Why the US demonises Venezuela’s democracy

LONDON: On 30 May, Dan Rather, one of America’s best-known journalists, announced that Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez would die “in a couple of months at most”. Four months later Chavez is not only alive and campaigning but widely expected to win re-election on Sunday.

Such is the state of misrepresentation of Venezuela that a journalist can say almost anything about Chavez or his government and it is unlikely to be challenged, so long as it is negative. Even worse, Rather referred to Chavez as “the dictator” — a term that few, if any, political scientists familiar with the country would countenance.

Here is what Jimmy Carter said about Venezuela’s “dictatorship” a few weeks ago: “As a matter of fact, of the 92 elections that we’ve monitored, I would say that the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.”

Carter won a Nobel prize for his work through the Carter Centre, which has observed and certified past Venezuelan elections. But because Washington has sought for more than a decade to delegitimise Venezuela’s government, his viewpoint is only rarely reported.

In Venezuela, voters touch a computer screen to cast their vote and then receive a paper receipt, which they verify and deposit in a ballot box. Most of the paper ballots are compared with the electronic tally. This system makes vote-rigging nearly impossible: to steal the vote would require hacking the computers and then stuffing the ballot boxes to match the rigged vote.

Unlike in the US, where in a close vote we really have no idea who won (see Bush v Gore), Venezuelans can be sure that their vote counts. And also unlike the US, where as many as 90 million eligible voters will not vote in November, the government in Venezuela has done everything to increase voter registration (now at a record of about 97 per cent) and participation.

Yet the US foreign policy establishment seethes with contempt for Venezuela’s democratic process. In a report timed for the elections, the so-called Committee to Protect Journalists says that the government controls a “media empire”, neglecting to inform its readers that Venezuelan state TV has only about 5-8 per cent of the country’s audience. Of course, Chavez can interrupt normal programming with his speeches (under a law that pre-dates his administration), and regularly does so. But the opposition still has most of the media, including radio and print media — not to mention most of the wealth and income of the country.

The opposition will probably lose this election not because of the government’s advantages of incumbency, but because the living standards of the majority of Venezuelans have dramatically improved under Chavez. Since 2004, when the government gained control over the oil industry and the economy had recovered from the devastating, extra-legal attempts to overthrow it (including the 2002 US-backed military coup and oil strike of 2002-2003), poverty has been cut in half and extreme poverty by 70 per cent.

Millions have access to healthcare for the first time, and college enrolment has doubled, with free tuition for many students. Inequality has also been considerably reduced. By contrast, the two decades that preceded Chavez amount to one of the worst economic failures in Latin America, with real income per person actually falling by 14 per cent between 1980 and 1998.

In Washington, democracy has a simple definition: does a government do what the state department wants it to do? So it is not just Venezuela that regularly comes under fire from the Washington establishment: all of the left and newly independent governments of South America, including Argentina, Ecuador, and Bolivia are in the crosshairs (although Brazil is considered too big to get the same treatment except from the right). The state department tries to keep its eyes on the prize: Venezuela is sitting on 500bn barrels of oil, and doesn’t respect Washington’s foreign policy. That is what makes it public enemy number one.

But Venezuela is part of a “Latin American spring” that has produced the most democratic, progressive, and independent group of governments that the region has ever had. This is the former president of Brazil, Lula da Silva, last month: “A victory for Chavez is not just a victory for the people of Venezuela but also a victory for all the people of Latin America … this victory will strike another blow against imperialism.”

South America’s support is Venezuela’s best guarantee against continuing attempts by Washington — which is still spending millions of dollars within the country in addition to unknown covert funds — to undermine, delegitimise, and destabilise democracy in Venezuela.