Voters reject Chávez’s bid for new powersBy Richard Lapper and Benedict Mander in Caracas (Financial Times)
Venezuelans on Monday rejected constitutional reforms that would have granted sweeping new powers to President Hugo Chávez and accelerated progress towards “21st century socialism”, handing an embarrassing defeat to the country’s left-wing leader.
Results showed 51 per cent of voters rejected the changes, with 49 per cent in favour. Mr Chávez said the result was a “photo-finish” but conceded defeat and said that “we respect the rules of the game.”
However, Mr Chávez promised to “continue the battle to build socialism within the framework of this [the 1999] constitution. This proposal is alive. It has not died... We know how to convert difficult moments into moral victories and eventually into political triumphs.”
A relatively high rate of abstentions – 44.8 per cent of voters failed to turn out – was the decisive factor, according to Mr Chávez. “A good number of our people didn’t turn out. They said abstention would benefit us. It defeated us.”
First elected in 1998, Mr Chávez has won a succession of nationwide polls by wide margins, most recently scoring a landslide triumph in last December’s presidential election with more than 60 per cent of the vote.
Armed with this strong mandate he has introduced a string of socialist economic and political measures, nationalising telecommunications, electricity and oil industries and forcing a popular opposition television station off the public airwaves.
Bolstered by high oil prices, he has continued to spend heavily on education, health care, housing and subsidised food.
However, increasing state intervention, including exchange controls, price controls and import restrictions, and a big decline in private investment, are leading to severe distortions. This in turn is fuelling inflation, now running at an annual rate of 21 per cent over the past 12 months, the highest in the region, and creating widespread shortages of basic foods such as milk and sugar.
“The incompetence of the government’s economic management has created the worst of both possible worlds: high inflation and scarcity,” says Teodoro Petkoff, editor of Tal Cual, an opposition newspaper.
In addition, Mr Chávez’s radical political proposals have alienated many erstwhile supporters. Socialist deputies who have supported him for more than a decade backed the opposition’s referendum campaign, while General Raul Isaias Baduel, the former defence minister and long-time military comrade of the president, came out against the changes last month.
Mr Baduel, who enjoys considerable support among senior members of the armed forces, has argued that the constitutional proposals amounted to a coup d’etat.
Mr Chávez’s decision not to renew the license of RCTV, the opposition TV station, triggered protests by students in both public and private universities, and this movement also played an important role in the referendum campaign.
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