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THE legacy of Hugo Chavez suffered a monumental setback in Venezuela last week, with parliamentary elections resulting not only in a victory for the conservative opposition, in keeping with the opinion polls, but ushering in an unexpectedly huge majority.
Given that it was Chavez’s triumph in a presidential election at the turn of the century that seemed to change the political template across Latin America, as parties with socialistic or at least social democratic inclinations swept into power pretty much across the continent, it is not unreasonable to wonder whether the so-called pink tide has turned. Will forces wedded to the neoliberal Washington Consensus sweep back into power pretty much across the board in the years ahead?
The change in Argentina, where Mauricio Macri grabbed the presidential sash last week from Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner after defeating her designated successor in November’s run-off election, can easily be deployed as an argument in defence of that thesis. On the other hand, Kirchner’s farewell rally in Buenos Aires suggests it would be unwise to write off the appeal of the progressive ascendancy just yet.
After all, Michelle Bachelet’s return to presidential power last year following a four-year conservative interregnum shows that setbacks can be reversed. Besides, progressive ideals remain entrenched in several countries, not least Bolivia — Che Guevara’s final battleground — where Evo Morales has pulled off the remarkable feat of largely retaining his popularity while earning kudos even from Western financial institutions for the success of his poverty-reduction endeavours. And in Uruguay, the universally endearing José Mujica, the former guerrilla who gave away 90pc of his salary because it was surplus to his humble requirements, was succeeded last year by his reasonably like-minded predecessor, Tabaré Vazquez.
On the other hand, Dilma Rousseff’s popularity in Brazil has tanked to an extent that her Workers Party predecessor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, managed to avoid, and it remains to be seen whether she will be able to complete her tenure as president. Ecuador’s Rafael Correa is also faced with a sea of troubles.
It is not unreasonable to wonder if the ‘pink tide’ has turned.
The extent to which the US plays a role in encouraging, coordinating and funding dilemmas for relatively progressive administrations in a region it largely continues to view as its backyard remains controversial. There can be no surprise, though, about its efforts to undermine Chavez, whose ascendancy took Washington somewhat by surprise .
Although Washington was believed to have abandoned its strategy of backing military coups to stave off the possibility of leftist-inclined governments, as in the case of Chile in 1973, it was clearly complicit in the military-industrial attempt to oust Chavez in 2002. A popular upsurge, combined with backing for Chavez among sections of the Venezuelan military, foiled the coup that time, but efforts to undermine him continued apace, especially in the economic sphere.
His successor Nicolás Maduro’s complaint of economic warfare therefore rings more than one bell. Let’s not forget that a primary method of undermining Salvador Allende in the 1970s involved making “the economy scream”. The methods employed nowadays are more subtle, but still effective. Official communications publicised by WikiLeaks offer fairly incontrovertible proof of consistent efforts beyond 2002 to sow discord in Venezuela and to prop up the opposition.
That Chavez and his supporters nonetheless managed to pursue their Bolivarian agenda, not least in terms of its geopolitical dimensions, was a formidable achievement, repeatedly endorsed by substantial popular majorities in a series of elections and referenda. But Maduro had big shoes to fill after Chavez succumbed to cancer in 2013, and he has floundered in many respects. The economy is demonstrably in a mess, partly as the consequence of a devastating decline in the price of oil, and the disarray caused by rampant inflation has been compounded by fixed-priced outlets struggling to cope with interminable queues of customers.
In the event, it’s hardly a surprise that many erstwhile devotees of Chavismo voted for change, embodied in the Movement of Democratic Unity (MUD), an alliance of dozens of opposition parties, which has secured a two-thirds parliamentary majority that enables it to pursue constitutional changes and, quite possibly, abbreviate Maduro’s presidential tenure.
MUD’s unity could conceivably crumble now that it has achieved its primary objective. But there is dissension within the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, too, and it remains to be seen whether it will be able to pull its act together and once more come up with a coherent programme for pursuing at least minimal goals, such as expanding the important but insufficient gains in respect of prioritising health, education and, more broadly, the redistribution of wealth.
The prospects do not look good for the moment. Despite this month’s adverse optics, however, it’s much too soon to conclude that the pink tide is irrevocably receding.
Published in Dawn, December 16th, 2015
