Roberto Jorquera
On July 9, Diego Bautista Urbaneja, a leader of the Coordinadora Democratica (CD, Democratic Coordination) coalition outlined the political program that the opposition plans to implement if it succeeds in ousting the radical leftist government of President Hugo Chavez, through winning a presidential recall referendum on August 15.
Urbaneja said the program was the product of a process of consultations and consensus of nine political parties, 26 social organisations, 27 labour organizations and five opinion groups.
In reality, it is a creation of the National Endowment for Democracy, a US government agency that has been pumping millions of dollars to anti-Chavez groups in Venezuela. The NED awarded a grant of approximately US$300,000 in early 2003 to the Centre for International Private Enterprise, a US-based entity and one of four core NED grantees, together with the Centre for Dissemination of Economic Information, a Venezuelan organisation, to draft a "Project Consensus to Build a National Agenda". Organisations involveed in this project are the same one that Urbaneja said had drafted the "new" opposition program.
The web-based news service Venezuelanalysis.com reported on July 13: "The opposition plan titled 'Consensus Country', promises a return to free market economic policies, a change that would be welcomed by international financial leaders and institutions, including the International Monetary Fund. The IMF had offered support for the dictatorial government of business leader Pedro Carmona, who made the same promise after briefly ousting Chavez through a coup d'etat in April of 2002."
Under the CD's plan, Venezuela's Hydrocarbons Law would be amended to allow greater access for foreign investment in the country's oil and gas industries. Venezuela is the world's fifth largest exporter of petroleum.
Chavez, who won a landslide election in 1998 and was comfortably re-elected in 2000, has been channelling the income earned by Venezuela's nationalised oil industry into a range of social programs that benefit the country's poor.
The opposition plan also calls for large-scale private sector investment in state electric companies. "Privatisations may be necessary due to the large investments needed", Urbaneja has claimed.
The opposition would revoke the 2001 agrarian reform law, which has distributed land to landless rural workers, but which the opposition says "threatens private property".
In an interview with Venezuela's state TV station on July 12, Urbaneja said that the continuity of Chavez's social programs would not be guaranteed under a post-Chavez CD government. These social programs — the literacy campaign, access for the poor to secondary and higher education, health care — are extremely popular according to opinion polls.
It is also no secret that the CD wants to reverse the close relationship that has been built up between Venezuela and Cuba. "Venezuela will renew its friendship with its main petroleum client, the United States, and will withdraw its relations with Cuba", said CD leader Alejandro Armas. "We will redraw our foreign policy [with respect to Cuba], which has distanced Venezuela from the United States."
Armas said that treaties between Venezuela and Cuba "will be thrown out, in order to dismantle that sinister alliance".
Such a move would directly affect some of Venezuela's major social programs, such as Mission Barrio Adentro, which employs more than 10,000 Cuban doctors to provide primary health care to the poor. The literacy program also relies on Cuban assistance.
The capitalist-backed opposition also aims to amend the constitution. In particular, it wants to eliminate the right to hold recall referendums, deny military personnel the right to vote and eliminate the constitutional articles that guarantee the right to peaceful civil disobedience.
Venezuelanalyis.com reported that, ironically, the opposition plans to remove "Articles 333 and 350 of Venezuela's constitution, which justify rebelling against an autocratic or dictatorial government. Those articles have been used by the opposition to justify anti-Chavez militant actions such as the 'legitimate disobedience' camp that rebel military officers set up in 2002 at the Altamira square in eastern Caracas to demand Chavez's resignation. The opposition also invoked those articles to justify the 'Plan Guarimba' activated earlier this year, which consisted of setting up roadblocks and the destruction of property. Opposition leader Elias Santana invoked article 350 when calling for 'tax law disobedience' during the oil industry shutdown and business lock-out at the end of 2002."
The lead-up to the August 15 referendum has further clarified the pro-business program of the opposition and the extent of the political changes that it would implement if returned to government.
It has also further clarified the anti-capitalist direction of Chavez's Bolivarian revolution. In an interview with the Argentinian daily Clarin, published on July 10, Chavez said: "For a long time my country has been divided, but by a minority that lives in extreme wealth with a majority that lives in poverty. This is a dangerous and explosive division. Above this reality that has existed for decades there is a process unfolding. We have improved literacy by 1.2 million people, which is part of an education system that helps eliminate social exclusion. There is a health program that targets 17 million Venezuelans. We have redistributed land, provided credit and created cooperatives. We are heading towards a society that includes people and that is against neoliberal exclusion and savage capitalism."
Reuters reported on July 12 that "although a number of opinion polls have predicted Chavez will lose the recall vote, many also show him beating his closest opposition rivals in a subsequent election".
However, a number of polls taken in the first week of July suggest that Chavez may win the recall referendum. A survey conducted by North American Research found that 57% of respondents said they would vote to retain Chavez as Venezuela's president, and a poll conducted by Greenberg-Quinlan-Rosner Research, found that Chavez would win by 49% against the opposition's 44%.
From Green Left Weekly, July 21, 2004.
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