Chavez Will Win His Referendum
Posted by MichaelW on 29 Nov 2007 at 4:23 pm | Tagged as: Hugo Chavez, MichaelW's Page, Foreign affairs
I’d say this is good news except that I have zero confidence that the referendum will result in anything other than what Chavez wants (i.e. dictatorial control):
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has lost his lead eight days before a referendum on ending his term limit, an independent pollster said on Saturday, in a swing in voter sentiment against the Cuba ally.
Forty-nine percent of likely voters oppose Chavez’s proposed raft of constitutional changes to expand his powers, compared with 39 percent in favor, a survey by respected pollster Datanalisis showed.
Just weeks ago, Chavez had a 10-point lead for his proposed changes in the OPEC nation that must be approved in a referendum, the polling company said.
(See a round up of the various polls here). That was five days ago, however. Today, Reuters reports that Chavez is experiencing a surge of support:
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has at least a seven-point lead for a referendum on Sunday on reforms that would allow him to run for re-election indefinitely, according to a poll distributed on Wednesday.
[…]
The survey of 1,600 voters taken November 21-27 said 56 percent of likely voters appeared set to vote for Chavez’s constitutional overhaul and 40 percent set to vote against.
But when the survey measured how undecided voters would cast their ballots and also took into account that others, who do not yet plan to vote, could decide to participate, the difference narrowed to as little as seven points.
Ah, but let’s see who conducted this latest poll:
The poll by Consultores 30.11, which has worked for the government and accurately predicted a vote result last year, showed Chavez moving ahead compared to most surveys in recent days that put him at best in a statistical tie.
Yeah, I’ll bet they did. Reuters is being coy here. Consultores 30.11 apparently works solely for the Venezuelan government and puts out polls (sometimes through the U.S. polling firm Evans/McDonough, Inc.) that have a decidedly pro-Chavista flair. It’s no wonder they accurately predict elections when the numbers are handed to them by Chavez himself. The firm does not seem to be anything more than a PR machine for Chavez.
Of course, considering how Chavez is dealing with opposition to his referendum, it’s no wonder he needs the PR help (HT: Jim Hoft):
Several media outlets in Caracas have reported today that the new protests where thousands of students from all over the country participated against Chavez’s Constitutional “reforms,” left many students wounded. There were violent confrontations with the police in many Universities and there are reports of protesters having bullet and pellet wounds. Allegedly, one is in critical condition. Some newspapers have published news that many students have been detained by the authorities.
Demonstrations also occurred in other cities: Maracay, Valencia, Yaracuy and Puerto La Cruz and there is information that many professors joined their students. For this Sunday, all the student leaders will join their forces and will march in a huge demonstration to reject Chavez’s plans to turn Venezuela into an oppressive and tyrannical country.
Daniel at Venezuela News and Views has much more. Also, see this Luis Fleischman piece posted by Fausta:
What we are facing now is probably the largest civil protests in Venezuela since February 2003 when groups in civil society were struggling to hold a re-call referendum on Chavez….
This new anti-Chavez movement has been brought about by one man. He is the former Chavez Defense Secretary; General Rafael Baduel. Baduel has publicly opposed the constitutional reforms in Venezuela calling them an attempt at a “coup d’etat. As a result he has become the new de-facto leader millions of Venezuelans were waiting for. Until recently, Baduel could be blamed for allowing Chavez to co-opt the military in Venezuela and use it to strengthen his regime and for loyalty to a man who spoke about installing a socialist, revolutionary regime backed by the military. Yet, it is the same Baduel that now begins to rebel.
RTWT.
And while I have serious doubts that Chavez will lose, a prominent opposition group seems to be emboldened by the numerous protests around the country:
Comando Nacional de la Resistencia, a Venezuelan opposition group that President Hugo Chavez accuses of plotting his ouster, reversed its call to abstain from a referendum on a new constitution.
The CNR, in a statement posted to its Web site, said a massive voter turnout would defeat the Dec. 2 initiative to approve 69 changes to the constitution enlarging Chavez’s power. Abstention will increase chances of its passage, local pollster Datanalisis said this month.
