The challenges of post-Chávez Venezuela

«Chavez-Merida» by David Hernández/Flickr. Some rights reserved."The Venezuelan nation now depends
on young professionals who migrate; as in the case of the Armenian Diaspora,
they are the ones who will be responsible for preserving our culture." The
sentence, said by an upper-middle class lady, reflects two symptoms of current
Venezuela: the escapist tendencies of some of the critics of Nicolás Maduro’s
regime and, at the same time, a situation that appears to be hitting rock
bottom, in which – for real or imagined reasons – emigration is being left as
the only option for many young, middle or upper-class professionals.

A 2012 video, available on YouTube, refers to Caracas as a "city of goodbyes". "I spend my
weekends seeing friends off," says one of the citizens appearing in the
film; "I'm in love with Caracas but we cannot live together," says
another; "Looks like my life has stopped being interesting", says the
song in the soundtrack. At the same time, the faces and the phenotypes (white)
as well as the social marks (upper middle class) reveal one of the cracks in
Venezuelan society, which has been there since long before Chávez, but which has
become politicized since the late 90s. Today, the crisis – due both to the
absence of a charismatic leadership and falling oil revenues – encourages this
kind of speech. And disappointment includes many Chavistas non-Maduristas.

The
legitimacy of Chavismo was based on the
powerful combination of the leader’s charisma and high oil revenues,
and its outreach to the whole of Latin America. The death
of the Supreme Commander, officially on March
5, 2013, together with falling oil
prices, eroded the very foundations
of the Bolivarian Revolution. But
the high expectations nurtured by the opposition regarding the parliamentary elections of December 6, do not imply any certainty that the crisis will
automatically play in their favour – at least, not as
much as its leaders and supporters
wish. To them, the winning card is now the
"López factor": i.e.,
jailed opposition leader Leopoldo López who, after his recent conviction, has become a virtual martyr of
democracy and freedom in his Ramo Verde prison.

Aged
44 and an economist by trade, related to Simón Bolivar through his mother’s
family, a good speaker and former mayor
of Chacao, Leopoldo López was imprisoned one
and a half years ago under the accusation of stirring the
protests in which he sought to deploy in the streets
a strategy known as "La salida” (The way out), designed to force
the resignation of Nicolás Maduro (whose
term ends in 2019), seasoned by
the so-called "guarimbas"
(road-blocking and barricading). On September, 10, López
was sentenced to 13 years, 9 months, 7 days and 12 hours in prison by interim Judge Susana Barreiros. "If I am convicted, you will be more afraid to read
the verdict than I will be to hear it," the opposition leader said to her in the last hearing, while Caracas was eagerly awaiting the court's
decision.

The street
occupation – which ended with 43
dead, 600 injured
and hundreds arrested -clashed with the electoral commitment
of political leaders like Henrique
Capriles, from the Primero Justicia (Justice First) party, who in
2013 came close to defeating
Maduro at the polls. Today, the
opposition is calling upon Venezuelans to "channel their discontent" by going and voting on December 6.

In
this new setting, going out on the streets means going
and voting massively against the government.
"Justice is rotten in our Venezuela, today more than ever
let us understand that the path to
freedom for Leopoldo and all of us begins on # 6D", tweeted
Capriles.

“To kill a young tiger”

The
so-called bachaqueros (who indulge
in the illegal activity of bachaqueo)
are an emerging social group in the Venezuelan crisis. They resell basic commodities which
are not to be found in stores, and the long queues their shortages generate are
now a familiar feature of the Venezuelan landscape. Many of these products are regulated by the Fair Pricing Act,
which sets a five-year prison penalty for
this activity, but has failed to contain the "plague", as the powerful
chairman of the National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello, calls the bachaqueros.

The
governing mayor of La Victoria, Juan
Carlos Sánchez, went
further: in the logic of "re-education",
he forcefully obliged several bachaqueros to
perform community work dressed in gaudy overalls with a sign saying "I am a bachaquero, I want to change."
The same happened in Puerto Cabello despite
criticism from human rights
organizations denouncing the fact that mayors
cannot impose penalties.

But the breeding ground for this
"plague" is the shortage situation that President Nicolás Maduro
attributes to an "economic war" being waged against his government.
Many Venezuelans spend seven or eight hours a week queuing (according to their
available time). In theory, everyone can buy on a given day depending on the
last number on their identity card, but many join the queues to barter, to
"resolve", to "matar un
tigrito" (literally: to kill a young tiger; the expression means to do
a quick job for a little money).

