Hugo Chávez' opponent becomes a crazy, wild-eyed populist

Posted by Joshua Holland at 6:19 PM on October 12, 2006.

Soon, after our mid-terms, we'll start seeing coverage of Venezuela's upcoming presidential election. There'll be a blur of corporatist propaganda, Jackson Diehl will start churning out Washington Post columns based on the press releases of Zulia State Governor Manuel Rosales, and I'll be rhythmically banging my head against a wall in frustration.

The incumbent , Hugo Chávez, will get the extra special Swiftboat treatment this time around after his recent claim that Bush is, in fact, the Devil (a charge that nobody has managed to definitively disprove).

The narrative will be simple: wacky, out-of-control populist versus responsible, pro-American "free-market" technocrat. We'll hear things like: 'Rosales is campaigning on a platform of economic stability, increasing foreign investment and keeping inflation in check.'

The WSJ is already on the case, taking note of Venezuela's fiscal deficit -- unlike the one we face courtesy of Bush and Co., which is entirely OK -- that's resulted "As Chávez's Spending Outpaces Oil Gains" ($$).

But now, it seems, that there are suddenly two wild-eyed populists in the race; Rosales is in fact campaigning on a platform that's much like that of another candidate we know.

The excellent Oil Wars blog posted some of Rosales' recent campaign materials, and they are stunning for their promises of statist, costly, quasi-socialistic policies to alleviate Venezuelan poverty through massive government intervention.

Meet the world's greatest welfare program, "Mi Negra":

(click for larger version)

Oil wars:

The plan aims to take a big chunk of Venezuela's oil revenues and hand them out directly to people as a stipend of between $250 and $450 per month depending on oil revenues. This would be along the lines of what is called an "entitlement" in the United States. There would be nothing that the individuals getting this money would need to do. They wouldn't have to work, go to school, make sure their kids go to school or anything else. All they would have to do is sit at home and wait for the money to show up.

And for a frame of reference the minimum wage in Venezuela (which is what most people who have jobs earn) is about $200 dollars per month or maybe a little more with benefits. If you are wondering if there would be anyone left working after the implementation of this program you are not alone.

He's also offering a big-budget education plan:

(click for larger version)

We're talking about free meals in all schools, free school supplies, new school construction and "a massive new plan to put people left out of public universities into private universities all expenses paid by the government." The cost? Sorry, Rosales didn't release a projection.

But that's not all! Bloomberg reported that Rosales promised last week to "keep and improve Chavez's social programs," so this is all in addition to current government spending (he's also proposed an ambitious anti-crime program that would cost billions more).

Oil Wars:

After looking at just a few of Rosales many proposals I think most people should be able to get the gist of it. The message of the Rosales campaign is "vote for me and I will give you money, in fact I will shower you with lots of money". There is a term for this: populism.

There's another term for it: desperation. Rosales trails Chávez by a wide margin in the polls (the exact margin varies according to the poll in question, but all are at least double-digits).

There's no escaping the fact that the Venezuelan opposition is an elite party with a very modest base of loyal supporters. That was clear recently when they held a "huge" rally, but only betwen 9,000 (according to Caracas police) and 12,000 (according to organizers) people showed. I thought the spin was entertaining; The Boston Globe wrote that "Thousands marched Saturday in the biggest show of public support yet for Venezuela's main opposition presidential candidate." That's right -- thousands! And the Conservative Voice wondered if the enormous turn-out signaled "The End of Hugo Chavez?" (The population of Greater Caracas is close to five million.)

Here's what it looked like.

(click for larger version)

The opposition coalition was so proud of the massive support they got that they posted photos of old rallies on their website (Spanish link).

Oil Wars:

Chavez has always campaigned around the idea of helping the poor get their fair share of Venezuela's resources and helping improve their standard of living. As president he has governed in that way too, with a good deal of success as we have seen.

The opposition has always hammered away at those ideas and successes of Chavez by saying - "yes but it is all just redistributing oil rents not fomenting long term growth", or "we don't even know how effective the Missions are at teaching people anything", or "Chavez is corrupting the country by making people look to the government for handouts".

They've also always accused him of using the country's oil wealth to buy the votes of the poor and stupid.

Now ... what do we have in Rosales' campaign promises? Handouts so huge they would make even the most committed populist blush. In the Chavez Missions one has to do something to get a stipend - learn to read and write, get a high school diploma, or earn a college degree... Yet Rosales' "Mi Negra" program would give out much MORE money and it would indisputably be a pure hand out - no need to work, study, read, write or anything.

