Chavez Loses Something; Take That May

I had faith in the Venezuelan people, but I must admit I was holding my breath. But the good people of one of my favorite countries defeated their president’s attempt to legally and constitutionally become a dictator. Much to the dismay of KABOBfest’s official Chavez apologist, Maytha.

President Hugo Chavez suffered a stinging defeat Monday in a vote on constitutional changes that would have let him run for re-election indefinitely and solidify his bid to transform this major U.S. oil provider into a socialist state.

Voters defeated the sweeping measures by a vote of 51 percent to 49 percent, said Tibisay Lucena, chief of the National Electoral Council, with voter turnout just 56 percent.

Let me qualify my views. There are many things I like about Chavez, but most of them appeal to the helpless news reader/immature guy in me. I like how he can flip traditional powers off. I like how he can tell the likes of Bush and Blair to go fcuk themselves as they try to lecture the world on democracy and human rights standing on the pile of Iraqi children they murdered. I like that he has the balls to speak his mind with out worrying about consequences.

But that’s also what I don’t like about the dude; he takes his rhetoric too far, and sometimes forgets that being a president is being responsible for the well being of a nation, not a feel-good position. I don’t like him because he has totalitarian tendencies, but I like him because he is trying to become a dictator legitimately, democratically, and constitutionally, instead of suspending the constitution wholly, like Egypt’s Mubarak and Pakistan’s Musharraf, or partially like George Bush.

Many of us who champion causes of social justice, indigenous rights, and self determination, tend to emotionally embrace leaders who pay lip service to these causes and not hold them to the strict and skeptical standards we must hold politicians and leaders to. As a result, we tend to lose perspective and not notice similarities and parallels to other dictators, like those who rise from the right. And Chavez’ progression of power consolidation was very similar to other dictator, from both the right and left, who reached power through free elections only to suspend the system and acquire absolute power. Case in point, Zimbabwe’s Mugabi single handedly destroyed the country’s economy and consolidated power under the pretence of land reform and redistribution.

Chavez in his turn, was well on his way to hurting the country's economy with his less than sensible policies. He should be applauded for attempting to renegotiate revenue sharing deals with the foreign oil companies that have so far gotten well more than their fair share of the oil revenue. But he could have consulted some economists on how to better deal with the matter, and drive fewer of them out, there by not losing oil production capacity. He should be applauded for diverting much of the revenue to social programs. But instead of throwing money at the problem, he could have had expert planners invest the money in projects that produce jobs and long term economic development. He should be applauded for trying to reform the economy, make it more independent, and unbeg the oil price to the dollar. But he should have experts do it instead of making his decision-making criteria "what ever pisses off the capitalist west" since some of those decision tend to backfire, and foster an environment hostile to business development and eventually drive many of the engineers who ran the country's oil industry to work in Canada's Oil Sands.

I have to admit that I still find it cute how Chavez tried to win elections to become a dictator, it tells you how inexperienced of dictator he is, or nice of one he is. Anyway, Venezuelan’s did not buy into his pitch, even though he practically shut down all the not pro-Chavez media outlets. And the sweetest part is, it was the people vs. Chavez, not an American puppet vs. Chavez, where the people would have endorsed the dictator in spite of somebody like Bush. Luckily, there was no reason for self-destructive behavior. It’s just they know that absolute power corrupts…