Chavismo: remembering civility and Puntofijismo in Venezuela

Yesterday we commemorated another anniversary of the “Pacto de Punto Fijo”, signed on October 31 1958. Today Grado 33 which can show that sometimes it can do really good TV had historians and educated politicians discuss the importance for Venezuela of that date.

One of them was Manuel Caballero, the leftist Venezuelan historian who has perhaps the best understanding, and I stress the word understanding, of Venezuelan history. Before I go on to Punto Fijo, I think that I should comment on what Caballero said. He said that the use of the word “chavismo” is a throwback to a more primitive political Venezuela. Indeed, until 1958, all Venezuelan historical periods received more or less the name of the strong leader of the time. For example the “Oligarquia conservadora” is also called el Paecismo for General Paez, the first president of Venezuela after it split from La Gran Colombia. Then we got “El Monaguismo” (Oligarquia Liberal under the Monagas brothers), El Gusmancismo after the Federal civil wars (when Guzman Blanco dominated the country for two decades), El Gomecismo (for the dictatorship for live of Gomez) and el Perezjimenismo (for the 50ies rule of our latest “formal” dictator).

But 1958 brought something new. Form then on Venezuela governments would not receive the nickname of the leader at Miraflores. Thus there would not be Betancurismo. There was neither a Carlos Andres Precesismo or Calderismo even though these two had two terms in office. We did not even see “Adequismo” or “Copeyanismo”. In fact we had to wait for Chavez for having the 1958-1999 period given the collective, and undeserved, name of Punto Fijismo. Interesting enough, since 1999 we have started using “chavismo” as an all usage name, preparing eventually its use for the name of an era in our history, in particular if Chavez is reelected next month. As Manuel Caballero points out very justly, chavismo is a throw back to our military past, to our one man rule past, to our small elite control past, to our, in a word, anti democratic past as democracy by definition cannot be ever linked to a single name.

Punto Fijo was the name of Caldera’s house and on October 1958 the three political parties who had fought the dictatorship of Perez Jimenez decided to form a coalition government no matter who would win the election. They also engaged themselves in helping whomever won to complete its term in office. That is, for the next 5 years, the three main democratic parties made the compromise to rule together the country, even if two of them would be junior partners. The document they signed would almost immediately be known as Pacto de Punto Fijo (Rafael Caldera of Copei, Jovito Villalba of URD and Betancourt of AD).

They kept their words although eventually URD and Copei left the government before the 5 years. But these 5 years of the Betancourt presidency would be completed, peace would be brought back to Venezuela and for the fist time in its history, a constitutional president would surrender his power to an elected successor, Raul Leoni.

And that Betancourt government needed all the help it could get as from the left communism started a guerilla system soon backed up by Castro, as the right wing tried its hand at new military conspiracies, and as Betancourt had to face a real assassination attempt where people were actually killed, where Betancourt was actually injured and near killed, where Betancourt showed acts of real bravery by helping in the rescue. The picture on the right shows Betancourt when he addressed the nation in a real cadena with his bandaged hands. Today Chavez has been a victim of countless imaginary assassination attempts for which we are still waiting for a real injury or even someone to go effectively to jail. We, of course, are not expecting any act of bravery from Chavez, but we expect all sorts of cadenas on the flimsiest excuse for self promotion of the beloved leader.

The pact of Punto Fijo technically ended in 1963 but for all practical purpose ended when Caldera was elected in 1968, the first time an opposition candidate was handed power in Venezuelan history, by the sitting president. There was no need anymore for such a pact, democracy, albeit imperfect, had come to Venezuela and had started rooting.

Through Leoni, political parties understood that there was still a need for collaboration. But after Caldera election things changed. And genuine collaboration slowly evolved into discreet connivance as slowly but surely Copei and AD alternated in power but reserving for each other a share of power that the other guy would not touch. This created the conditions into which corruption and inefficiency flourished, and ended up in the paralysis that allowed the Chavez phenomenon to reach power, something that could not have happened in pre 1980 Venezuela.

That is why Chavez and chavismo are so eager to discredit Punto Fijo with the now pejorative “Puntofijismo” which is supposed to encompass all from 1958 until 1998 and thus link the good of the first two decades with the bad of the two last decades. That way Chavez can ignore, for example, that during the 60ies education became generalized in Venezuela, that alphabetization reached all corners and that a poor kid like Hugo Chavez could receive an education that would allow him someday to lead an undemocratic coup against a democratically elected regime.