Chavez Collapsing?
Jackson Diehl at the Washington Post wonders if (T)Hugo Chavez is beginning to unravel. Looking at the increasingly erratic behavior of the would-be dictator, he suspects that to be the case. But he also points out that the opposition in Venezuela is becoming more mature and hopes to beat Chavez legitimately at the polls. They do not want Chavez to collapse or the country to suffer a coup.
Is Hugo Chávez crashing?
It's hard to believe that a strongman who commands more than $40 billion in annual petroleum revenue, who has been granted the right to rule by decree by a rubber-stamp parliament, who controls his country's courts and television media, and who has recently spent billions on new weapons for his army could have much to worry about. Yet as Venezuela's president held a parade to celebrate the 16th anniversary of his unsuccessful military coup against a former democratic government last week, his own nine-year-old administration was struggling to pull out of a tailspin.
The trouble began in early December when Venezuelan voters rejected a new constitution that would have turned Venezuela into a socialist state along the lines of the Cuban model and made Chávez its de facto president-for-life. The self-styled "Bolivarian revolutionary" accepted the democratic verdict, according to multiple Venezuelan accounts, only after the country's military commanders told him they would not support him if the announcement of a fraudulent result touched off a popular rebellion.
Since then an increasingly erratic Chávez has dug his political hole steadily deeper. He shocked both Venezuelans and leftists across Latin America by publicly embracing the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a onetime Marxist guerrilla group that long ago morphed into a syndicate of kidnappers and drug traffickers. Last week hundreds of thousands of people from Bogota and Caracas to Madrid and Tokyo responded with anti-FARC marches. Chávez then struck a bellicose posture toward Colombia's democratic government — which only served to generate broad international sympathy for Colombia's conservative president, Álvaro Uribe, while once again provoking jitters among Venezuelan military commanders.
Venezuelans not worrying about war are increasingly obsessed with the remarkable result of Chávez's disastrous economic policies: worsening shortages of consumer goods and soaring prices, a combination previously seen only in such benighted places as Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe. Almost every day, newspapers report another addition to the items missing from store shelves: from milk, bread, sugar, chicken, eggs, rice and cheese to auto parts and over-the-counter drugs. A black market thrives; food is smuggled across the border to Colombia, while cocaine in increasing quantities is trafficked back to Venezuela. Chávez recently raised the price of milk 37 percent, contributing to an inflation rate that hit 22 percent in 2007 and 3.4 percent in just the month of January. But he also threatened to seize private banks, farms, supermarkets and food distributors, thereby ensuring that the investments needed to end the shortages will not take place.
Chavez is increasingly belligerent toward Colombia and has now threatened to cut off oil to the US. He seems intent on starting something, possibly as a way to preserve his rapidly floundering presidency. Diehl points out that the opposition is ready to contest upcoming governor elections and could well win a number of those contests. If they do, Chavez will effectively be contained and his "revolution" will be over. We can hope.
World news | Gaius Monday, 11 February , 2008
By Mockinbird, Monday, 11 February , 2008 @ 10:19 am
Cocaine will do that to a man.
By ted goldman, Monday, 11 February , 2008 @ 10:52 am
Chavez is supported by the NY Times, Robert kennedy Jr,. Sean Penn, and other socialists.
By Anthony (Los Angeles), Monday, 11 February , 2008 @ 11:42 am
Remember, this is the man who recently bragged in a speech to the rubber-stamp congress about his use of coca paste.
Methinks the Fidel-wannabe’s brain is fried.
By Sam, Monday, 11 February , 2008 @ 3:10 pm
What is scary to me is how quickly he could steer the government of Venezuela down this disastrous path. If he can do it there, then it is possible to do it in many other countries as well. Here’s hoping that he doesn’t stay in power much longer, so the country of Venezuela doesn’t have to suffer much longer.