… they clearly think that by doing this they can somehow outflank Chavez on his left, or populist, side and steal away enough votes to win. Of all their miscalculations over the years this has to be the silliest and dumbest. Countless Venezuelan politicians have campaigned as populists only to quickly move to the right once they assume office.

It reminds me of the Bolivian elections a few years back. Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada -- one of the best names ever to grace politics for my money (say it in your head using Ricardo Montalban's voice) -- had served a term as president in the mid-1990s and his administration had implemented a truly drastic IMF reform program called El Plan De Todo (the plan for everything) that had caused an enormous amount of pain.

In 2002, Goni, as he was called, wanted another shot at the presidency. Suddenly, as the election neared, he began to see the error of his ways, saying in one interview, "I don't believe in neoliberalism, I believe in an open market economy, but I am not dogmatic… I think you need to have a market economy, which also requires a great deal of government intervention … this stuff about the invisible hand, it just doesn't work that way."

He won, and turned around and privatized the country's natural gas. Then he ordered the army to open fire on thousands of outraged Bolivians who rioted in response to the privatization scheme. 80 died, and Goni was forced to step down (Carlos Mesa took over and was booted out about a year later in the midst of often violent resistance to his policies).

Anyway, all this goes to show -- yet again -- how deeply unpopular the economics pushed by the U.S. and the IFIs remain in Latin America.

PS: The "hottest election for a Security Council seat in years" will be decided in a General Assembly vote this Monday, as Venezuela vies with U.S.-backed Guatemala for the honor. Most predict that Venezuela will get more votes than Guatemala, but fall short of the two-thirds majority needed. If neither country hits the mark, another can be elected as an alternative. As I've said before, a Venezuelan victory would essentially be 128 countries flipping John Bolton the bird.

PPS: Here's a very good article from the San Francisco Chronicle about Chávez' anti-poverty programs.

***

And I'll throw in some other Latin America stuff while I'm at it.

Ecuador's got an election this Sunday (yes, Sunday). It's a country with a large indigenous population and it's been thoroughly fucked over by big multinationals for a long time. Big Oil -- Texaco and later Chevron -- created an ecological disaster of immense proportions and refused to clean it up, while paying the government next to nothing for its oil. There's an Alien Tort Claims Act lawsuit in the works, although I don't know its current status. If you're interested in background, Leslie Wirpsa, a colleague at USC's Center for Active Learning in International Studies, where I moonlight, did a nice, easy-to-read backgrounder that you can download here.

Anyway, Rafael Correa, described by the WaPo as a "little-known college professor" and a "free-market skeptic" who is full of "anti-U.S. rhetoric [and] plans for state control over natural resources," has jumped from third place just a month ago to the lead in the most recent polls.

Says the Post:

Correa is challenging Ecuador's traditional party politics with promises to change the constitution, worrying Wall Street with vows to overhaul debt and drawing comparisons to his ally Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

And in the Wall Street Journal, Mary Anastasia O'Grady -- co-editor of the Heritage Foundation's Guide to Lying With Statistics and all-around evil corporate shrew -- offers this take:

What do you get when you cross a Venezuelan Bolivarian with an Argentine Peronist? Answer: a power-hungry demagogue who doesn't believe in paying debts.

That would be funnier if just such a hybrid -- Rafael Correa -- hadn't recently popped up as Ecuador's leading presidential candidate for the Oct. 15 election.

She warns that Ecuador may join the "Axis of Outcasts," blissfully oblivious to the fact that Latin America has largely moved on from trickle down, voodoo Reaganomics and, as its leading cheerleader, there's nobody further out in the region than she and her pals at Heritage.

(I Believe O’Grady has the honor of being the only working journalist who's a prominent target of both Left and Right conspiracy mongers.)

If his polling advantage holds, Correa will lead the first round but fall short of the 40 percent needed to avoid a run-off.

Meanwhile, in Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, plagued by a series of scandals and a great disappointment to many on the left, just missed the 50 percent plus one vote he needed in the first round of the election two weeks ago. On Sunday, he debated runner-up Geraldo Alckmin, and the first poll following the debate has Lula up 56 -44. Final round is October 29.

The good folks at the Center for Economic Policy and Research have an economic analysis (PDF) about the issues Brazil will face in a second term under Lula.

