Hugo Chávez: The Anti-Elite President

by César Chelala

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's recent criticism of the Bush administration at the United Nations is only the latest in a war of words with the U.S. President. Chávez has repeatedly accused the Bush administration of trying to assassinate him, a charge U.S. officials have repeatedly denied. Chávez has threatened to cut off his country's oil supply to the United States. Not a light threat, since Venezuela is the world's fifth largest oil exporter, and the U.S. market absorbs almost 60 percent of its exports.

Who is Chávez, and what explains the current antagonism between him and the Bush administration?

Chávez is essentially a product of the failure of Venezuelan traditional parties to bring progress with economic justice to Venezuelans. He is as disliked by the elites in Venezuela as by members of the Bush administration - many of whom have been favorite targets of Chávez's scorn.

The feeling is mutual. At her Senate confirmation hearings in January, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accused Chávez of meddling in the affairs of Venezuela's neighboring countries, a charge recently repeated by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld during his visit to Latin America earlier this month.

Chávez, by contrast, has accused the United States of trying to topple him and has charged that U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency officials stationed in Venezuela have been conducting espionage and ordered them out of the country. In addition, to increase the Bush administration's displeasure, he hired 16,000 Cuban doctors to provide free medical attention to the poor. The Bush administration has been a severe critic of Chávez's close ties to Fidel Castro.

After winning a recall referendum last August, Chávez has embarked on a Latin American crusade that has won him popular support in several countries in the continent. He has carried out important economic cooperation agreements with countries such as Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. Through the PetroCaribe program, he has offered Venezuelan oil in very favorable conditions to Caribbean nations. He has also signed energy deals with France, India and China.

Chávez has taken advantage of his country's enormous oil reserves to improve the economic status of Venezuela's poor. Seventy-five percent of Venezuelans are poor, and 45 percent live in extreme poverty. Although many dislike his vociferous and authoritarian style, Chávez has done more for the poor and dispossessed in his country than any Venezuelan president in recent memory.

His government is pursuing an ambitious agrarian reform program. In addition, he is carrying out an educational program for people in the shantytowns of Venezuela aimed at including the disenfranchised and ignored into the country's political process.

Chávez has used oil revenues to finance infrastructure development, conduct literacy programs and create scores of small-scale workers' cooperatives in agriculture and other sectors. In 2004 Venezuela's state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela (PdVSA) spent more than $3.7 billion in housing for the poor, free medical clinics, schools, and literacy programs. More than 1.2 million adults have learned how to read since Chávez came into office, and the country now has one of highest literacy rates (93.4 percent) in the hemisphere.

Although Chávez is in general not accused of corruption himself, he has not been exempt from charges of economically favoring his allies. Critics of his government contend that his reforms are unsustainable, and that he is squandering valuable state resources. Also, he has been accused of increasingly concentrating power in his own hands, since he has now complete control of all state institutions.

Why do Venezuela's elites hate him so? Maybe because he has sharply curtailed their benefits. Through his "Zero Evasion Tax Plan," he has forced large corporations and landowners to pay taxes to an extent that they haven't done in the past. Elites, mainly white, also may hate him because, in this racially divided country, he is a darker color than they are.

Chavez's bold political initiatives have clearly put him on a collision course with the United States, a course in which he has the overwhelming support of the Latin American masses. Unless the relationship between both countries is more carefully managed, democracy may become the main casualty of this confrontation.