“We invite voters to go to the polls with their eyes wide open,” Antonio Ledezma, one of the CNR leaders, from Caracas, said in the statement. “The victory of the `No’ to the reform proposal is our main goal. We must back it.”
Strangely, despite the fact Chavez’s totalitarian tendencies and Messianic-Bolivarian fatalism is costing him friends both at home, and in his neighborhood, and regardless of the thuggish tactics being used to shove his socialist utopia down the throats of his serfs citizen, the little dictator is still quite popular amongst the Left:
Why so much hatred (for Chavez)? Because at the same time social-democracy is undergoing an identity crisis in Europe, historic circumstances seem to have confided the responsibility of taking the lead at an international level in the reinvention of the Left to Mr. Chávez. While on the Old Continent, European reconstruction has had the effect of making any alternative to neo-liberalism practically impossible, in Brazil, in Argentina, in Bolivia and in Ecuador, inspired by the Venezuelan example, experiments that keep the hope of realizing the emancipation of the humblest alive continue to succeed one another.
In this respect, Mr. Chávez’s record is spectacular. We can understand how he has become the required benchmark in dozens of poor countries. In his scrupulous respect for democracy and all its freedoms [!], has he not re-founded the Venezuelan nation on a brand new basis, legitimated by a new Constitution [!] that guarantees popular involvement in social change? Has he not rendered their dignity as citizens to some five million marginalized people (including the indigenous people) deprived of identity papers? Has he not taken back in hand the public company Petróleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA)? Has he not de-privatized the country’s principal telecommunications company as well as the Caracas electricity company and returned them to serving the public? Has he not nationalized the Orinoco oil fields? Finally, has he not devoted a share of oil rents to acquiring effective autonomy vis-à-vis international financial institutions as well as autonomy for the financing of social programs?
The quote above, and the emphasis in it, comes courtesy of Bird Dog who retorts:
Ah, government trying to run businesses! How quaintly 19th Century! How idealistic! How caring! It’s “for the people”! Kinda like Hillary Clinton on the US oil companies: “I am going to take those profits…” Indeed, there is no greed in the business world that can compare with government greed for money and power.
Chavez’ “progress, ” however, includes no food on the supermarket shelves. While I do not have the same trust in Venezuela’s voting as Jimmy Carter does, it remains a fact that dictatorship by popular vote, and tyranny by popular vote, has a long history.
Venezuela will become a totalitarian state in short order, to the extent it is not already one. Make no mistake that this referendum, whatever the outcome, will do anything to slow that march down. By hook or by crook, Chavez will create his socialist utopia, and he will likely murder hundreds of thousands in the process if history is any guide. All of this is a given, and we should drop the pretense of there being any hope that Venezuela will right itself before plunging into a totalitarian hellhole.
The only real question is whether the usual suspects will continue to cheer Chavez’s descent into Bolivarian madness as they have done for Castro. Or whether they will blatantly ignore the devastating results Chavez’s socialist policies for the Venezuelan people as they did for Stalin. Or, once it becomes clear that Chavez is a megalomaniac who can’t be trusted and intends to use his subjects for his own glorification, whether they will promptly forget about him like that crazy uncle you pretend you don’t have, just as they have done with Kim il Jong.
In the end, there will still be a socialist dictator destroying the lives of millions of people, and the Left will cry “that’s not socialism; if only the right people had been in charge.”
Spare me. Spare Venezuela. And spare the victims of the next leftist hero with a five year plan “for the people.”
Technorati Tags: Chavez, Venezuela, socialism, totalitarianism, referendum, protests, police brutality, Castro, Stalin, communism, Bolivarian, revolution, dictator
22 Responses to “Chavez Will Win His Referendum”
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Hmmm. And if Chavez loses the referendum, and then does not implement the changes described, you will be….
wrong.
And who the heck is Americanfuture.net? Again, are you really interested in the genuine opinions of mainstream liberals, you’d find plenty of skepticism and doubt about Chavez. I’m a mainstream liberal, and I’m skeptical of Chavez.
Chavez’s anti-poverty programs are great for his country and long overdue. So are Lula’s in Brazil. Chavez is a thug, Lula is not. I prefer Lula, and so would nine out of ten liberals you could name.
So, for the sake of rational and civil discourse if nothing else, stop reinventing the opinions of your political opponents to suit your demonaic narratives.
