FAILING THE LEGITIMACY TEST:

Venezuela's Fake Democrat: Hugo Chávez, though legitimately elected, has used his
office to undermine democracy in Venezuela. (BERNARD ARONSON, 8/14/04, NY Times)

In an interesting twist, the referendum that could unseat Mr. Chávez, is, itself, part of the populist restructuring of Venezuela's democratic institutions that he has carried out- including creating a unicameral legislature and renaming the country the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Nevertheless, when citizen groups petitioned to hold a referendum, the Chávez-dominated courts and National Electoral Commission forced them to collect millions more signatures than necessary - and then to recertify many of those signatures. While the process dragged on, public employees who signed the referendum petition were fired, demoted and denied national identity cards and passports. Only after pressure from the Organization of American States and former President Jimmy Carter did the commission agree to let the referendum proceed.

There is no question that the struggle in Venezuela is rooted in the country's past. The corruption, crime, poverty and inequality under 40 years of rule by two political parties fueled a wave of popular disgust with traditional politics and a deep desire for change that carried Mr. Chávez to the presidency. But the struggle also marks a shift of sorts, one that highlights disturbing trends across Latin America.

Like former President Alberto Fujimori of Peru, Mr. Chávez represents a new breed of Latin autocrat - a leader who is legitimately elected but then uses his office to undermine democratic checks and balances and intimidate political opponents. [...]

A new agenda is needed that offers upward mobility and political empowerment to the hemisphere's poor. This would require not only a deepening of structural economic reforms and fiscal discipline, but a new focus on giving the poor title to their land, credits for microenterprise, easing the transition for small enterprises from the informal to the formal economy, cracking down on tax evasion and official corruption, and ending the subsidization of higher education at the expense of primary and secondary schooling.

Sadly, the hemisphere's political leaders, north and south, have not found a language of political and economic reform that speaks to the region's impoverished masses - particularly the indigenous populations - to counteract the siren song of populism and demagoguery.

Owners don't revolt.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 14, 2004 12:03 PM