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Loathed by the rich -- Why Hugo Chávez is heading for a stunning victoryhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1278213,00.htmlThe expected Chávez victory will be the opposition's third defeat in as many years. The first two were dramatically counter-productive for his opponents, since they only served to entrench him in power. An attempted coup d'état in April 2002, with fascist overtones reminiscent of the Pinochet era in Chile, was defeated by an alliance of loyal officers and civilian groups who mobilised spontaneously and successfully to demand the return of their president.
The unexpected restoration of Chávez not only alerted the world to an unusual leftwing, not to say revolutionary, experiment taking place in Venezuela, but it also led the country's poor majority to understand that they had a government and a president worth defending. Chávez was able to dismiss senior officers opposed to his project of involving the armed forces in programmes to help the poor, and removed the threat of a further coup.
The second attempt at his overthrow - the prolonged work stoppage in December 2002 which extended to a lockout at the state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, nationalised since 1975 - also played into the hands of the president. When the walkout (with its echoes of the CIA-backed Chilean lorry owners' strike against Salvador Allende's government in the early 1970s) failed, Chávez was able to sack the most pampered sections of a privileged workforce. The company's huge surplus oil revenues were redirected into imaginative new social programmes. Innumerable projects, or "missions", were established throughout the country, recalling the atmosphere of the early years of the Cuban revolution. They combat illiteracy, provide further education for school dropouts, promote employment, supply cheap food, and extend a free medical service in the poor areas of the cities and the countryside, with the help of 10,000 Cuban doctors. Redundant oil company buildings have been commandeered to serve as the headquarters of a new university for the poor, and oil money has been diverted to set up Vive, an innovative cultural television channel that is already breaking the traditional US mould of the Latin American media. |
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