And who the heck is Americanfuture.net?
Following the link, I see that Americanfuture.net is someone linking to something from “Le Monde Diplomatique”. That sort of makes my point all over again. At least find an American radical leftist with which to misleadingly pretend that mainstream US liberal opinion leaders are waving the flag for Chavez, not a French one.
Why don’t you quote me where I say anything about mainstream liberal opinion and then carry on with your irrelevant rant.
Ah, and no doubt skeptical about Pol Pot, as well.
Why don’t you quote me where I say anything about mainstream liberal opinion and then carry on with your irrelevant rant.
the little dictator is still quite popular amongst the Left:
Many people, here in America, consider the Democratic Party to represent “the left” in America. Are you now officially splitting them off? You cite a paragraph that compares Hugo Chavez to Hilary Clinton. Are you fooling anyone with this kind of hair-splitting? Is Hugo Chavez “popular” among “the left” in America? Do you have any idea? Am I interrupting your BS sound bite?
Ah, and no doubt skeptical about Pol Pot, as well.
You’re a libertarian, so you no doubt were pleased by Pinochet’s legacy of torture in the name of the free market. Or were you “skeptical”? What fun we’re having here, aren’t we? Shall we continue?
You see, glasnost, this is exactly why you’ve marginalized yourself. You have absolutely no point here and you know it, I know it, and anybody with an ounce of intellectual honesty knows it.
You accused me of denigrating “mainstream liberals”, and when challenged to quote me on that you can’t.
Just the same, do you know who Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee is? Would it surprise you to learn that, not only is she NOT skeptical of Hugo Chavez, she sought to help arm him!
She’s not the only Democrat to signal wanting closer relations by the way. If you’re truly interested, you’ll be able to discover who else thinks Chavez is A-OK.
Is he popular among the left in America? Really? You describe yourself as “mainstream liberal” and you don’t know the answer to that question?
Glasnost,
Leftists want to believe the Democratic Party represents the left, reality is that parts of it do, much of it doesn’t. Most Democrats are not leftists, though leftists do have an inordinate influence amongst activists. The left is a rather ambiguous term, I reserve it for people who are socialists, whether they acknowledge the term or not. Among socialists Chavez has significant support, whether they are Democrats or not, as most left wing autocrats have been. Castro, Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao, Mugabe, Nyerere, Khrumah, Ho Chi Minh and on and on the list goes for despots who were popular on the left, but mainstream liberal Americans rejected. If the Democratic party represents that leftist tradition, then that is a sad change and makes the charges of the right post McGovern rather correct. Is the modern Democratic party the party of JFK or his later family? Is it the party of Roosevelt and Truman, or the party of Tom Hayden, Cindy Sheehan and Michael Moore? Please tell us, because if it is the latter then yes, Chavez is just fine with the left and the Democratic party, and they are one and the same.
As for Pinochet, rather small potatoes on that list, but fair enough, though he was never popular on the right, and he certainly wasn’t doing his evil work in the name of free markets. He was preferred over politicians such as Chavez, and I suspect we will eventually find out just why that is so.
You have absolutely no point here
The point is that when you toss around broad labeling phrases like “the left” - for example, asserting “the left’s” preferences on someone, for example, Hugo Chavez, such as in the following statement, “the little dictator is still quite popular amongst the Left:”
you tar a broad bunch of people. Anyone who considers themselves “of the left” - like me, for example - and does not consider himself “a fan” of Hugo Chavez, is going to be irritated with you inventing a consensus that does not exist.
Kind of like if I claimed that, for a random example, “the imprisonment of women who give abortions is popular among the right”. Can I find examples of those on “the right” who support this policy? Sure I can. Is that position popular among the fringe, or does it hold broad support? Who knows, right? Well, according to the wording in my, or your, example, one would be led to believe that that was a widespread, commonplace, broadly accepted phoenomenon. Whether or not you specifically reffered to mainstream liberalism is not the point. In America, “the left” = “mainstream liberalism”.
Or perhaps “the left = “mainstream liberalism + ??”. Either way, you’re not representative.
