For most people who have heard or read about Hugo Chavez inthe international media, his re-election on Sunday as president of Venezuela bya convincing margin might be puzzling. Almost all of the news we hear about himis bad: He picks fights with the United States and sides with “enemies” such asIran; he is a “dictator” or “strongman” who has squandered the nation’s oilwealth; the Venezuelan economy is plagued by shortages and is usually on thebrink of collapse.
Then there is the other side of the story: Since the Chavezgovernment got control over the national oil industry, poverty has been cut byhalf, and extreme poverty by 70 percent. College enrollment has more thandoubled, millions of people have access to health care for the first time andthe number of people eligible for public pensions has quadrupled. So it shouldnot be surprising that most Venezuelans would re-elect a president who hasimproved their living standards. That’s what has happened with all of theleftist governments that now govern most of South America. This is despite thefact that they, like Chavez, have most of their countries’ media against them,and their opposition has most of the wealth and income of their respectivecountries.
The list includes Rafael Correa, who was reelected presidentof Ecuador by a wide margin in 2009; the enormously popular Luiz Inacio Lula daSilva of Brazil, who was re-elected in 2006 and then successfully campaignedfor his former chief of staff, now President Dilma Rousseff, in 2010; EvoMorales, Bolvia’s first indigenous president, who was reelected in 2009; JoseMujica, who succeeded his predecessor from the same political alliance inUruguay “ the Frente Amplio “ in 2009; Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, whosucceeded her husband, the late Nestor Kirchner, winning the 2011 Argentinepresidential election by a solid margin.
Democracy was at issue when South America stood togetheragainst Washington on such issues as the 2009 military coup in Honduras. Thedifferences were so pronounced that they led to the formation of a newhemisphere-wide organization “ the Community of Latin American and CaribbeanStates, which excluded the United States and Canada “ as an alternative to theUS-dominated Organisation of American States.
The administration of George W Bush pursued a strategy oftrying to isolate Venezuela from its neighbors, and ended up isolating itself.President Barack Obama has continued this policy, and at the 2012 Summit of theAmericas in Colombia he was as isolated as his predecessor.
Although some media have talked of Venezuela’s impendingeconomic collapse for more than a decade, it hasn’t happened and is not likelyto happen. After recovering from a recession that began in 2009, the Venezuelaneconomy has been growing for two and a half years now, and inflation has fallensharply while growth has accelerated. The country has a sizeable trade surplus.Its public debt is relatively low, and so is its debt-service burden. It hasplenty of room to borrow foreign currency (it has borrowed $36 billion fromChina, mostly at very low interest rates), and can borrow domestically as wellat low or negative real interest rates.
So even if oil prices were to crash temporarily (as they didin 2008-09), there would be no need for austerity or recession. And hardlyanyone is predicting a long-term collapse of oil prices. Venezuela’s economydoes have long-term problems, such as relatively high inflation and inadequateinfrastructure. But the substantial improvement in people’s income (the averageincome has risen much faster than inflation under Chavez), plus gains in healthcare and education, seems to have outweighed the government’s failings in otherareas, including law enforcement, in the minds of most voters.
The US economic embargo against Cuba has persisted for morethan half a century, despite its obvious stupidity and failure. Americanhostility toward Venezuela is only about 12 years old, but shows no sign ofbeing reconsidered, despite the evidence that it is also alienating the rest ofthe hemisphere.
Venezuela has about 500 billion barrels of oil and isburning them currently at a rate of 1 billion barrels a year. Chavez or asuccessor from his party will likely be governing the country for many years tocome. The only question is when “ if ever “ Washington will accept the resultsof democratic change in the region.
Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center forEconomic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C., and president of Just ForeignPolicy
