez (1948-1958).

Indeed, when one read these Gott like panegyrics to Chavez there is a recurrent line, still after 6 years voiced by the chavista on foot as a variation of "they do not let him work", a line that would have us believe that Chavez has been blocked all along the way and he still cannot show results because of all the bad guys against him. This is false. Indeed Chavez has been opposed strongly and even a coup managed to displace him for a couple of days. However the truth, the awful truth that many would like to ignore, is that in soon 7 years in office Chavez has had plenty of time to deliver and if he did not do it, it is due to the sheer incompetence and corruption of his administration.

So, this blogger, in his ever present desire to enlighten the masses, has constructed the following table a time-line of Chavez rule. The main events and their date have been listed. The effect of these events has been codified according to the ability of Chavez to rule effectively. In Green are the periods where the Chavez administration was able to promote laws, establish programs, follow through with previous projects, apply adequate corrections, just as any normal government. In those periods months are counted in full. In Yellow we have the periods where some political trouble was distracting enough to impinge on effective administration. These periods are counted as half only, and rounded down to benefit Chavez. And in Red, the crisis periods, where of course, survival and recovery were a must and which thus receive a 0.

Political EventsDateAbility of Chavez to rule [months of effective rule]
Inauguration02/99 
First enabling law03/991
Constitutional referendum 04/99 
Constitutional assembly 07/99 
Judicial intervention 08/99 
Ratification of New Constitution 12/997
Vargas disaster12/99  
Nomination of "transition team"01/00 0
Elections for new public offices 07/00 
Second enabling law 11/00 
Trade Union referendum12/00 
Completion of enabling law11/0121
First general strike12/01  
April events 04/022
April coup 04/02  
Reorganization period 06/02 0
The march toward the general strike 11/02  
General strike 12/02 2
Currency control exchange 01/03  
End of strike 03/03 0
Recovery of PDVSA 03/03  
First Misiones 04/03  
August agreements 08/03 3
Signature gathering for Recall Election 12/03  
"guarimba" 03/04 6
Signature repair process05/04  
Recall election called06/04  
Recall election09/041
Regional elections 10/04 
Today06/057


From this table we can see that Hugo Chavez has benefited of at least 50 months of effective administrative time. That is: 4 full years out of his 6.5 years in office. The political trouble and Vargas disaster distracted him of LESS than half of his ruling time. Other presidents of Venezuela did not benefit from even 4 years of peace and yet did manage a body of work more comprehensive, more elaborate, more complete than Chavez. Examples:

Romulo Betancourt: although faced with military right wing coups, a real assassination attempt and a Cuban landing to support the guerilla, in his 1958-1963 term he managed to establish and stabilize democracy in Venezuela.

Rafael Caldera, first term 1968-1973: not only he did not have the majority in congress but actually he did not even disposed of a third of it while Chavez has had a crushing majority since July 2000. Yet, he maintained democracy, maintained economic growth through his five year term. And in his second term 1993-1998, he managed to survive banking collapse with again less than a third of congress for him.

So, a message to all of those Chavez lovers and professional apologists: I suggest that you apply a more objective yardstick when you evaluate the achievement of your hero. No Venezuelan president since Gomez has had as much discretionary power as Chavez. No president in our history has had the income that Chavez has received from the high price of oil. No president has as little to show for his power and his income: only a constitution that he has violated himself repeatedly and a plethora of mostly unsustainable social programs which have not stopped the poverty index from increasing.

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