Lesson on democracy
By
Salim Lamrani Read Spanish Version
From
Salim Lamrani’s ZSpace Page
President
Hugo Chávez has just taught his slanderers another lesson on
democracy. On February 15, 2009, for the fifteenth time in ten years,
the Venezuelans have been asked to cast their vote, this time to
pronounce their opinion on the constitutional amendment that would
end the term limits of the President, of the mayors, deputies, and
governors. For the fourteenth time in a decade, the voters showed
their support for the Bolivarian leader as 54.86% expressed
themselves in favor of the amendment that would allow Chávez to run
again for president in 2012.
No Latin-American President
enjoys a democratic legitimacy as proven as is the legitimacy of the
Venezuelan leader. The participation in the referendum was massive,
reaching 70%. Compared to the failure in December 2007, where the
constitutional reforms (69 articles), inadequately explained, were
rejected by an infinitesimal majority of 50.7%, the Venezuelan
government won about two million votes, reinforcing its
popularity.
Despite the complaints and accusations of election
fraud alleged by the part of the opposition, the elections were again
praised by the international community for their transparency. The
Grupo de Río (Rio Group), comprised of 33 nations of the American
continent, qualified the referendum as "another expression of
civil spirit [of the Venezuelans] and congratulated them on their
democratic performance," emphasizing at the same time "the
ample political participation." The United States also greeted a
process that was "consistent with democratic principles,” and
declared their will to "maintain a positive relation" with
Caracas. In the face of all that, the opposition had no choice but to
admit defeat.
President Chávez, for his part, was pleased
about the victory: "Today, truth has prevailed over lies; a
people’s constancy was victorious," he said as he referred to
the opposition’s media campaign. "Bolivarian Socialism proved
strengthened in the eyes of the world," he added.
In
fact, the opposition and the western media have developed a
defamation campaign against the Venezuelan authorities accusing Hugo
Chávez of aiming at converting himself into "President for
life", and they forgot that in a democracy it is the people who
have the last word. Naturally, the media multinationals took care not
to point out that in numerous western democracies, term limits do not
exist. Neither did they consider it to be necessary to point out that
the Venezuelans have the possibility to revoke their President from
office after the first half of the legislative period if his policies
turned out to be unsatisfactory, a reality which is inconceivable in
the Western world.
In ten years of power, Hugo Chávez has
undertaken spectacular economic and social reforms that have
particularly improved the level of living standards of the
population’s most vulnerable sectors; he has equipped his country
with political and economic sovereignty; imbued his citizens with a
feeling of national dignity; provided Venezuela with an international
stature whose prestige does not stop to increase in the Third World;
grouped a great part of the Latin American nations around the
Alternativa Bolivariana para las Américas (ALBA, Bolivarian
Alternative for the Americas), an emancipatory and integrating
project; and has converted the solidarity towards the neediest into
the fundamental principle of his foreign politics. These are, briefly
sketched, the roots of the popularity of the Venezuelan
leader.
Nevertheless, Hugo Chávez has yet to confront at
least four major challenges: the decline of the price of petroleum on
which the Venezuelan economy depends; the criminality rate that,
although it has dropped, continues to be a serious problem; an
inflation rate which is still high; a level of corruption, albeit
low, but present in some spheres of power, and, above all, an
opposition that refuses to condescend to [play according to the rules
of] the democratic game, multiplying the media disinformation
campaigns whose efficiency is undeniable. However, the elections of
last February 15 illustrate the confidence the Venezuelans have in
their President to confront those obstacles and continue his politics
of constructing an alternative to barbarous neoliberalism, where the
human being is the heart of the project of society.
Salim
Lamrani is temporary lecturer at Paris Descartes University and
Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée University and French journalist,
specialist on relations between Cuba and the US. He
has just published Doble
Moral. Cuba, la Unión Europea y los derechos humanos
[Double Standards. Cuba, the European Union and Human Rights.]
