Venezuela

The path ahead

After Hugo Chávez’s defeat in a constitutional referendum, where next for Venezuela?

ON MONDAY December 3rd Hugo Chávez did something unusual: he admitted, during a broadcast on Venezuela's state TV station, that he had made a mistake. Venezuela's leader had hitherto seemed invincible, but at the weekend he was forced to concede defeat in his bid to turn the country into a socialist republic and govern it “until my bones are dry”. Voters had rejected his proposals for sweeping constitutional changes in a referendum on Sunday. His particular mistake, he suggested, was in assuming that Venezuelans had the political maturity to embrace his vision of socialism.

It had been a long time since the Venezuelan opposition tasted victory. So long, that they had almost forgotten what it was like. “I just realised I’ve been depressed for the past seven years,” said one woman. Mr Chávez billed the changes proposed in the referendum as a “reform”, but many saw it as tantamount to a new constitution introduced by the back door in the government-dominated national assembly—a “coup d'etat” said some.

With the electoral authority in the hands of the government and state-run media giving almost no coverage to the no campaign, many thought the outcome a foregone conclusion. But all the serious polls predicted a defeat for the president, provided that opposition voters overcame the widespread conviction that the result would be rigged.

In the event it was pro-Chávez voters who stayed away in their millions. The president himself was forced to admit that around 3m voters who had assisted his landslide re-election last December simply did not show up this time. The chavista movement suffered, “a top-to-bottom split, from state governors down to the grass-roots”, said Ismael García, leader of Podemos, the democratic socialist party which broke with Mr Chávez over the proposed changes to the constitution.

Ever since he strode to power in 1999, over the wreckage of a moribund two-party system, the former military officer had been blessed with incompetent adversaries. Once prone to seeking political short-cuts of dubious constitutionality, they were too easily dismissed as spoiled “oligarchs” under the tutelage of American “imperialism”. But they had the good sense, this time, to take a back seat to a new set of political actors, who led them to an historic victory.

Centre-stage was a newly revived and highly imaginative student movement, which first took to the streets in May to protest at the closure of the country’s main opposition TV channel. Podemos, with two state governors and a handful of legislators, was joined by General Raúl Isaías Baduel, a former defence minister and a hero to the chavista grass-roots for his role in restoring Mr Chávez to power after a coup attempt in April 2002.

This “third pole” (as Mr García calls it) gave the president’s supporters, who remain stubbornly loyal, the opportunity to vote no or at least abstain, without feeling that they were betraying their leader. The students called out the vote and watched over the ballot boxes. And when it seemed that the president was preparing to claim victory, the general played a key role, with an implicit threat to reject the result and split the armed forces.

The government “has been winged” said Teodoro Petkoff, an opposition leader and newspaper editor. “Chávez has passed his peak—he’s on the down-side of the curve.” For now, he controls virtually all the country’s institutions, has billions of oil dollars to spend at will and for the next nine months—thanks to an enabling law—can rule by decree over wide swathes of national life. But for the first time it is possible to envisage life after Mr Chávez.

Defeat means he is unable to stand again, legally, for the presidency. His aura of invincibility is forever damaged, and the battle for the succession seems bound to begin soon. Survival strategies no longer necessarily involve unquestioning loyalty to the “comandante”. Fractures may begin to appear in important institutions like the supreme court and parliament. The fight back is just beginning.