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Ballots
Under a Totalitarian Democracy
By
Luis Fleischman
“Fear has already made many Venezuelans, as Germans were
in the 1930’s, passive (and sometimes active) accomplices
of the regime.
“The
real heroes are the politicos such as Manuel Rosales who succeed
in mobilizing Venezuelan citizens, the journalists who still speak
their minds and the intellectuals who still dare to defy the regime
because the most precious asset, their liberty is being taken
away.
“These
intellectuals and actvists include people from the right and from
the left. They are trying to defend their soul and identity. They
receive little or no support from the world community.
“Many
intellectuals of the left in other Latin American countries still
view Chavez as a revolutionary. As left wing Western students
and intellectuals in 1968 narrow-mindedly saw the anti-communist
Prague spring as being counter-revolutionary, they now view anti-Chavez
opposition in the same light.”
Once again presidential elections will take place in Venezuela.
The contenders are the current President, Hugo Chavez, and his
opponent, Manuel Rosales.
Interestingly enough, these elections are very unique in that
they are definitely not like those referendums existing in countries
such as Egypt, which are aimed mostly at reinforcing an authoritarian
regime. In fact there are candidates for president, who are freely
campaigning like in a regular election. By the same token, the
political platforms of each of the candidates seem to be open
and freely reported in the press. The naked eye that observes
these elections in Venezuela could say: “We see nothing
wrong with this” Yet, these perceptions are basically misleading.
The title of my piece is totalitarian democracy, a concept introduced
by the late historian Jacob Talmon. According to Talmon, totalitarian
democracy is a system of government in which representatives are
lawfully elected by the citizen’s right to vote, however,
there is still little or no participation in the decision-making
process of the government. The philosophy of totalitarian democracy
i based on a top-down view of society, which sees an absolute
political truth to which humans should be directed. The totalitarian
democracy enables the government to make the ultimate decision
over the citizens without consulting them. The government activities
might include imposing policies, controlling the private sphere,
expropriating private property, restricting activities and suppressing
dissent. The source of their legitimacy, according to Talmon,
is “majority rule”. Government based on majority rule
can govern at the expense of minority rights and the rule of law
itself.
Indeed Chavez has “lawfully” increased his political
power at the expense of the legislative power; he manipulated
the judiciary and the military by appointing officers and judges
loyal to him. In the economic sphere he has made every effort
to destroy the private sector by halting foreign exchange and
import controls as well as by carrying out assaults on private
property. By the same token he destroyed the state-owned oil company
PDVSA by purging its well-trained professionals and appointing
an army of inept Chavistas to the management and professional
staff. Furthermore, Chavez not only uses huge oil revenues to
offer welfare and buy political loyalty but he will also seek
to perpetuate this situation of people’s dependency on the
government by continuing to use oil- as it has been epitomized
in regimes such as the Islamic Republic of Iran, Saadam Hussein’s
Iraq, Muhamar Khadaffi’s Libya and the Saudi monarchy- to
build a powerful welfare-based tyrannical state.
In the area of human rights and freedom of expression, he has
encouraged violence against journalists and passed laws criminalizing
certain opinions that could bring “turmoil to the collective”.
Moreover, Chavez has had access to a list of individuals that
supported the recall referendum and has targeted them by firing
them from their jobs, denying them identity cards and passports
and by other means. Overtime these policies worked for Chavez
in so far as it created general terror in the population. It made
individuals believe that the only way to survive is by behaving
obsequiously towards the regime. In the early 2000’s I used
to be in touch, via e-mail, with a number of individuals and journalists
living in Venezuela. They all ceased to write me in the last three
years. A Venzuelan individual now living in the US told me his
parents were fervent anti-Chavistas and have quickly turned into
Chavistas.
When they are asked to explain themselves they could not give
any rationale to their current views. In other words, no reason
but fear explains such behavior. Furthermore, in the Venezuelan
democracy- not yet fully understood by most Latin American experts
or mainstream American academia and less so by democracy watchdogs
like former President Jimmy Carter- lies a clear Stalinists phenomenon.
Formal “Democracy” and regular elections still exist
in Venezuela but they take place, paraphrasing Iraqi scholar Kanan
Makiya, in the framework of a “Republic of Fear“.
This is the political atmosphere in which these elections are
taking place.
