Venezuela's president hopes to win the right to be re-elected, despite worsening economic conditions, writes Chris Kraulin Caracas
DESPITE HIS government facing economic hard times as oil revenues plunge, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez is nonetheless preparing to go before the nation’s voters with a plea they have rejected once before: end term-limits that block him from staying in power indefinitely.
The National Electoral Commission is expected this week to set a February 15th date for a referendum that, if approved, would allow Mr Chavez and all other elected officials to run for re-election an unlimited number of times.
With some recent surveys showing 55 per cent or more of respondents oppose such a measure to extend presidential term-limits beyond the current two six-year terms, it raises the question: “Why now?” The answer might well be: now or never.
Barring a dramatic increase in oil prices, Venezuela could suffer a severe recession.
The deep cuts in public welfare projects that would ensue would make any future term-limit referendum even less likely to win approval.
“Chavez sees himself as the eternal comandante, but if he loses this, he’ll be gone in four years,” said Ricardo Sucre, a political scientist at Central University of Venezuela.
“He’s in a hurry because he doesn’t want to bet on an uncertain future.”
Knowing the stakes, Mr Chavez is campaigning non-stop, painting dire scenarios for voters of what a defeat would mean: the end of his welfare projects in Venezuela, a victory for the US “empire,” and perhaps even civil war if his supporters don’t accept defeat, not to mention the end to Chavismo in early 2013 when his current term expires.
In December 2007, Mr Chavez narrowly lost a vote to rewrite 69 articles of Venezuela’s constitution, including one that would have abolished term-limits.
Although Mr Chavez remains highly popular after nearly 10 years in office, recent polls indicate a majority of voters oppose letting him cling to power indefinitely, said Saul Cabrera, head of the Consultores 21 polling firm.
“His personalising of this issue has won him a few points, but the fact is, Venezuelans now as in the past are against open-ended re-elections,” Mr Cabrera said. “They think, ‘This benefits Hugo Chavez, not me as a person’.”
How deep a recession might be in store depends on how oil prices behave.
If they remain at today’s levels, the government will see revenues from crude export sales fall by more than half this year compared with 2008, a devastating scenario for a country that relies on oil for 92 per cent of exports and 60 per cent of the government budget.
Venezuela collected an average price of $87 a barrel last year, while current prices for the “basket” of mostly heavy Venezuelan crude oil have fallen to less than $30.
Mr Chavez rode the past oil price bonanza to expand public spending by 26 per cent last year. He might soon be looking at forced reductions of his domestic welfare projects and of foreign aid, including discounted oil.
“Chavez will be forced to make deep cuts in his socialistic projects and possibly devalue the bolivar,” Venezuela’s currency, said Gustavo Garcia, an economist at Inter-American Development Bank in Washington.