President Hugo Chávez delivered his annual report to the National Assembly on his government's record over the last year, praising the workers for "having made it possible that 2008 had been a year of positive results."
Only recently had he called on workers to exercise austerity in their personal lives, in the face of what is expected to be a tough year in the wake of the global financial turmoil and its impact on world oil demand and prices. But there was no such gloom as he set out the record before parliament – and, via obligatory live broadcasts on terrestrial television channels and radio stations, to the public at large.
The president was in pedagogic mode, and went back in history – even way beyond his own arrival in elected power in 1999 – to set the record straight with a series of graphs and charts. There was one perhaps unwittingly funny moment when the famously garrulous president remarked that "a graphic, well done, is worth a hundred words." He had arrived at the legislature shortly after lunchtime, and was greeted by the president of the Assembly, Deputy Cilia Flores, who runs a tight ship in the chamber. Legislators from the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and its allies were dutifully there en masse to greet him. The public gallery was packed with Chávez' supporters in trademark red. At times, they broke into his speech with chants of "Chávez no se va!" meaning he'd never go.
Actually, the jury's still out on that one. Unless he wins a proposed referendum on constitutional reform, he'll be obliged to stand down when his current, second successive term in office expires in 2012. There were the by now customary tongue lashings for the president's pet bèté noirs. First off was the former president, Carlos Andrés Pérez, whom Chávez tried to topple in a failed coup d'etat in 1992 which first brought the then paratrooper Lieutenant Colonel to public attention. Chávez recalled the days of the "Caracazo" an outburst of violent rioting and harsh repression in 1989 during which at least 300 people died according to the official figures and a great deal more according to other versions of events. The disorder was sparked by Pérez' attempt to impose orthodox economic measures at the behest of several other of Chávez' pet hates, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the "Empire" in Washington.
Chávez – who in those days was an army major stationed at the presidential palace, Miraflores – said that by then he was already commander of his "Bolivarian" revolutionary movement. Now, with his revolution in its 20th year, it was important not to forget what had happened. Having put things in his context, Chávez cited figures from the United Nations to claim that the Venezuelan "index of social development" had risen by seven points during his 10 years in office. Venezuela had risen up the ranks in terms of health, education and per capita incomes.
Noting that the population had grown sharply, from 7.5 million in 1961 to 28 million in 2008, the president looked to the future, noting that the figure was forecast to reach 50 million by 2020. That, he said, was why "we must explain all this so that it becomes part of studies for discussion in educational institutes, and the media must lay stress on this theme."
Chávez' plan to introduce far-reaching changes in the school curriculum have prompted conservative academics to warn that his intention is to "brainwash" children into "Bolivarian" thinking. Chávez defended his record, asserting that today there "no children living on the streets." He challenged the opposition to prove there was a crisis, as they claimed. The last 10 years had seen the development of his "missions" or social welfare programs, which he said were set to grow further. "Every day, 1,198 people get out of poverty, 50 an hour," he claimed. Services for the handicapped were better, and so was dentistry. More than a million students had graduated from the Missión Ribas higher education program, and hundreds of thousands of others had benefited from other programs.
Chávez said the First Socialist Plan 2007-13 was marching forward and was the law of the land, having been approved by the National Assembly. "It's a law of the nation," he declared, evidently intent on emphasizing that the change he was bringing about was permanent.
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