Venezuela's leader fights a new enemy

PROFILE: HUGO CHÁVEZ:Despite a battle with cancer, Venezuela's ebullient president insists he can stay in power until 2031, fuelling the fears of those who find him increasingly authoritarian

FOR SOMEONE who less than a month ago revealed he is battling cancer, Hugo Chávez seems in bullish form. The Venezuelan president – 57 this week – not only confirmed that he would be seeking a fourth term in presidential elections due next year, but said he intended to remain in power until 2031, promising his countrymen a “golden” decade in the 2020s.

The cancer scare – doctors in Cuba removed a tumour the size of a baseball from his “pelvic region” – had sparked speculation both at home and abroad about how long more the man who has dominated Venezuelan politics for the last 12 years will be able to continue in office.

But, to the despair of his opponents, he is not entertaining thoughts of giving up power any time soon. He told the government-owned Correo del Orinoco newspaper that “not for one instant did I think of stepping down from the presidency”, and, in his famously ebullient manner, said he had “medical, scientific, human, romantic and political reasons” for standing in next year’s contest.

For long-time Chávez observers, this week’s announcement that he plans to march on will not come as much of a surprise. Cancer is just the latest is a long series of setbacks to which he has usually responded by going on to new political triumphs. Indeed, rebounding is the defining characteristic of his career. It was by means of a failure that the then lieutenant colonel Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías first burst into Venezuela’s public consciousness when, in 1992, he led a botched attempt against a deeply unpopular civilian president. He was caught and jailed but was, within six years, elected Venezuela’s youngest-ever president in a landslide victory against the country’s discredited political establishment. It marked the start of a turbulent decade as he set about implementing his Bolivarian Revolution, a home-brew of populism, socialism and Pan-American nationalism.

Unreconciled to their loss of political privilege, members of the elite overthrew him in a coup in 2002 and his political obituaries were being rushed out. But within 48 hours it was the plotters who had fled and Chávez was back in power, thanks to supporters who came down from the shantytowns that ring the capital, Caracas, to demand his return.

The coup attempt was followed by a crippling management strike in the all-important state oil company, and a recall referendum. Both had many people counting down to his exit from the Miraflores presidential palace. But strikers were defeated and the referendum won, and in 2006 Chávez confirmed his triumph when he won a third term as president.

When his opponents thought they had scored a hit by blocking a 2007 proposal to scrap term limits, they barely had time to celebrate their victory. Political analysts were still wondering about the wider implications of a first defeat at the ballot box when Chávez gave a speech calling the opposition’s success a “victoria de mierda” – a victory of s**t. Fourteen months later he simply called another referendum which gave him the result he wanted and term limits were abolished.

But, with cancer, Chávez now faces an enemy that cannot be beaten using the potent mix of personal charisma, populist handouts and an authoritarian streak that has helped him overcome the political challenges of the past 12 years.

It is impossible to say just how serious Chávez’s illness is. Information about his condition is treated as a Venezuelan state secret and what information has been drip-fed to the public has been vague and incomplete. The mystery surrounding his health has been increased by his decision to go to Cuba for treatment at the invitation of his ally and mentor Fidel Castro, the old revolutionary leader for whom secrecy is part of his political code of survival. In choosing Cuba for treatment, Chávez showed that he retains many of the traits of the clandestine plotter he was for years before his coup thrust him into the limelight.

Though he is talking up his health – telling Correo del Orinocothat he "could not be better in spirit" – the most striking image of the last month is of a drawn and downcast Chávez, usually a loquacious speaker with a love of mixing soaring rhetoric with the folksy asides of a born raconteur, delivering an unusually brief 15-minute televised address confirming rumours that he was unwell. His appearance on June 30th shocked supporters and opponents alike, though few of his foes will be joining his allies in wishing their president a quick recovery. Some among his political enemies have even accused him of faking his illness to boost his re-election chances next year.

More moderate opposition voices are demanding that he step aside while he battles the disease. It is a loaded demand. During 12 years in power Chávez has run a hyper-personalised regime. What seems to be an almost pathological need to dominate the country’s political stage has prevented the emergence of any natural heirs within his own Bolivarian Revolution. It is unclear who, if anyone, could lead it should he quit. Hence the opposition’s calls that he do so, and his own insistence that he plans to continue for another 20 years.

Perhaps he genuinely believes another two decades will give him the time to implement the grandiose schemes that, after 12 years in power, seem ever further out of reach. Chávez is never happier than when announcing such ambitious new projects. He seems to have a need to create what he describes as historical moments that fit in with his own sense of destiny.

But while the rhetoric that accompanies such occasions is often lofty, the follow-through is poor. His idea to build new socialist cities in Venezuela’s backlands is largely stillborn. Plans for a gas pipeline stretching from the Caribbean to Patagonia remain on the map he was fond of showing neighbouring presidents. His governing style is that of the romantic rather than a realist.

Though he is an open admirer of Fidel Castro, his Bolivarian Revolution lacks any of the rigorous ideological underpinnings that the Cuban Revolution had. Chávez can (almost) speak for as long as Fidel in his heyday. But while his speeches are engaging, they lack the penetrating analysis of the best of Castro’s. This lack of intellectual heft is being increasingly exposed as his heterodox economic policies result in food shortages, blackouts and the continent’s highest inflation. Some of his old admirers in the West such as US academic Noam Chomsky have broken with him over his increasing authoritarianism.

But while he sits on what are by some measure the world’s largest oil reserves, it would be foolish to (once again) write him off. In South America, populism tends to function so long as commodity prices remain high, and no-one is predicting a return to the meagre $17-a-barrel Venezuelan oil got when Chávez came to power.

So, despite a chaotic economy, cancer would seem to be the main threat now to him continuing his long run in office. If he beats the disease, next year could witness another rebound in Chávez’s fortunes.

Curriculum vitae

Who is he?Venezuela's president and leader of the Bolivarian Revolution.

Why is he in the news?Battling cancer, he has announced that he will stand again next year for president.

Most appealing characteristic:A fondness for breaking out in song in public.

Least appealing characteristic:A disdain for constitutional checks and balances.

Most likely to say: "The next 20 years will be the best yet."

Least likely to say: "Time for someone else to have a go."