Council on Hemispheric Affairs 1730 M Street NW, Suite 1010, Washington, D.C. 20036
11 April 2003
Venezuela - A Year Later
Some progress towards reconciliation
A year ago, Venezuela's democracy narrowly survived a major test as rightist sectors of the middle-class-led opposition
joined with several ranking military officers to briefly overthrow President Chavez, taking advantage of an ongoing
popular protest that was peacefully calling upon him to step down.
Even prior to last April's failed coup, Venezuela's opposition had a list of both valid grievances and skeptical
critiques on Chavez's commitment to democracy. These included a concern over a set of government decrees issued by
Chavez in November 2001, which his opponents insist undermined local authorities as well as the national assembly's
jurisdiction over projects both small and large. These also allowed the president to appoint his political allies to
senior posts at the national oil company, PDVSA, which could compromise that venerable institution's belief in a
practicing meritocracy in its hiring practices.
The Ouster
At the time of the attempted coup, Chavez's narrow survival was mainly due to his close ties to loyalist factions of
the military. Business-federation head Pedro Carmona, who comedically had himself sworn in as the country's new
president, was unable to secure support from key senior officers and enlisted personnel at the air-force base at Maracay
and at other garrison sites in the interior, which declared that they would not recognize the golpista's rump
government. At that point, Chavez's supporters began marching downtown in defense of their revolution.
But ultimately, it was Venezuelans' residual high regard for non-violent solutions that allowed Chavez to return. Broad
participation in the repeated protest marches that made up the opposition's core strategy preceding the coup indicated
that while Chavez's rule had lost much of its popular support, Carmona did not have sufficient elite backing or support
of the poor to neutralize pro-Chavez generals in the country's interior. This was the case even though Chavez was
repeatedly being assailed by the media, particularly, the country's four major television stations, which specialized in
anti-Chavez advocacy rather than providing a dispassionate, balanced assessment of a deteriorating political situation.
Since last April, the opposition has continued to plot to bring down Chavez by any means, most notably by the now ended
two-month general strike that paralyzed the government's main source of income, the national oil industry. Venezuela's
private media once again joined the effort by churning out grossly one-sided, anti-Chavez coverage, which included
dozens of alternately clever and vicious articles aimed at discrediting him and demanding that the president step down.
The Confrontation
Once again, the opposition was inspired by a valid list of complaints against Chavez's Bolivarian revolution's
traditional belief in plebiscitary democracy and its unique interpretation of the rule of law. In recent months,
anti-Chavez forces have mobilized around such issues as the now reversed inflammatory militarization of the Caracas
metropolitan police, edicts that could curb freedom of speech and the government's allegedly lax stance against
Colombian rebels constructing staging sites on Venezuelan territory.
One very important development in recent months has been the emergence of a small bipartisan initiative, mainly located
in the national legislature, aimed at reconciling the vast chasm separating the government and the non-government
positions. Named the Boston Group (where they will be meeting next month), the initiative was launched with the help of
three U.S. members of Congress who visited Venezuela last September. Composed of ten Venezuelan National Assembly
members from each side, the group aims at modernizing Venezuela's parliamentary procedures and increasing the national
assembly's role in the public policy process. With a constructive agenda in mind, Boston Group members have organized
forums where opposition and government representatives can express their views on public policy, rather than blaming the
other as the source of their nation's problems. At a meeting in Washington on April 7, group members Calixto Ortega and
Pedro Diaz Blum described the recall referendum as the only solution in sight to break the stagnated political climate
by means of an electoral solution.
The opposition has provided a distinct service to the nation in reminding the government that democratic legitimacy
goes much further than merely respecting electoral results. But, with the decline in the effectiveness of the now
disbanded general strike, even the most anti-government sector must realize that lasting changes in Venezuelan society
should at least begin within an electoral solution and not by destroying the national economy.
Presently, the anti-Chavez movement has been somewhat hobbled by an abiding hatred for Chavez, which appears to be its
only unifying credo. As a result, schisms are breaking out as various likely opposition presidential candidates jockey
for the possible race, if a proposed referendum on Chavez's rule in August actually materializes.
Possible Reconciliation
The tough task of establishing a referendum date on Chavez's recall still lies ahead. Yet it should be remembered: none
of the admittedly frustrating negotiations on mending Venezuela's democratic procedures would have occurred if the Bush
administration had been successful in backing Carmona's White House-approved script by lending support to the ouster of
a constitutionally-elected president, which would have all but guaranteed bloody class-strife.
In that scenario, Venezuela's democracy would have been most likely engulfed in political violence, akin to that being
witnessed in neighboring Colombia. While no one can deny that Venezuela's democracy still requires a defibrillator, the
slow rehabilitation of the country's democratic institutions and the population's almost visceral respect for
non-violent solutions to political differences, has at least given it an opportunity to confirm its heritage and move
on. This is a lesson that hopefully Washington will also take to heart.
This analysis was prepared by Larry Birns, Director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, and Manuel Rueda, a Research
Associate. Issued April 11, 2003.
The Council on Hemispheric Affairs, founded in 1975, is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan, tax-exempt research
and information organization. It has been described on the Senate floor as being "one of the nation's most respected
bodies of scholars and policy makers." For more information, please see our web page at www.coha.org; or contact our
Washington offices by phone (202) 216-9261, fax (202) 223-6035, or email coha@coha.org.
202 216 9261
202 223 6035
coha@coha.org
www.coha.org Council on Hemispheric Affairs Monitoring Political, Economic and Diplomatic Issues Affecting the Western
Hemisphere Memorandum to the Press 03.14