It would appear that the late President Chávez is to join a select band of deceased leaders whose mortal remains have been embalmed and placed on public display. The others, beginning with Lenin, who embarked on his corporeal ‘afterlife’ existence in 1924 (he would not have been happy about it), include Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il of North Korea, Ho Chi Minh of Vietnam and Mao Zedong of China. Stalin was also embalmed but was removed from his mausoleum to be interred during the time of Nikita Khrushchev in the 1960s. The point about all of them is that they were communist dictators, and with the exception of Lenin and Ho Chi Minh, had deliberately fostered a personality cult centred on themselves during their lifetimes.
Whether the late Mr Chávez would have been in accord with the decision to embalm his mortal form or not, it is clear that in the last months of his illness in particular, those around him were working to inspire a reaction from his supporters which was almost religious in its nature. Although operating in a rather different political context from the leaders named above, Chávez too when alive went to some lengths to create his own cult of personality, and removed from around him anyone who displayed a spark of independent initiative which potentially could dim the beam of his own singular light. As a consequence, the people who surrounded him were grey men, some of whom might be competent, but none of whom was possessed of any charisma or even force of personality.
They clearly understood, however, that the chavista movement depended on Chávez personally, and without him there was an acute danger of its potency dissipating. By ensuring his continued physical presence, therefore, he became mythified and the movement of which he was the originator transformed into something above and beyond a political entity. “Commander, here you are undefeated, pure, living for all time,” acting President Nicolás Maduro was quoted as intoning over the coffin, while the mourners chanted, “Chávez lives! The fight continues!” In this most Catholic of nations – and the late President Chávez himself professed his Catholicism, whatever his dispute with the Church – there is now a different kind of belief in circulation among the Christian flock that has a spiritual character with which the Church hierarchy, one might have thought, would not be altogether comfortable.
If the purpose of all this mythification is clear, the question is, will it serve the political purpose for which it is intended. The answer is probably ‘yes’ in the short term. With an election now set for mid-April, the spirit of veneration for the ‘Commandante’ will no doubt propel his anointed into the presidency no matter who the opposition candidate is, and it is likely to be Henrique Capriles Radonski again because the parties in his alliance don’t have time to choose anyone else. It is what happens thereafter that is the unanswered question, because even the most fervent chavista does not confuse their hero with Maduro.
At the moment, the acting President is trying to sound like Mr Chávez both in terms of the language and the content of his speeches, in order to maintain the momentum of the period preceding the late leader’s death and the intense emotion of the funeral. In the process he hopes to reinforce his identification with the late leader, a possibly futile exercise which might even be counter-productive considering his total lack of charisma and generally lacklustre deliveries. While he may feel it helps him now, assuming he wins the election it would be a mistake for him not to try and cultivate an independent persona as the head of state.
He will presumably be given a grace period like all new leaders if he wins the election, although how long that would last is impossible to say. In any event, he has some serious problems to confront in terms of Venezuela’s economy and extraordinarily high crime rate. Oil production is stagnant, and it is the cash cow of the nationalized oil company PDVSA which has been funding Chávez’s various programmes for the poor up until this point. With the former president’s hostility to the private sector, oil has now come to account for 95% of the nation’s exports, but with insufficient investment in the industry, and the prospect of a reduction in the oil price and Venezuela’s largest customer (still the US) becoming oil self-sufficient not too many years down the line, Mr Maduro would have to change direction if he is to do anything sustainable for the poor in the longer term.
As things stand, there is inflation as well as the food shortages which followed Mr Chávez’s nationalizations and price controls, while most economists seem agreed that there will have to be a second devaluation of the bolívar in the not too distant future. This would be the second for the year; the first of around 30% was in February. With a decline in the standard of living of the millions who gave their votes to the late President, Mr Maduro would find himself carrying the blame for any problems, whether they had their genesis during his period of government or not. In addition to that, within Venezuela his capacity to handle such problems has been queried in some quarters.
But his nervousness about the future, if such he has, would have to centre in the first instance on something else, and that is the fact that he does not have a grip on Mr Chávez’s party, the PSUV, which is not a unified entity. The late leader could impose his personality on the factions to pull all the strands together, but Mr Maduro cannot. Various commentators are already referring to a civilian-military split, while the possible ambitions of the President of the National Assembly, Diasdado Cabello have been mentioned before in these columns. There is too the resentment of the prominent role of the Cubans, who were suspected during the late leader’s illness of having played a role in Venezuela’s government. None of this will probably break the surface before the election, but if Mr Maduro wins, eventually strains of one kind or another will reveal themselves, and exactly how these will play out is impossible to say.
The uncertainty surrounding Venezuela’s future after the election should cause the Guyana government to import some caution into its calculations. Yesterday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a brief press release about President Ramotar’s attendance at Mr Maduro’s inauguration. They quoted acting President Maduro as saying that Commander Chávez had completely changed the foreign policy of Venezuela, “which now resolves our outstanding issues based on brotherhood and not hatred and war, which was the wish of the oligarchies and the imperialists. Here is the President of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana Donald Ramotar…”
Well, if the Government of Guyana believes its own cheery press release, it is naïve in the extreme; no border controversy was ever resolved by soothing words at an inauguration ceremony. While Mr Maduro himself is no doubt committed to “brotherhood” with Guyana, the opposition has been making noises of an altogether different tenor, while the military has always adopted a more bellicose posture on the boundary than some of the civilian elements in Caracas. In times of stress, it is an easy basis for a rallying cry and could be used against Mr Maduro.
Furthermore, exactly how long the PetroCaribe facility will survive in its present form is unknown given Venezuela’s economic problems, and the next Venezuelan president will be under pressure even from the PSUV to spend less money abroad and more at home. By now, Guyana must owe a considerable sum to the facility, which can be used as a lever for those who would wish to stir up hostility in our neighbour to the west. In short, Mr Maduro’s election to the presidency and his current benignity towards this country notwithstanding, trying to see the future clearly in Venezuela is like looking through a glass darkly. A variety of scenarios are possible, and the government here would be behaving with gross irresponsibility if it did not recognize that and factor it into its contingency plans.