The left is a rather ambiguous term,
Thank you, Lance. That’s a more polite version of my point. A more polite version of my suggestion would be that you be more careful when making broad points about who is supposedly popular with whom, lest you risk inaccuracy.
Is the modern Democratic party the party of JFK or his later family? Is it the party of Roosevelt and Truman, or the party of Tom Hayden, Cindy Sheehan and Michael Moore?
Darned if I know. I’m broadly in favor of Chavez’s social programs - Latin America as a whole is in dire need of land reform and various other anti-inequality programs, of the kind that helped East Asia emerge from feudalism - but against his referendum, acts of violence, deranged need to manufacture enemies, electoral manipulations, censorship, and so on, with the balance for me personally preferring his removal from power.
Lastly, I appreciate you providing an actual link to an American organization that supports Chavez, Mike. Good work. Commondreams definitely supports Chavez. They’re also fairly described as “the far left”, or a “fringe organization”.
Besides - I don’t even know all those names, Lance, so good work, but as this article does a fairly good honest job of assessing neutrally, Hugo Chavez’s record prior to 2007 isn’t a lot like Stalin, Mugabe, or even Castro. Walks like and talks like, yes, but the actual persecution and tyranny has arguably been at Vladmir-Putin levels or somewhat below. His recent initiatives make things a lot clearer. I don’t pass judgment on someone who supported Chavez before this referendum. 90% of America today broadly agrees that dictators are bad. Venezuela isn’t the only place where people disagree on how much authoritarianism is tolerable in pursuit of broadly admirable goals, which is why Captain Ed and the National Review are writing in support of Pervez Musharraf’s Supreme Court packing, though they’re against Hugo Chavez’s.
She’s not the only Democrat to signal wanting closer relations by the way. If you’re truly interested, you’ll be able to discover who else thinks Chavez is A-OK.
Hmmm. The Democratic Party controls a majority of both houses of Congress, yet we have not revoked the ban on selling F-16’s to Venezuela. This tells me that, since “the left” ambiguously overlaps “The Democratic Party”, perhaps Chavez is not, in fact, generally popular among “the left”.
On the other hand, proponents of “engagement” leftist and otherwise - would be in favor of selling things to Chavez regardless of whether they liked him. Proponents of “engagement”, such as with China also include people who are pro-trade. I don’t know how the proprietors of this blog reconcile their pro-free trade attitudes with their hostility to Chinese autocratic behavior, but I’d be surprised if their position did not contain nuance - a nuance they should then understand in a similar situation, with a different country.
As for Pinochet, rather small potatoes on that list,
Somoza, Kai-Shek, Thanh, Videla, Suharto…
We could just agree that leftists denounced rightist human rights abuses, rightists denounced leftist human rights abuses, both of them were soft on their own side, and may the mistakes of the 20′th century not be repeated in the 21’st. How’s that for an argument-ending Kumbaya.
He creates no such consensus. He says he is popular, which he is. Rush Limbaugh is popular on the right, most people don’t listen to Rush. Most don’t like Rush much. He is still popular.
Actually it is a lot like men such as that early in their careers. Mass murderers are not made in a day. Mugabe being a good example. Nyerere being someone likely to end up being less objectionable than Chavez.
Still small potatoes, though Suharto comes close to belonging on the low end, maybe Kai Shek, though that has to come with some caveats.
If you mean liberals, close enough to have some merit. If you mean actual left wingers, no, I can’t go along with it. Both Republicans and conservatives adopted a bit of the lesser of two evils approach to an extent and at times, but then so did mainstream liberalism, which was at least to a degree anti-communist as well. Hence JFK, Truman, Scoop Jackson and the anti0-communist socialists and liberals who gave birth to neo-conservatism. The actual left, and that included way too many mainstream liberals even then, actively admired and praised leftist dictators. Bill Buckley may have preferred Pinochet to Castro and his stooge Allende (much as he might Chavez if there were a cold war on) but he never pretended he was something to admire or emulate. Sorry, on that front the left has far more to apologize for. The Free Market right has a vanishingly small bit to explain.
Personally I am just fine and dandy with trading with anybody, with only the occasional need for nuance. However, many in the Democratic party, people who I would consider leftists for the most part, do admire Chavez. It has nothing to do with any such nuance.
