Opinion - Editorials

A LEADER OF THE MASSES

WITH INTERNATIONAL OBSERVERS certifying the fairness of a referendum on the continuance in office of Venezuela's President, Hugo Chavez, his opponents ought to have stifled their cries of protest. However, the anti-Chavez movement shows no sign of abating even though foreign powers that support the opposition advised it to accept the verdict. A motley collection of political parties mounted a massive effort to persuade Venezuelans to vote "Yes" on the question whether they wanted their President to quit office. An elite-controlled media supported these efforts and helped create the impression that the recall vote would be a close run affair. However, the result showed that a significant majority of voters who participated in the exercise did not want to oust their President. The beneficiaries of the socio-economic reforms that Mr. Chavez has undertaken since he first entered office in 1998 came out strongly to defend the gains they have made. The apparent irreversibility of the reform process has so alarmed the privileged sections that they have tried various means to end the presidential term of a person they denounce as a dangerous demagogue. After the failure of a coup they had backed in 2002, upper-crust Venezuelans resorted to the recall process although they had opposed the constitutional changes that created this mechanism. They apparently hoped that a United States administration that has always given them its blessing would heed their complaints about a stolen vote and somehow nullify the outcome of the referendum.

Mr. Chavez's opponents will not forgive him because he is the first leader in Venezuela's history to use the country's oil wealth for the benefit of the masses instead of letting it be monopolised by a local elite and foreign companies. This wealth has been channelled into programmes for raising literacy levels, improving institutions of higher education, and enhancing health care. For instance, thousands of Cuban doctors were hired to provide effective yet inexpensive healthcare for the needy among the 25 million Venezuelans. Residents of slums are being provided title to the sites they reside on and poor peasants are being helped to recultivate abandoned fields. Significantly, these programmes are not being carried out in a top-down manner or even with the government as the nodal agency. Grassroots networks are being encouraged to initiate measures to increase employment and improve welfare. Women have been empowered since they head the local committees that draw up and implement many of these programmes. As a result of the Chavez administration's efforts at various levels, Venezuela's less-privileged classes have reason to believe, for the first time in recent memory, that they can improve their lot. While Mr. Chavez's rule might not be blemishless, his underprivileged compatriots clearly know they have a vital stake in his administration. This realisation led to a massive mobilisation of the pro-Chavez vote in the referendum.

Mr. Chavez's troubles are not over as his domestic detractors and their foreign supporters will persist with confrontation. They cannot countenance the success of this experiment in social democracy — the "Bolivarian revolution" as its proponents term it — since it sets an example for the rest of Latin America. The history of the region has usually featured a template in which unelected despots allowed local elites and their foreign backers to exploit the impoverished masses. That historical trend is now under challenge in Venezuela. Genuine democrats and progressive people round the world must wish Mr. Chavez well as he pursues his agenda for socio-economic relief and acts as an agent of change — against formidable odds.

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