Chavismo celebrates 25 years at the head of Venezuela and its continuity is at stake

“For now and forever”, reads an inscription on the mausoleum of Hugo Chavezwho on February 2, 1999, 25 years ago, was sworn in for the first time as president of Venezuela and opened an era that continued Nicolas Maduro after his death.

“A tragedy” for some, “exit”for others.

The charismatic ex-military man conquered crowds with the promise of ending poverty. Today, however, the country is mired in an unprecedented economic depression, which, together with continuous political crises, led some seven million – out of a population of 30 million – to migrate.

In this panorama, Maduro seeks a third term, placing obstacles to anyone who represents a threat to the continuity of the so-called Bolivarian Revolution.

Economy and oil

Maduro constantly repeats that he faces a “unconventional warfare” against the “imperialism” -as he calls the United States-, and always attributes responsibility for the country’s problems to the sanctions with which Washington sought to strip him of power in 2019.

In 2022 there was a slight economic recovery, insignificant compared to the 80% reduction in GDP in a decade. And hyperinflation of thousands of percentage points led the government, ironically, to allow informal dollarization.

The oil industry, which generates virtually all of the country’s income, is also devastated: blame the sanctions, the government says; apathy, corruption and lack of qualified personnel (many fired after a strike in 2002), experts say.

Production, which was 3 million barrels per day (bd) with Chávez in power, succumbed to about 300,000 before rebounding to 900,000 today.

“Chavismo has represented an important tragedy for the country”says Benigno Alarcón, political scientist and professor at the Andrés Bello Catholic University (UCAB). “A government that, having initially had the largest income of any government in Venezuela and having had the opportunity to make Venezuela a modern country (…), wasted the money on clientelism to stay in power” .

“There was no investment (…), there were no improvements in the economy, in the infrastructure, in the productive capacity of the country”he added, highlighting how “They ended up killing the goose that laid the golden eggs”Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), which became one of the most important in the world.

Poverty

There are no official poverty figures, normal in this country that rarely reports uncomfortable economic indicators. A UCAB study placed it at 90% between 2018 and 2021, and 81.5% in 2022.

“It is one of the highest in the world,” Alarcón highlights. “The logic to maintain power, regardless of Chávez or Maduro, is the same (…): they rely on the misery of the people.”

“If you want to live, if you want to have medicine, if you want to survive in the midst of this reality, you have to be with us,” relates.

Rodrigo Cabezas, who was Chávez’s finance minister, makes a distinction between “chavismo” and “maturity”.

“The confrontation with the United States is the great alibi of Madurismo to try to justify its tremendous incompetence in the management of the State, the economy, and society, to try to justify its terribly authoritarian drift, violating human rights,” explains the now professor at the University of Zulia.

“This is the most unequal capitalism in Latin America,” criticizes, in the midst of dollarization and the liberation of exchange and price controls. “Chávez’s success in placing the popular at the center of public management today is totally dissipated.”

“No one will be able to say that the Venezuelan economy was destroyed during Chávez,” he insists, citing growth, increase in the minimum wage (today at US$3.5 per month) and reduction in poverty in those years. “The focus of attention was what was popular.”

Policy

For Ana Sofía Cabezas, vice president of the Chávez Foundation, the Constitution is “one of the most important things that Commander Chávez has left us.”

The text, approved in 1999 and promoted by the former president, is an example of human and social rights, although detractors of Chavismo accuse them of being its main violators.

Chávez represented “the hope of change and social redemption”, Cabezas maintains, remembering that he always easily won the elections in which he participated: 1998, 2000, 2006 and 2012, months before he died.

The former president changed the Constitution to be able to be re-elected indefinitely, now benefiting Maduro, re-elected in 2018 and set to seek a third term this year.

Alarcón highlights that the “human rights violations began with Chávez,” although it is the Maduro government that is being investigated by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the repression of student demonstrations in 2017 with a hundred deaths, among other complaints of extrajudicial executions, torture and arbitrary detentions.

Chávez’s face is everywhere, 11 years after his death. Ripe names him, the government channel shows old speeches, still dominating part of the cult of personality that the current president also enjoys.

“Chávez lives”says Cabezas (who is not related to the former minister) enthusiastically.. “It translates into the awakening of popular forces, of the conscience of the Venezuelan people.”