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Nominally, president Hugo Chavez rules Venezuela as a civilian that has been democratically elected, which he actually was, first in 1998 and then again last July. But, pressed by circumstances and driven by the temperament that some 18 years ago led him to stage a bloody coup against an elected but corrupt government, former paratrooper colonel Chavez is increasingly adopting the playbook of the classic Latin American dictator. The 1992 coup failed; whether his takeover of democracy from within will succeed is a moot question. But already Chavez's actions have raised the troubling issue of whether a non-democratic regime might be emerging in Venezuela as the only counterpart in the continental Americas to Fidel Castro's in the island of Cuba.
Alleging that special powers are needed to tackle corruption, alleviate poverty and combat rising crime, Chavez is about to seek a state of emergency. This he can do according to the new Constitution written under his rule, in which Chavez had his supporters include this bizarre "poison pill" for the very democracy to which he was claiming commitment. With this measure-formally called a "state of exception"-approved by Congress and the supreme Court, which he controls, Chavez will be able to enact laws by decree and order the temporary "administrative restriction" of certain constitutional liberties.
But even this may not be enough for Chavez. "I am convinced that if for some reason this attempt to forge a revolution without arms fails, what would come next would be a revolution with arms because that is the only way out that we Venezuelans have," he said on Venezuelan radio. "We are making a superhuman effort to create a revolution without arms, but it's pretty difficult, pretty difficult, although not impossible."
For Chavez this "revolution means completely transforming social reality, which means ending the odious differences between a small group of rich who have everything and a noble people stricken with poverty and hunger."
It is unclear how Chavez plans to implement this "revolution" across the board, but there is some idea of how he would deal with the highly-skewed land ownership in Venezuela. He has repeatedly said that, while he respects private property, rich landowners possess too much idle land and they should give some of it to the poor. Leaked draft copies of a land law suggest legislation could include anything from radical, sweeping powers of expropriation to a tax regime that would make it financially unviable for owners to retain idle land.
Chavez seems to be concerned that the economy has been showing signs of decelerating rapidly during the past three months, as cuts in crude oil production reduce activity in related sectors and capital flight erodes reserves. Meanwhile, state job creation programs, run by the military, have been ineffective in reducing unemployment, which is now at 12 percent, double what it was in 1993, and a report by the comptroller-general, leaked in March, alleged widespread corruption in the management of Chavez's flagship "Plan Bolivar 2000".
Speculation that Chavez may be considering an "auto-coup", a move similar to that taken by Peru's former president Alberto Fujimori in 1992 when, backed by the military, he closed Congress and the judiciary, has increased after his announcement of the re-launching of the Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement-200 (MBR-200), which encouraged and supported the bloody but unsuccessful coup he led in 1992 as a paratrooper colonel against democratically elected president Carlos Andres Perez, and backed him up in his successful quest for the presidency in 1998. MBR-200 will now becomes the leading party backing up Chavez's government.
These developments are presenting the Bush administration with its first policy crisis in the hemisphere.
Not only because a non-democratic regime in Venezuela-which recently strengthened ties with Cuba and China-could undermine already hard-pressed democracy in Colombia and other countries in South America's upper tier but also because the United States has become increasingly reliant on oil imports from Venezuela in recent years. Venezuela is home to the western hemisphere's largest oil reserves at 77 billion barrels. In 2000, Venezuela produced an estimated 3.1 million barrels per day and exported about 2.6 million, of which about 1.5 million went to the United States.
Claudio Campuzano (claudio-campuzano@hotmail.com) is U.S, correspondent for the Latin American newsweekly Tiempos del Mundo and editorial page editor of the New York daily Noticias del Mundo. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com