Venezuela: Tense victory

Because of the different trajectories the Anglophone Caribbean (now grouped in Caricom) and Latin America were forced into because of their competing imperialistic forbears, the former rarely took great interest in the domestic affairs of the latter. But that was certainly not the case with the presidential election in Venezuela held last Sunday – at least among the political classes.
There were definitely sighs of relief in many Caribbean capitals, especially in Guyana and Jamaica, when on Monday morning, Nicolas Maduro, the hand-picked successor of Hugo Chávez, was declared by the Venezuelan National Electoral Council as the winner. The change of perspective, of course, had been precipitated by the initiatives of the recently departed Chávez to forge closer linkages with the Caribbean as part of his ‘Bolivarian Revolution’, launched more than a decade ago.
The ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for our Americas) was a social, economic, and political integration movement that did attract some Caricom members such as Antigua and St Vincent as members. The carrot in the arrangement was the Petrocaribe facility, under which Venezuelan oil was supplied to 17 cash-strapped, mainly Caribbean, countries under very attractive terms. Very little money had to be paid up front and the balance was stretched out over 20 years, at nominal interest rates. What made the facility even more attractive was that it facilitated what were fundamentally barter arrangements with recipient countries allowed to ship commodities, such as rice in the case of Guyana, in lieu of cash payments.
The patent relief manifested is a consequence of Maduro pledging to continue the Petrocaribe facility as opposed to his defeated opponent Henrique Capriles. Capriles represents the sentiments of the conservative segments of the Venezuelan polity that enjoyed power in collaboration with U.S. interests that exploited Venezuelan oil.
Venezuela has the largest reserves of petroleum in the world and the stakes to control that commodity are very high.
The vote in the election, however, was very close, with Maduro receiving 50.7 percent and Capriles 49.1 percent, with only about 300,000 votes separating the two camps. Rather dispiritingly, but not surprisingly, Capriles has challenged the results and is demanding ‘an audit’. Hundreds of observers, foreign and domestic had officially scrutinised the vote in a system which former U.S. President Jimmy Carter had dubbed ‘the best in the world’. There have been no reports of any irregularities.
Capriles’ challenge has the potential to destabilise the Venezuelan revolution launched by Chávez to bring greater equity to the distribution of the wealth generated by what he pointed out was the patrimony of all Venezuelans – oil. In the last decade, there were rapid gains made by the poor in the areas of health, education, jobs, and opportunities. On the other hand, there has been an unfortunate upsurge of crime, inflation, and shortages of food that gave credence to the criticisms of Capriles that the economic policies must be more nuanced than simply focusing on redistributing the oil bonanza.
In contrast to Maduro, who declared that he was ‘the son’ and ‘apostle’ of Chávez and would continue undeviatingly on the path set out by the latter, Capriles has patterned himself on the example of the more moderate ex-President of Brazil, Lula. While Lula was also charismatic, with firm roots in the poorer sections of his society, he had chosen a more moderate course for the transformation of his country’s also lopsided distribution of wealth. His focus was on the diversification of the Brazilian economy and taking welfare measures to improve the lot of the poor.
Capriles’ message obviously resounded in the country in tandem with doubts that Maduro would be capable of steering the Venezuelan ship of state in the present choppy waters. Whatever the outcome of the electoral challenge, it is clear that Maduro will be politically challenged from both inside and outside his party. The Caribbean hopes he does not have to abandon Petrocaribe.