Last weekend saw the opening of the Olympics and the outbreak of a genuine old-fashioned shooting war in the Caucasus. Which means that the news from South America has been somewhat obscured. I will take that as an opportunity.
There are things that you can only really learn about a country by travelling there. I am now rather more certain both that the Revolución Bolivariana is fairly secure and that it will end badly.
On Saturday I attended an opposition demonstration that was rather poorly-attended for a country where the president had just decreed a series of reforms that had been rejected in a referendum less than nine months earlier. The big slogans were “No es no,” and “Pueblo, madura, esto es dictadura.”
The latter translates into the rather hectoring “Grow up, people, this is a dictatorship.” That’s not the slogan of an opposition that’s fired up and looking to convince people. No, that’s a cry of frustration.
More tellingly, the counter-demonstrators were good-humored and teasing, rather than angry and intimidating. “Oposición, madura, esto es locura” or “Opositores, maduran, cuanto tiempo durarán.”
Both sides had to do some violence to the proper placement of the emphasis in order to preserve the rhythm, but that’s what a good chant is all about! Unfortunately, some of the demonstrators insisted on shouting “Pueblo, madura, esto es comunismo,” which just doesn’t work on any level. Not when you keep strolling past branches of McDonald’s and ads for beauty creams on your way downtown.
A bit more detail (and more pictures) below the fold.
The demonstration was overwhelmingly middle-class and up. The word “rabiblancos” is a Panamanian term, and it isn’t fair to the demonstrators, but it kept popping into my head.
While not poorly attended, per se, the demonstration wasn’t all that big. Sometimes it seemed like there were more cops than marchers.
Ostensibly, the demonstration was about a decision by the Auditor-General, Clodosbaldo Russián, to bar the borough president of Chacao, Leopoldo López, from running for the mayoralty of Caracas in November. López had transferred money allocated for the schools to pay the firefighters. Russián used Article 105 of the Auditor-General Organic Act to bar López from running for any other public office, even though Russián also chose not to place an indictment.
The opposition claimed that the Organic Act violated Article 65 of the Constitution. The Supreme Court disagreed. And so, ostensibly, the reason for the demonstration.
But the demonstration wasn’t really about Clodosbaldo Russián or Leopoldo López or the Auditor-General Organic Act. No, it was about the “26 Laws.” In order to explain that, you’ll need some recent history.
In January 2007, the National Assembly passed an enabling act that granted President Chávez decree power for 18 months. Chávez used that power to pass 65 laws between February 2nd, 2007 and June 23rd, 2008. Most of them weren’t controversial; the most well-known sliced three zeros off the bolívar.
This is not to say that Chávez was inactive during 2007. In fact, he spent the year trying to garner popular support for a series of constitutional amendments. Those amendments would have, among other things, allowed government officials to take over private property before paying compensation (Article 115, as amended), created a parallel system of public administration alongside the states and municipalities (Article 136), handed control of the central bank over to the president (Article 318), and created a national militia alongside the regular armed forces (Article 329).
On December 2nd, 2007, the amendments lost in two very close referendums.
On July 31st, 2008, the day his decree power was set to expire, President Chávez issued 26 new laws, except he published only the titles in the Gaceta Oficial. (I guess he was in a rush.) Over the next week, the text of the 26 laws emerged. Lo and behold, they seem to, among other things, allow the government to take over private property without due process and in advance of compensation (the Defense of Access to Goods and Services Act, the Agricultural Health Act, and the National Railway Transportation Act), create a parallel system of public administration (the Public Administration Organic Act), establish a series of publicly-funded banks under presidential control (the Agricultural Bank Act and the Socio-Economic Development Bank Act), and create a Bolivarian militia (the Bolivarian Armed Forces Organic Act).
In other words, the real prompt for the demonstration was the Gacetazo.
Unfortunately, the opposition seems tired. Patriotic, but tired.
Several people told me that Chávez’s timing was brilliant, because “Everyone is on vacation in August.” I am not quite sure how to take that. But to be fair, student leaders like Stalin González helped organize million-man opposition marches in the past, capable of shutting down the main freeway through the capital. The opposition now just seems tired, beaten down, outmanuevered by the President at almost every turn.
En fin, if this was the best that the opposition can do, then the Revolución Bolivariana has nothing to worry about ... from the opposition, at least. There are other worries, which I’ll discuss in future posts.
(Jussi, you will be glad to know that it occurs to nobody to draw analogies to Finland.)
Thoughts?
It can't be a good portent for a successful movement when one of the protesters behind you is wearing a Cubs cap.
Posted by: Colin Alberts | August 20, 2008 at 01:15 PM