POLITICS is the art of the possible. At the heart of any government lies the principle of consensus. In democracies, there will always be a proportion of the electorate, sometimes a significant proportion, that do not vote for a government. If the system is working properly the government will accept that opposition politicians have a valid voice in parliament and will not seek to drive through key policies that do not carry the support of the majority of voters.
Venezuela is a supposed to be a democracy. Before Hugo Chavez was voted in as president in 1999, the country may have embraced political pluralism but a relatively small coterie dominated both the economy and politics. There were the inevitable accusations of corruption. In 1992 Chavez, then a member of the country’s elite paratroops, led coup which failed and saw him jailed. A second attempted coup later in the year by members of his Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement also failed.
But this week the coup has been against Chavez’s successor Nicolas Maduro in Valencia in the northwest of the country. Maduro has of course described the men who attacked a military base in the city as “terrorists” whereas he has in the past praised Chavez’s failed uprising in 1992 has the action of revolutionary heroes. But it is not for mealy-mouthed semantics that Maduro should be criticized. Tragically, he has brought his country to the brink of civil war and chaos, precisely because he has ignored the golden rule that successful politics is always about what is possible. The great French statesman Talleyrand warned that changes in the popular tide of opinion should not be resisted. A wise government could still achieve most of its aims provided it did not try to block that flow.
Maduro’s has failed to appreciate the force of the popular movement that is pushing against the redistributive socialist policies instituted by Chavez, his charismatic predecessor. There are still strong arguments that the revolution in social welfare for Venezuela’s poor and deeply disadvantaged was long overdue. In the early days, Chavez transformed the lives of these people and they loved him for it. But such largesse always had to be paid for. It required policies that helped the economy to grow which also meant the rich became richer in the process. Such policies were never adopted. Instead nationalization and increasing centralized state economic control steadily brought about the disintegration of the country’s finances.
It is inflation, the soaring prices of essential foodstuffs and collapse in basic services which is fueling popular protest, bringing out onto the streets even people for whom Chavez was once the heroic savior of Venezuela. Faced with an intransigent National Assembly, a rival Constituent Assembly has been created by Maduro in a dubious national vote. The job of this body is to write a new constitution, which Maduro somehow imagines will enable him to outflank his political opponents and continue in power beyond his six year term which is due to end in 2019. With a country teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, bloody riots on the streets and now an attempted coup, it must be wondered how Maduro imagines his constitutional maneuverings are going to have any impact on the crisis gripping his country. As President Bill Clinton told an adviser during his re-election campaign “It’s the economy, stupid”.
