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It is not every day that the political adversary of a president — moreover, a former ally — asks the Catholic hierarchy to perform an exorcism on the chief of state to rid him of the Devil's influence. Nor is it common that the country's largest opposition party, publicly displaying a banner reading "Out With The Madman" and parading a strait-jacketed impersonator of the chief of state, asks the Supreme Court to have the president dismissed as mentally unfit. But, last week, president Hugo Chávez of Venezuela was the object of both these demands.
The secretary-general of the Democratic Action party, Rafael Marín, presented the appeal, based on reports from two teams of psychiatrists that called Chávez "authoritarian," "megalomaniac," "extremely aggressive" and "a liar" — a profile developed, however, without the benefit of a personal examination of the president. The court has remained silent on the matter.
The request to the head of Venezuela's Catholics for an exorcism came from Caracas mayor and former political ally Alfredo Peńa. But Cardinal Ignacio Velasco ruled out a request that Chávez should undergo the rite performed to counter possession by demons.
After having been elected by an overwhelming vote in December 1998 and reelected in July 2000, Chavez's popularity has plummeted in recent months — from 80 to scarcely 30 percent — over his failure to combat crime and create jobs. Falling oil prices have been a blow for Venezuela, the world's fourth-ranking crude exporter.
Two weeks ago, more than 100,000 people demonstrated against him in Caracas, and a Dec. 10 general strike called by business and labor virtually paralyzed the nation. But what brought about these apparently bizarre requests for exorcism and commitment is the latest stage of the running battle he has been carrying out with all sectors of Venezuela's public opinion, particularly the media and the Catholic Church.
Responding to criticism by Cardinal Velasco and senior bishops, last week President Chávez turned his rage against the leaders of the country's Catholic Church, condemning them as political opponents who "do not walk in the path of God" and advising the cardinal he "should stand before God and say an 'Our Father', or rather 20 'Our Fathers' and 20 'Hail Marys'." Speaking on his weekly radio and television program, he also rebuked the pope's diplomatic representative in Venezuela for allegedly meddling in the affairs of state.
Even as he dismissed the idea of exorcising Chávez, Cardinal Velasco said he hoped a "miracle" could save the outspoken, left-wing leader from the path of political extremism.
"But we in the Catholic Church believe in miracles; there could be a miracle," the Cardinal said in an interview with a private television channel. However, according to the Caracas daily El Mundo, the prelate did not discard the possibility of excommunication. According to the newspaper, the Cardinal said "the Church has available the mechanisms for excommunicating President Chávez if it so desires, after evaluating whether he has assumed a very serious position" — an action that would have a major impact on the predominantly Catholic nation that is Venezuela..
Possibly afraid that the Catholic Church would eventually pay attention to the plea to have him exorcised, or perhaps excommunicated, to everybody's surprise Chávez announced last week he is "an active member of the Christian Evangelical Church", suggesting he is no longer a Catholic, as only days earlier he had proclaimed he was.
"I talk to God every day. . . and I ask Him to enlighten the minds of this small group of bishops who have adopted this attitude of rejecting dialogue,' he told reporters before leaving for Bolivia to attend a summit of Andean leaders. Apparently concerned about this unwelcome addition to his flock, Venezuela's Evangelical Council president Samuel Olson went on record assuring Venezuelans that he "was unaware of that religious inclination" of the president.
"Whether President Chávez is an Evangelical is something the Lord will demonstrate over time," said Olson, speaking for his religious community, which has been growing steadily but represents only 5 per cent of Venezuela's population.
Things haven't gone well either for Chávez on the political front. He has gone through more than 40 cabinet ministers since he has been in office. The resignation two weeks ago of Interior Minister Luis Miquilena, once his most trusted adviser, is seen as a serious setback for the president. Miquilena — who resigned after weeks of speculation that he and Chávez were feuding, especially over Chávez's confrontational rhetoric toward business, labor and opposition parties, the Catholic Church and the news media — has the consequence of splitting the president's Fifth Republic Movement party among those who, like him, show little willingness to work with the opposition, and those seeking to diffuse the tense political climate, many of them tied to Miquilena, a former lawmaker who helped draft Venezuelan Constitutions in 1961 and 1999 and also guided Chávez, a former army officer who led a failed 1992 coup, into the political arena.
Political polarization in Venezuela is developing so swiftly that some kind of change appears to be inevitable. How it might occur is difficult to say. A military coup appears unlikely, but it is not unthinkable that, given his messianic personality, if the popular rejection continues to mount Chávez might even abandon the presidency of his own will if he came to feel that Venezuelans "don't deserve" him.
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