Speaking of Bolivia and IMF reforms, during an earlier round of "structural adjustments" in 1985, before Goni's Plan de Todo, Bolivia faced the Debt Crisis that was killing Latin America -- at one point they were looking at super-duper hyper-inflation of 23,500 percent and were paying about 40 percent of their total export revenues just to service their debt. The IFIs kept giving loans and kept piling on the conditionalities -- they wanted Boliviia to deal with its "labor market rigidities," among other things.

In the middle of all that, tin prices plummeted and the state-owned mines -- the heart of the export economy -- shut down, putting about 80 percent of the country's unionized miners out of work.

As I've written before, Bolivia has a very radicalized population and is almost impossible to govern. A large part of the reason is that during the Reagan era the existing left -- in which the tin miners played a crucial role -- was completely destroyed. In a case of unintended consequences for the business elite, however, a social resistance movement based on campesino identity -- one that was far more ready for a fight than the miners and the labor parties that had supported the poor and the working-class had ever been -- replaced it.

Chunks of Bolivia's mining industry have been privatized over the years, and there are now union miners employed by the state and non-union wildcat miners, known as cooperatistas. There are tensions between the two groups and on October 4, in Huanuni, a town in Cochabamba Oruro, they clashed during two days of bloody fighting that left 17 dead.

April Howard and Benjamin Dangl have an in-depth essay on the conflict in CounterPunch:

As an uneasy peace returned to the town, a nearby soccer field-turned-battlefield was still carved up by craters from dynamite explosions and stained red with the blood of miners.

Only six days after two coca farmers were killed by soldiers sent to eradicate unauthorized coca crops in a remote national park in Cochabamba, seventeen miners in the town Huanuni are now dead after conflicts between mining organizations. This recent conflict has its roots in the exploitative history of the Bolivian mining industry, in revolution and nationalization, in privatization and the failure of neoliberalism.

The desperation that led the miners of Huanuni to turn their sticks of dynamite into weapons is the product of neoliberal policies that pit the poor against the poor. International corporations have siphoned the profits of Huanuni's Posokoni hill, the richest tin mine in Bolivia, out of the country and into thin air. This physical and economic violence has been inherited by the administration of the new president Evo Morales.

Read the rest here .

In other news, according to a German press report translated by Raw Story, both Brazil and Argentina announced that they're ditching the dollar for bilateral trade.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his Argentine counterpart Nestor Kirchner are expected to establish before the end of the year the details of an agreement whereby the peso and the real will substitute the US currency.

This will get the folks who think the Iran Oil Bourse is a big deal excited, but I find it only noteworthy.

Speaking of Argentina, the Washington Post had a really interesting article about the country's premiere "power couple," president Nestor Kirchner and his wife, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who is a powerful Senator and may just run for president herself some day (sound familiar at all?).

Remember when they were saying Kirchner would lead the country to ruin after he told the IMF to piss off and defaulted on billions in debt? Well, since then Argentina's posted three years of growth averaging 9 percent, and although they've got an inflation rate hovering around ten percent, Reuters reports "a surge in consumer confidence." To be fair, Kirchner did, obviously, tweak international investors and Argentina has one of the lowest rates of foreign investment in the region. Some analysts predict that the economy will slow in the next few years. We'll see.

Anyway, here's a taste of the article:

At the same time he was trying to assure New York's financial establishment that Argentina will respect the ground rules of global finance, Kirchner was crediting his country's recent economic growth to the fact that his government defies the recommendations of the International Monetary Fund, which he holds partly responsible for his country's economic collapse in 2001.

When Cristina Kirchner was pressed during political forums to explain Argentina's close ties with Venezuela's government, she responded: "Nobody tells Argentina which friends to choose," according to media reports here.

Argentines have grown accustomed to that tone, and they've responded to it by awarding the first couple an increasing amount of popularity and power. With him controlling the executive branch and her occupying arguably the most powerful seat in the Senate, they have formed a political partnership that dominates the Argentine political landscape. For many here, the relevant question is not whether Kirchner will win next year's presidential election, but which Kirchner will win.

"He's keeping his promises as president, and she's the right hand helping him get things done," said Juan Maltez, 25, a business administrator in Buenos Aires. "Since they started, there's more jobs, fewer people on the streets, a smaller informal sector of the economy. So I like them both as candidates."

As they say in the blogging biz, read the whole thing.

Tagged as: chavez, venezuela, ecuador, bolivia, argentina, neoliberalism

Joshua Holland is a staff writer at Alternet and a regular contributor to The Gadflyer.