The Opposition and Its Strategy
Chavez’s main opponent is Manuel Rosales. Rosales has been
chosen as the candidate of a somewhat unified opposition, which
believed that such unity, is the only way to defeat Chavez in
the election. Rosales does not come from a wealthy family but
from humble beginnings in the State of Zulia, where he later became
governor. As Governor of the State of Zulia he proved to be a
very good administrator. His leadership made the State of Zulia
the only state in Venezuela where neither Chavez nor the Chavista
candidates ever won. About one third of the Venezuelan population
lives in Zulia which is rich in oil resources. He is a former
member of the traditional party, Accion Democratica, and he presents
a center-left political platform that includes a strong social
justice component which effectively enables him to compete with
Chavez. This platform includes a fair allocation of oil revenues
by applying minimum wage and direct aid to the underprivileged.
Rosales supports giving land to the peasants but, contrary to
Chavez, while respecting private property. In addition, he also
advocates for encouraging national and foreign investment that
he sees as keys to employment and economic growth. Rosales is
also a strong constitutionalist who believes in democratic alternatives
and repudiates Chavez’s attempt to perpetuate his power.
(Chavez has stated that if he wins he will conduct a referendum
in 2010 to modify the constitution so as to allow for the indefinite
reelection of the President). In terms of foreign policy, Rosales’
slogan is “Ni el imperio ni el barbudo” (Neither the
(US) empire, nor the Cuban bearded one (Castro)”) Rosales
strategy has been to try to approach the poorest sectors of society
by walking in “Chavez’s neighborhoods”, despite
the fact that in some cases he was received with open hostility.
Contrary to Chavez, he does not talk from the top-down but attempts
to connect with people by showing respect and by not being condescending.
According to some observers, the strategy of the Rosales campaign
is to catch those who in the past voted for Chavez because they
felt no other candidate could represent them. Rosales counts on
them and also on those who are planning to abstain. (According
to Sumate Since 1998, the year Chavez took over the reins of the
Venezuelan state there has been an abstention of 36% in 1998,
56% in the 1999 constitutional referendum, 44% in the 2000 presidential
elections, and 30% in the 2004 recall referendum.) Furthermore,
Rosales strategy is to mobilize numbers and encourage people to
lose their fear and show to the polls by huge numbers. He is doing
it and he is doing it right. (I will come back to this point in
my conclusion)
Are These Elections Normal?
Current polls seem to be favoring Chavez for the time being. Some
polls predicted a victory for Chavez with 58%, some with 55% but
many of them had basically predicted a comfortable victory for
Chavez. According to columnist Marta Colomina, all those conducting
the polls are clients of Hugo Chavez or people openly sympathetic
and loyal to him. The intention of these polls would be to demoralize
the voters and to convince them that a Chavez victory is a fact
that will be impossible to reverse. Ms. Colomina quotes previous
polls conducted by the same people who in the past had errors
of 25% or more. Curiously enough, the Caracas-based Hannah Arendt
Institute conducted a poll called “poll without fear”.
The conclusion indicates that Venezuelan voters are victims of
fear. The report found that when people are interviewed for polls,
they strongly suspect the identity of the interviewer. Using a
special methodology the study concluded that Chavez has a slight
2% advantage over Rosales (51% to 49%). The authors define the
results as a “technical tie” (for more detail go to
www.unionradio.com.ve/Noticias/Noticia.aspx?noticiaid=187021).
This makes a lot of sense since Chavez’s aggressiveness
towards those who oppose or criticize him has succeeded in causing
panic, particularly in the aftermath of the 2002 failed anti-Chavez
coup and the 2004 recall referendum. Fear of losing ones’
job, fear of persecution, fear of retaliation and other types
of intimidation have had an impact which needs to be overcome.
There is also a general underlying assumption that Chavez can
still manipulate the results. In the aftermath of the recall referendum
there were suspicions of fraud that were never fully proven.
Despite the lack of clear evidence of fraud, Prof. Genaro Mosquera,
Director of Statistical Research at the prestigious Universidad
Central de Venezuela points out that there are 1.3 million registered
voters without address and the Electoral Council has not given
an answer yet to this question. Mosquera reports that there are
a high number of people who are very old, that by the laws of
nature should be deceased. At this point there is a 34% increase
of registered voters since 2003. Moreover, the electoral council
has not explained how some voters have 2 or more identity cards
with different serial numbers. By the same token there is still
no explanation as to how thousands of foreign nationals (many
of them from Arab and Muslim countries) have become Venezuelan
citizens without legal procedure. In addition, it has not yet
been explained how in more than one third of the country’s
municipalities there are more voters than numbers of residents.
