Hugo Chávez’s legacy

Progreso Semanal/RPA

HAVANA – In late January 2012, José Vicente Rangel interviewed President Chávez. The questions dealt with the presidential election. The president said: "Look, I am very clear on […] what I offer my country. […] In the first place, in the past several years we have been achieving several elements […] We have been consolidating. This is a process that goes from fewer to more. For example, in the economic field, just one figure: the growth of the Gross Domestic Product, that is, the real economy, is 333 percent. From 90 billion dollars when we arrived, to 300 billion dollars.

"In the social sphere, the reduction in poverty, extreme poverty, by 70 percent; general poverty, by more than 50 percent. These are almost 10 million people who either emerged from extreme and general poverty or did not fall [into poverty], because they would have fallen into poverty if the country’s pace had remained the same. The social sphere, the economic field, the political stability […]

"What do I offer? To continue the stability, to fortify the country’s stability so as to continue the process of economic development, the social development of Venezuela through the democratic revolution. What do I offer? More revolution, more democracy, more socialism, steadiness as we follow our course."

There is no need to lie or exaggerate when one already has accomplished something. The Arturo Jauretche School of Economics put it this way:

"Between expropriations, participative budgets, cooperative enterprises, major works of infrastructure and transportation, and international agreements that foment Latin American unity and challenge the imperialism of the big powers, the Venezuelan society has transformed itself deeply."

As an illustration, the report states: "Since the recovery of the management of PDVSA in the aftermath of an oil and general strike and lockout that produced a brutal contraction of the domestic product in 2002-03, through a period of average annual growth of 15 percent between 2004 and 2007, to the last series of vicissitudes in the context of an international crisis, the Venezuelan economy went through different stages" marked by major structural transformations that allow [Venezuela] to go from an economy dependent on the exportation of crude (whose profits went only to an oligarchic minority) to an expansion that benefits the population.

Public and private consumption rises by 91 percent, representing 88 percent of the domestic product in 2011 (22 percent more than in 1999, measured by constant prices in 1997.) Investments in fixed capital grew by 80 percent in the same period, representing almost 30 percent of the GDP.

Between 1999 and 2011, the growth of economic activity by 47 percent does not depend on the oil activities but on manufacture, construction and communications. As production and consumption expand, imports (equivalent to 42 percent of the GDP) increase. Between 1999 and 2011, the Bolivarian government doubles its international reserves and eliminates its foreign debt. Through financial prudence, the government recovers 14 tons of gold (70 million dollars) situated in other countries.

In the past 13 years, about 4 million jobs are created, a step that along with redistributive public measures removes from poverty and mendicity 70 percent of the Venezuelans in that situation in the late 1990s, when the wealthiest 20 percent of the population earned 14 times the income of the poorest 20 percent. By 2011, that difference (inconceivable in a country with such outstanding natural patrimony) had been reduced 8 times.

Access to drinking water to 95 percent of all homes. The reinsertion in the elementary school system of almost 20,000 children. The health service for the humblest citizens (Barrio Adentro) is implemented through 6,700 clinics, 550 diagnostic centers, 578 rehabilitation centers, and 33 high-technology centers. The results: the mortality of children below the age of 5 was reduced from 21 to 16 per thousand, and the general longevity was extended by 2 years.

In 2012, the FAO [Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations] thanks the Bolivarian government for eliminating hunger and malnutrition. More than 80 percent of all citizens did not have adequate access to food 10 years earlier.

A network of people’s markets with goods sold at stable prices, and a strategy for agricultural development that aims to achieve sufficiency and alimentary sovereignty are the basis for an ongoing project. Improvements in the living conditions of Venezuelans include literacy programs and schools of various levels created in places where no access existed to that educational emergency. The mission Grand Housing Venezuela concludes its first two years by building 300,000 new homes.

The varied plans for general development and those intended to give depth and solvency to social projects will continue in the Second Socialist Plan 2013-2019, approved on Oct. 7 by the votes of 15 million Venezuelans. Those who inherit Chávez’s legacy have the tremendous responsibility of materializing it.

But if the work of Hugo Chávez Frías has been decisive to elevate his fellow citizens, it also contributed to inspire a Latin America eager to escape the crisis provoked by neoliberalism. Integration, complementation, correspondence, support among equals, they are all part of a criterion that united wills and the best features of his testament.

Countering the IMF’s prescriptions, which amplified problems without reducing them, distancing himself from the Washington Consensus and tricks like the ALCA [Free Trade Area of the Americas], intended to maintain submission and unequal ties in favor of the United States, to the detriment of what once was its back yard, Chávez approached Cuba (Fidel), Brazil (Lula), Kirchner (Argentina), Correa (Ecuador), Evo (Bolivia) and Daniel (Nicaragua), opened routes to the Caribbean and helped to found ALBA, Petrocaribe, UNASUR, and CELAC. He inserted Venezuela into the Mercosur and facilitated continental relations to find peace among warring brothers.

The difference between states and tendencies or whatever binds was possible to a great degree through his overwhelming humanist powers. Everything he did he carried out despite strong external pressures, respecting the diversity of the communications media and through elections that were never challenged. On the contrary, the Venezuelan electoral system and its vote-counting mechanisms are said to be the world’s most trustworthy. The serenity that time brings will show the disappeared leader in his whole magnitude and transcendental importance for his country and the Latin American region.

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