To purchase regulated products, you have
to put your finger on an electronic fingerprint reader. In Caracas they say
that “to dive” was the usual term for eyeing a girl or a boy in the street; now
it is also used to describe the way in which people look at what others carry in
their bags: pre-cooked white corn flour (used to make arepas), shampoo, deodorant, razors and toilet paper, as well as several
drugs, are some of the "scarce" goods – overpriced on the black
market – that give Venezuelans many a sleepless night.

The closing down of the border with
Colombia in the state of Táchira is linked to the same problem: corruption and
smuggling, especially of fuel, which in Venezuela is almost free (3). Filling a
tank of an average car costs about 4 bolivars, while a pack of gum costs 60.
But to this, you have to add the four exchange rates existing in the country,
which range from 6,30 bolivars (for import medicines and food) to 700 bolivars
(the so-called parallel dollar), through 13,50 bolivars (used for bolivarizing travellers’ expenses) and
yet another intermediate rate of 200 bolivars.

A common practice is to travel abroad to
"scrape the cards": i.e. to get dollars in cash through false
shopping, then bolivarizing these
purchases at the official rate, and finally exchanging upon return the dollars
obtained on the black market. There are “scraping” points in several cities in
Latin America and the proceeds make up for the trip and the stay out of
Venezuela.

At a meeting of the Unión Vecinal (Neighbours’ Union) NGO in the popular West Caracas
neighborhood of Catia, critics and skeptics prevail. "We have to make kilometre-long
queues to buy a couple of chickens; we have to guapear (be up to it) every day here. What do we expect? Sometimes we
no longer expect anything", says Mercedes Pérez, who leads ATRAEM, a group
of women entrepreneurs. Another resident says, explaining his plight: "I
have no gun, no connections, no contacts with the government", and a third
describes why it is so hard for the opposition to grow, even in the current
crisis context: " Some opponents believe that we are still in the Fourth Republic
(i.e.before Chavez’s Fifth), that because people are angry at Chavism they will
vote for the opposition. It used to be like this, between adecos and copeyanos, but
things no longer work that way ".

The opposition clusters around the Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (Democratic
Unity Roundtable – MUD), which groups thirty parties and is controlled by the
so-called G4, consisting of Leopoldo López’s Voluntad Popular (People's Will) party; former presidential
candidate Henrique Capriles’s Primero
Justicia; a weakened Acción
Democrática (Democratic Action – AD),  and Un
Nuevo Tiempo (A New Time), led by another former presidential candidate and
former governor of Zulia State Manuel Rosales, currently in self-exile in
Panama.

One problem the opposition encounters to
reach Venezuelan popular sectors is the "rich kid" origin of its
three main leaders (Capriles, López and Maria Corina Machado), in a context where
class and race is the basis of a social hierarchical structure that Chávez was
able to make visible and politicize by presenting himself as a mulatto. Many
anti-Chavists called him a monkey. While the party led by López considers
itself to be “social democrat” and has been accepted as an observer by the
Socialist International, to the oficialismo
(officialism) it is a far-right opposition party which aims at
de-stabilizing the government with support from abroad.

Today, in the context of
economic decline and lack of a charismatic leadership, Chavism lives an emotional crisis and smaller parties like Marea Socialista (Socialist Tide) try to capitalize discontent touching on a "chavista but not madurista"
key. The centerpiece of its current
campaign is the platform for a public and citizen
audit to "stop embezzlement,
capital flight and corruption".
"Marea seeks to contain the disappointed,
preventing them from joining the opposition", says their leader Nicmer Evans,
who believes that his party suffers
from a kind of proscription, judging by
the number of invalidated candidates, including him.

Military Socialism

A thorn
in Chavism’s side was, from the beginning, the strong presence of the military in government, a presence that has increased after the death of the president. "The military never
carried so much economic and political weight, not even
under General Marcos Pérez Jiménez’s dictatorship (1953-1958)",
says historian Thomas Straka. Twelve of the twenty
state governors come from the military. And large
proportions of senior officials wear or used to wear olive-green
uniforms. Chávez himself said, in 2013, that Pérez
Jiménez was one of the best
presidents Venezuela had ever had.

Today, some critical Chavistas are
caught between the devil – the military – and the deep-blue sea – Nicolás Maduro,
Chavez's successor, former bus driver
and very close to Cuba. Maduro validated his power
by narrowly winning over Capriles (50.6% vs. 49.1%) on April, 14, 2013. Today, the military are accused, and there is some evidence backing the accusation, of being part of vast smuggling networks in
the Colombian border and of
being involved in numerous corruption schemes and illegal food and
medical equipment imports, especially from China.

