Venezualans Constrain Chavez

Latin American nationals and policy experts at Harvard said the results of Sunday’s referendum in Venezuela were encouraging for the opposition, but they remained skeptical about the country’s long-term democratic prospects.

Sunday night marked the defeat of proposed constitutional amendments that would have granted socialist President Hugo Chavez greater control, including the constitutional power to remain president for life.

This is the opposition’s first major electoral victory since Chavez came to power.

Federico Andrés Ortega Sosa, a second-year student at the Kennedy School of Government from Caracas, Venezuela, said the election results might signal “a momentum shift,” since the Venezuelan president has been enjoying “victory after victory” since he was elected in 1998.

He also said some could interpret the defeat as proof that the Venezuelan government is indeed a democracy.

“If somebody can turn a defeat such as this into a success, it’s him,” Ortega said of Chavez.

But Harvard economist Ricardo Hausmann said he did not think the results will prevent Chavez from seeking power in the future.

“I think we have to keep being vigilant,” Hausmann said in an interview yesterday. “He didn’t get the votes last night, but he announced that he was not abandoning his plan—and his plan is the creation of this totalitarian state.”

Since coming to power, Chavez, who vaulted into the public eye by leading a military coup against the government in 1992, has used the country’s oil wealth to fund relief programs for the poor. In the process, he has centralized power in his own hands, shutting down political opposition and some media outlets.

Polls prior to the referendum hinted that a slight majority opposed the constitutional amendment.

“Essentially he tried to bite off more than he could chew, and went too far away from the Venezuelan median voter in asking for what is essentially the elimination of any checks and balances on his power,” Hausmann said.

Government professor Steven R. Levitsky said the proposed amendments alienated core Chavistas, such as Raúl Baduel, one of Chavez’s closest military allies who recently retired and joined the opposition. Food shortages also may have contributed to civil discontent.

Still, Hausmann said that he thought it made sense for Chavez to seek more constitutional power now rather than later, since he is still benefiting from the momentum produced by his landslide 2006 victory.

Hausmann said he thought economic difficulties would continue, forecasting “a major economic crisis that is going to leave a weakened economy and increase poverty.”

“Right now, you have the most irresponsible management of a temporary oil boom that any country has ever had,” he added.

Liliana Delgado ’10, a native of Peru and the political action chair of Fuerza Latina, which discussed the referendum at its weekly meeting yesterday, said that while she respected Chavez’s efforts to help the poor, she found him “kind of hard to take seriously” due to his radical rhetoric on the international stage.

Last January Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad travelled to Venezuela. Chavez is also often portrayed as the leader of a shift to the left in other Latin American countries, such as Bolivia.