We’ll just part ways there. You can’t have that without Castro, Mugabe or Chavez. The things you are complaining about are necessary for such programs to proceed. They are the problem. His economic and social policies require what you see now. You are confusing the symptom for the disease.
It’s interesting, Steve LeVine had this to say about Hugo Chavez:
Hey, Mike, Chavez lost the referendum, and you were… wrong. About the results, about the nature of the mechanism taking place, about… apparently, the essential thrust of your analysis of the regime itself.
Perhaps your analysis was a little too simplistic and villanophobic to begin with.
How about because we care about what happens in the rest of the world. The rest of Levine’s comment is just hot air.
We’ll see. Maybe Chavez will relinquish his desire to turn his country into a socialist paradise, maybe he will not. The referendum is just a vote, what he does in response will tell the tale.
Now glasnost can openly admire Chavez, at least for awhile . . .
Except that Pinochet didn’t torture anyone for the free market. He engaged free market reforms because he was a pragmatist, not because of his ideology. This makes him distinctly different than Chavez, who appears quite willing to destroy his country based upon socialist ideology.
Of course, Pinochet’s main crime was his market reforms; if he was a socialist like Castro, he could have done much worse and still receive guests from Hollywood . . .
Now glasnost can openly admire Chavez, at least for awhile
The one-liners have begun to amuse me, Don. You should take your show on the road. You do a great job of suppressing your loathing of the idea that someone could admire someone else for performing a moral act, like obeying the results of a referendum. I still don’t like Chavez, but I’m not particularly impressed with the magnitude of his sins. In a world run by thugs, he draws disproportionate attention by saying dumb things about America, while leaders who suck up to us get away with much worse.
Except that Pinochet didn’t torture anyone for the free market. He engaged free market reforms because he was a pragmatist, not because of his ideology.
According to your personal definition of “ideology” and your psychological analysis of the guy, subjective, ineffable, and IMO misleading hooey. Pinochet tortured people to destroy opposition to his policies, just like any leftist dictator who tortured people to destroy opposition to his policies. Not that I would understand your point any more clearly even if I agreed with it, which is apparently that free-market economic policies shouldn’t be blamed for dictators who do bad things to people while implementing them, but socialist economic policies still should be blamed for said dictators’ behavior, because….. spare me. One wonders what you would do with a dictator who tortured people while oscillating between free-market and socialist policies.. one would be pragmatic coincidence and the other twisted ideological inevitability, I imagine.
This makes him distinctly different than Chavez, who appears quite willing to destroy his country based upon socialist ideology.
This appears to be the opposite of truth, according to typical quality-of-life indexes, Chavez’s economic policies are pretty good for the actual people living in his country. See, that’s why he’s been…… popular… in his own country. Based on lucky influx of oil revenue? Probably. Good for the macroeconomy in the long run? I don’t know, maybe not. “Destroying his country”? A clearer description of your own biases than of reality.
Lance, I don’t find it much hot air (LeVine’s point that Chavez can’t really hurt us in any real way is a good one). We don’t see people freaking out en masse about the abuses elsewhere, such as the ‘Stans, Equatorial Guinea, Belarus, or, I don’t know, PAKISTAN. It is precisely because of Chavez’s big mouth anyone here cares what he does; otherwise, he’d be nothing more than yet another tin pot quasi-tyrant, totally lost in the world’s background noise.
Josh
I would suggest that while you may be right (at least partially), there is a difference in that Chavez is our neighbor in South America, Venezuela is one of our bigger oil trading partners, and Chavez has made a career out of Anti-Americanism.
Well guys, he didn’t pass his reform from hell.
He couldn’t cook the results as much as he wanted, because the amount of people against him was too big.
Reuters, Al Jazeera and Sky News reported that Chavez won long before any preliminary official report from Venezuela’s electoral council. I have more about this in my blog if you care to visit. So, as you can imagine somebody was feeding them this, my feeling, to mold the opinion about it.
But, the student movement made the difference this time! We have to thank them a lot! Because they were ready to move on if Chavez didn’t accept that the NO win.
This is a good day for Venezuelans against Chavez. Still, there is a long and very arid way back home. Chavez is enraged and he will attack like the wounded beast he is.