The problem is that in so far as Chavism
has an authoritarian streak, not only does it violate the separation of powers,
it also fails to generate order. This authoritarianism is often disruptive in
several ways. In this context, Venezuela is experiencing a deep security
crisis: the nightlife of Caracas has been dying off at the same quick pace than
the data which rank it as one of the cities with most crimes in the world. Kidnappings
are certainly one of the reasons for migrating, and prisons are strongholds where
the State only controls the walls and lets all types of criminal networks, led
by the so-called pranes (from PRAN: Preso Reincidente Asesino Nato – Born Murderer Recidivist Prisoner),
run things inside. The assassination of former beauty queen Mónica Spear in
January 2014 shocked Venezuelans and helped the issue reach the international
media. In every restaurant in Caracas there is a sign prohibiting the carrying
of guns and ammo. It is this climate of violence that prompted the
controversial Operación de
Liberación y Protección del Pueblo (Liberation and Protection of the People Operation – PLO)
which, according to human rights organization Provea, encourages military
actions lacking any safeguards. Even critical Chavists think that they end up
criminalizing the neighborhoods and poverty.

To
this should be added the different armed political groups, like some of the so-called colectivos,
organized to “defend the revolution", each
under a different leadership. Among them: La Piedrita,
Tupamaros, Alexis Vive or 5 de Mayo. Other
organizations include the paramilitary Comandos Populares Antigolpe (Anti-coup Popular Commandoes), the Milicias Estudiantiles y Campesinas (Student and Peasant
Militias), the Brigada
Especial contra las
Actuaciones de los Grupos Generadores de Violencia (Special Branch against the
Activities of Groups Generating Violence), the Fuerza de Choque de la Fuerza
Armada Nacional Bolivariana (Bolivarian
National Army Strike Force) and the Milicias Obreras (Workers’ Militias).

Yet again, Maduro resorts to a familiar libretto: he denounces assassination attempts by the Uribista right (from Álvaro Uribe,
former president of Colombia and paramilitary chief, now opposition leader), an economic war, and other – real, inflated and imagined
– threats, rather than pay enough
attention to the economic dynamics generated
by the monetary disorder. The
minimum wage in Venezuela is $ 10
at the out-of-control parallel exchange rate, encouraging people's creativity to get basic products.
Venezuela continues to import almost
everything it consumes, a fact that exacerbates the crisis, and "oil planting" has again
proved to be a pipe dream, as it did in
the previous oil boom of the 70's,
with Carlos Andrés Pérez’s Great
Venezuela and its welfare state.

Chávez's
death and current economic disruption has ended the prospect of some kind of "Socialism
of the 21st century" (the
originator of the term, Heinz
Dieterich, is today a radical opponent of Maduro).
Cabello himself warned in his TV program
“Con El Mazo Dando" (Hammering
Away) about the risks of division within Chavism and the
governing Partido Socialista Unido
de Venezuela (United Socialist Party of Venezuela – PSUV). In that program,
the leader of the military wing of Chavism
often uses information from "cooperating patriots", informants who fight the “escuálidos”
(the skinny ones), as opponents are called
in Chavist militarized language.

An uncertain situation

The
opposition is thinking of winning a majority of seats in the
National Assembly and, from there, to open spaces for negotiation with the government. Despite the crisis, though, the
electoral race is not an easy one and the layout
of the constituencies benefits the
oficialismo. Many opponents try to distance themselves from the rightist tag given them by the
Chavists. For example: Freddy Guevara, 29, who belongs to a generation
of students who were mobilized in 2007 and is now one of the leaders of
Leopoldo López’s party, lists among his influences: "social
democracy, liberal socialism, Kropotkin’s
brand of anarchism and liberal democracy".

In
an expectant atmosphere,
some imagine that boatloads of food will be downloaded just before the elections and expect other last-minute oficialista moves
linked to consumer staples. Something like the "Dakazo", when the
government occupied the Daka
store during the last local election campaign and put up for sale its
products at "fair prices",
justifying the intervention with the economic war narrative.

Today,
some santerías in Caracas sell pictures of Chávez
and the big question is what the disenchanted Chavists will do
on December 6. What is clear is that very few opponents
seem to imagine that Chavism will be replaced tout court and anticipate an intricate, winding
situation where sectors of the ruling and opposition parties will reach
agreements to design post-Chavista
Venezuela.

After
the failed coup attempt of 1992,
Hugo Chávez was
imprisoned and then released by
President Rafael Caldera…
"We couldn’t make it this time," he prophesied. It now remains to be seen how the harsh sentence will
affect the leader of Voluntad Popular and
the opposition as a whole.

This article was previously
published by La línea de fuego.