By Phillip McLean
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Venezuela held a presidential inauguration January 10 without a president to swear-in. President Hugo Chávez, re-elected by an ample margin to a third term last October, remains out of the country in Cuba recovering, it is reported, from a “complex” surgery and a post-operative infection. As he has for the past 14 years, Chávez continues to dominate Venezuela’s political stage, even when absent, even when weakened by cancer and perhaps on his death-bed. Venezuelans live with a belief that, with its vast oil reserves, theirs is a rich country. A resentful majority long wondered why they hadn’t shared the benefits. Chávez assured that they would and was elected in 1999 on a wave of popular enthusiasm. And with rising oil prices in the following years he took steps to keep his promises and won a solid base of support to stay in power thereafter. “Chavismo” will not easily go away.
In the run up to inauguration day there was frantic discussion of the legal predicament of having the president’s term expire and not having him present to re-take the oath of office and receive the tricolor sash of office. Before his departure for Havana in mid-December Chávez made clear that his strong preference was that his appointed vice president Nicolas Maduro should assume the presidential mantle in his absence. Analysts found that too simple and debated the meaning of articles 231, 232, and 233 of the constitution that spell out provisions for assuming the presidency and allowing for his absence. Government insiders proposed various elaborate solutions, including flying the Supreme Court to Havana to administer the oath at Chávez’s bedside to postponing the inaugural event until his return (or unspoken, his death). Article 233 would have had the presidential powers fall into the hands of Diosdado Cabello, the president of the legislative assembly until after new elections are held, but that view seemed likely to breach divisions among loyalists rather than promote a more widely agreeable course of action. Cabello himself has backed away from the codicil, at least for the time being.
Even so, most vocal outsiders seemed to favor following a path that would lead to new elections within 30 days. Bond holders fear that constitutional uncertainty will undermine confidence in the country’s considerable international float of financial paper. There is also concern that an unstable government, faced with unsustainable chavista policies of the past few years, will not be able to take the hard decisions (i.e., devaluation and program cuts) needed to avoid a looming economic crisis. The opposition, which lost the October presidential race by 11 points and did only slightly better in the December gubernatorial contests, has complained loudly of the failure to closely follow the constitutional provisions and forwarded their complaint to the Secretary General of the Organization of American States, José Miguel Insulza, with little result.
Venezuela - because of its size, economic weight and ideological leadership - is important beyond its borders. But the reaction of the international community is mixed. Presidents of three ideological allies (Bolivia, Nicaragua and Uruguay) attended the “inauguration” in Caracas, an impressive event even without its host attending with a military show and tens of thousands of citizens paraded with “I am Chávez too” shirts. The president of Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, flew directly to Havana January 10 to check on Chávez’s health, certainly something her neighbor in Brazil president Dilma Rousseff, who is suffering domestic criticism for her support for Chávez, would also like to know. The United States, clearly aware of the delicacy of what appears to be a crucial transition, continues as in recent years its cautious—perhaps too cautious—policy of making little comment about Chávez and Venezuela.
For now, the Venezuelan Supreme Court has declared that since Chávez was already the president he did not have to repeat the ceremony. In reality, all the important levers of political power in Venezuela are creatures of Chávez, including the Supreme Court and even the now debated constitution that his lawyers wrote a decade ago. The media is largely under chavista control and, as recent elections showed, can sway the largest segment of public opinion.
Outsiders like the OAS and the United States have few tools to change course of events. Chávez has made both the object of his venom. The United States must take care to avoid being besmirched by the widespread corruption that is the glue holding the Chávez movement together. (Cabello, for example, is a former minister of defense and suspected of involvement in the Venezuelan military’s dealings with the Colombia’s FARC guerrillas and narcotic traffickers.) U.S. diplomats have made known they are at least talking with Maduro, thought to be as much of a “21st century socialist” as Chávez but as a former labor leaders accustomed to negotiations.
The Chávez movement has been a personal, not an organizational triumph that will certainly begin to show cracks as Chávez’s presence dims. It is a time for the best in Venezuela to come forward, not the worst, and time to lower the level of rhetoric and look for common practical solutions. And, with emotions running high, it is probably a bad time for new elections.
Phillip McLean is a former deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs and is a senior associate in the CSIS Americas Program.
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