Chavez’s political future on the line

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’ve 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 Feb. 15 date for a referendum that, if approved, would allow Chavez and all other elected officials to run for re-election an unlimited number of times. With some recent surveys showing 55 percent or more of respondents opposing such a measure to extend presidential term limits beyond the current two six-year terms, it begs 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, Chavez is campaigning non-stop, painting dire scenarios for voters of what a defeat would mean: the end of his welfare projects in Venezeula, a victory for the U.S. "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, Chavez narrowly lost a vote to rewrite 69 articles of Venezuela’s constitution, including one that would have abolished term limits. Although Chavez remains highly popular after nearly ten 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 personalizing 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," 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 percent of exports and 60 percent 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. Chavez rode the past oil price bonanza to expand public spending by 26 percent 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. "Scarcities and inflation could worsen."
Curtailing social spending projects will cut into much of Chavez’s popular support, said pollster Alfredo Keller, particularly among the non-ideological poor who support him because they receive a material benefit from the government. While the poor in Venezuela have benefited from increased education and medical coverage, the official inflation rate hit 30 percent last month, the highest in Latin America, while prices of food items rose even more. Basic items such as rice, beans and chicken are often scarce as well as costly.

Residents grumble about costly foreign aid programs including billions of dollars in discount oil sales to Cuba and Caribbean nations through the Petrocaribe aid program, while in their own country, social services crumble and violent crime flourishes. As a result, Chavez has seen his once overwhelming electoral power among Venezuelans diminish in the last two nationwide elections.

Political economist Luis Lander of Central University refuses to count Chavez out in next month’s vote, saying that the president thinks he can win over the electorate through personal campaigning. "The opposition is only focused on one thing, the departure of Chavez, to the point they can offer little in terms of competitive proposals," Lander said. "That’s the dynamic of Venezuela’s polarization."

Whatever the outcome, the referendum will have a profound effect on Venezuela and Latin America, said Miguel Tinker Salas, a historian at Pomona College, noting that Chavez’s election in 1998 ushered in a new leftward tilt in the region. "It will determine whether Chavez stays on the scene and whether the kinds of projects he defined, the regional Banco del Sur and Petrocaribe, and others, remain as well," Tinker Salas said. "The defeat of Chavez would have tremendous repercussions."