This is a time to be very aware of Chavez, because hestill has a lot of power and influences inside and outside Venezuela,
Cheers,
-F
Who is claiming otherwise? I don’t see people freaking out along the lines of him being some huge military threat. He is despised because he is trying to set up a communist dictatorship. It was the rest that was hot air.
I don’t cover the stans much because I have you here to do so. Chavez is a lot closer, and a left wing addled South America is a big deal, even if I have no fear that Chavez will roll down wall street in an armored column.
No, his policies are causing economic distress. The quality of life indexes are junk, and the problems are going to get much more serious, oil money or no oil money.
No, he tortured people to defeat the forces he thought would lead to a communist dictatorship and/or threaten his power. Free markets ideology had nothing to do with it. He came around to free markets a good bit after he came to power. Free markets need no torture. Socialism pretty much requires a brutal state. Those who have not shown that brutality cannot do it. By socialism I do not mean Sweden, or the welfare state, I mean actual socialism. That is what Chavez wants. It cannot be done without massive repression. The real threat isn’t his thuggishness, it is what he wants to do.
So I can condemn Pinochet without condemning free markets. The reason left wing dictatorships have consistently garnered large amounts of support on the left is that they are the only ones that exist. The repression early on is rationalized, as the myriad laws are seen as good, not as repression. As the gruesome toll that is needed to have a society run along socialist lines comes to fruition the leader is blamed, rather than socialism itself. The problem was Stalin, Mao, etc. So yeah, the dynamic is very different glasnost. Right wing dictators are rarely loved, and the violence has little direct connection to the economic policies of free markets. The violence of socialism is directly attributable to enforcing socialist policies themselves. Farmers don’t produce what the state deems necessary, or at prices they desire (if there are prices?) The state must make that a crime. Otherwise the states dictates will not be followed. At that point people must be arrested. One follows necessarily from the other.
Worse, now that the farmer has been arrested production suffers, so they instead just confiscate what the state “needs” and we get famine and other associated tragedies. Sound familiar? It should, it is also unavoidable.
Chavez is staring that reality in the face. His wage and price controls have resulted in shortages. Either he abandons them or he will have to take action. Death’s grim visage lies down the latter path, free markets the other. Pinochet was just a vicious dictator, his policies did not require it, Chavez’s do.
Socialism pretty much requires a brutal state. Those who have not shown that brutality cannot do it. By socialism I do not mean Sweden, or the welfare state, I mean actual socialism. That is what Chavez wants.
I looked up the definition of socialism on Wikipedia as a background check, because I found this puzzling. They “ described it as:
“a socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subject to control by the community for the purposes of increasing social and economic equality and cooperation”
Encyclopedia Britannica defines socialism as, in contrast:
” system of social organization in which property and the distribution of income are subject to social control rather than individual determination or market forces.”
with “rather than” being the key word here.
I have to shut this discussion down, or I’d expand a lot. But I doubt that Hugo Chavez has attempted to eliminate individual property ownership and market forces in his country. If you think so, try making a post demonstrating that.
The type of socialism you and Encyc Britannica are describing isn’t socialism, it’s communism. As for whether or not Hugo Chavez’s wage and price controls inevitably lead to violence, you’ve cut your own claim off at the knees by broadening it to “either violence or else modification of the policies”. Although you prevented me from bringing up Richard Nixon’s wage and price controls to demonstrate why the first version obviously wasn’t true.
As far as I can tell - and I’m no expert - rather than attempting to systematically convert Venezuela to a non-market economy, Hugo Chavez has selectively nationalized key industries to gain state revenue to use on social programs. I highly doubt this program leads inevitably to violence, and I highly doubt it matches the broader version of socialism given by Encyc Brittanica - or your version of “real socialism”. Hugo Chavez’s economic policies remind me of France’s economic policies, 1950-1980, plus oil. I think that comparison holds up. I’d love to see you disprove it. Assuming this comparison holds up, either both of these are socialism are or neither of them are, and whether or not they work well or not, the evidence that they inevitably lead to violence is, I think, slim.
Don’t come back with Pol Pot, Mao, or Stalin to attempt to dissent, as I’ve already established the difference in the economic policies in question.