Furthermore, the company that runs the electronic voting machines,
Smartmatic is suspect of being linked to the Chavez regime. More
importantly, according to a number of analysts and the organization
Sumate, electronic voting machines may transmit and receive data
(bi-directional communication) and hence electoral results may
be corrected or altered. In other words, if the machines can receive
information they can be fed any information and this is what observers,
particularly from the European Union and the Carter Center, should
carefully and meticulously look at.
There is another element involved here. For the first time there
will be fingerprint machines allegedly used to prevent duplicate
voting. However, many Venezuelans understandably are very much
afraid that the fingerprint machines may identify whom they voted
for, despite the opposition’s assurances to the contrary.
Indeed, analysts confirm that it would be very difficult to detect
the identity of the voter but Chavez is believed to have introduced
this method to frighten Venezuelans and impel them to either vote
for Chavez or at least abstain.
Some Conclusions
To conclude I would say that Venezuela is still indeed an electoral
democracy.
However, between elections, a totalitarian regime prevails. Chavez
tends to concentrate power in his hands by appropriating natural
resources (oil) and distributing them selectively, controlling
state institutions (legislative and judiciary), using Bolivarian
Circles and other gangs to reaffirm his presence in all aspects
of life and publicly attacking opponents and the media. Since
this is the case, why not abolish democracy altogether and establish
an authoritarian state? The fact is that Venezuela had been a
democracy for over four decades prior to Chavez and Venezuela’s
political and cultural institutions cannot be destroyed overnight.
Chavez has not been able to break that barrier yet; however, the
country has already been severely wounded.
The Rosales campaign is trying to revive the victims that the
Chavez regime has already claimed by awakening them and giving
them some hope. Fear has already made many Venezuelans, as Germans
were in the 1930’s, passive (and sometimes active) accomplices
of the regime. The real heroes are the politicos such as Manuel
Rosales who succeed in mobilizing Venezuelan citizens, the journalists
who still speak their minds and the intellectuals who still dare
to defy the regime because the most precious asset, their liberty
is being taken away. These intellectuals and activists include
people from the right and from the left. They are trying to defend
their soul and identity. They receive little or no support from
the world community. Many intellectuals of the left in other Latin
American countries still view Chavez as a revolutionary. As left
wing Western students and intellectuals in 1968 narrow-mindedly
saw the anti-communist Prague spring as being counter-revolutionary,
they now view anti-Chavez opposition in the same light. Some are
even fascinated by Chavez’s social justice agenda and anti-Americanism
and do not seem to be bothered by the most oppressive aspects
of the Chavez regime. Latin American governments with the exception
of Mexico, Colombia and Peru have often welcomed and uncritically
praised Chavez. The European Union and many of their intellectuals
(as well in the US) have remained largely silent in the face of
Chavez’s abuse of power.
To conclude, a victory for Chavez will strengthen his oppressive
regime and his relations with Iran, the FARC, and Hezbollah. This
type of geo-political problem is usually perceived as America’s
problem, particularly by the Europeans. However, with the clear
presence of terrorist networks in Europe and potentially in Latin
America, this can no longer be considered a purely American problem.
This is why it is the obligation of all the nations of the world,
NGO’s, and other bodies serving as observers to seriously
monitor these elections. But there is more.
A Venezuelan journalist Orlando Ochoa Teran, who writes for the
prestigious weekly Quinto Dia, believes that Rosales can mobilize
Venezuelans to the streets even better than Chavez. Indeed on
November 25 the Rosales campaign displayed spectacular strength
by bringing more than one million people to its closing event.
This is a sign that fear may be diminishing and this is perhaps
the most important step. Therefore, if it is perceived that Chavez
won by fraud, a social uprising in the style of the Rose revolution
in Georgia and the Pink Revolution in the Ukraine may take place
in Venezuela demanding the resignation of Hugo Chavez. In that
case it will be the obligation of the United States and the free
nations of the world to support such social movement with no hesitation.
That opportunity might not come twice.
Luis
Fleischman is an advisor to the Menges Hemispheric
Security Project at the Center for Security Policy in Washington
Dc. He is also an adjunct professor of Political Science and Sociology
at Wilkes Honor College at Florida Atlantic University
Its views are not necessarily those of PETROLEUMWORLD.
Editor's
Note: The preceding article was first published in SecurityAffairs.org,
on the Fall's 2006, issue. Petroleumworld reprint this article
in the interest of our readers.
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