An example of democracy
Editorial
published Dec. 3 in the Mexican daily La Jornada
Yesterday,
on an election day that generally passed in peace and tranquility and
utilizing a transparent and irreproachable system for electronic
voting, Venezuelans rejected by a narrow margin — about 1 percent —
the proposal for Constitutional reform submitted in August by
President Hugo Chávez.
The
president’s initiative was the object (as he personally has been) of
either fervent support or virulent disqualification. Much of the
latter was fed by the United States and the bloc of Latin American
governments that side with Washington.
The
principal argument of the anti-Chavista propaganda was that the
nature of the current presidency in Venezuela, presumably
authoritarian and antidemocratic, would be reinforced by a
Constitution that would place an even greater concentration of powers
on the shoulders of the chief of state.
Upon
that premise, the local opposition moved yesterday in a way that went
beyond a mere vigilance of the ballot boxes — a legitimate and
necessary practice in any election — to a disqualification of the
electoral effort, in the event the results were adverse.
However,
and despite an understandable delay in view of the closeness of the
tally, the National Electoral Council did its job faithfully, counted
the votes scrupulously and shortly after 1 a.m. (Caracas time)
announced the victory of the NO. Shortly thereafter, Chávez
himself fully acknowledged the triumph of his adversaries and urged
his sympathizers to remain calm and go to bed.
Paradoxically,
the opposition’s victory at the polls is also a moral victory for the
movement led by the controversial chief of state. At one blow, the
referendum and its culmination rebuff down the line those who have
accused the Venezuelan president of being antidemocratic,
authoritarian and even a dictator. They force us to review the
trajectory of a government that has submitted itself to the citizens’
verdict on numerous occasions, all of them with pulchritude — in
elections to win the presidency, to approve the current Constitution,
to call for a recall referendum demanded by the opposition, and to
seek reelection.
The
fact that Chávez has lost one of those consults and that he
unambiguously accepts an adverse result underscores attitudes and
behavior that are unequivocally democratic. For that, he deserves
credit.
In
addition, yesterday’s referendum deactivates the putschist tendencies
perennially encouraged by sectors of the Venezuelan opposition,
supported by international postures that date to the Stone Age, such
as those assumed by the current president of the United States and
the former Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar.
These men are in favor of democracy only when it suits their
interests and those of their partners, and they instigate violent and
illegal actions against governments that do not affiliate with the
neoliberal Right.
In
any case, the citizens’ rejection of the Constitutional text proposed
by Chávez does not alter the course of an administration with
five years still to go. It can continue to govern within the
framework of the current Constitution. So, far from being weakened by
yesterday’s defeat at the polls, Chavismo emerges strengthened and
clothed with a moral authority that his adversaries will have to
recognize.
Finally,
yesterday’s referendum in Venezuela stands in painful contrast to the
disorder and turbidity that characterized last year’s presidential
election in our country. The refusal to recount the votes branded the
present administration with an indelible mark of suspicion and cost
it an immeasurable degree of legitimacy.
In
the light of what happened in Venezuela, those in Mexico who describe
Chávez as an example of a politically undesirable leader and a
paragon of authoritarianism will have to think twice about it in the
future, because the antidemocratic spirit and practices are their
very own.
