VENEZUELA: EVEN IN DEATH, CHAVEZ’S SHADOW LOOMS LARGE

Now that the dust has settled, or to an extent settled, following the death of, for want of a better word, the behemoth of South American and perhaps global politics, Hugo Chavez, the country is now in that most perilous of situations which has confronted many a nation in the aftermath of a revolution. As tears begin to dry up and the demand for tissue paper to wipe the same off Venezuelan faces recedes, the reality of a post-Chavez Venezuela gradually dawns upon its people not least owing to the rapidly approaching election date of 14^th April which seems to have snuck up on followers of South American politics with a fair degree of stealth.

While Nicolas Maduro, the Chavez-anointed acting President and favourite to bag the election attempts and fails to ape the awe inspiring persona of the late great Chavez, his rival Henrique Capriles, despite being behind in the polls, appears to be making some headway, albeit while at the same time acquiring enemies at the rate of knots in the run-up to elections.

 

Capriles’s modus operandi is one which principally consists of highlighting the numerous claims of government excesses and corruption with which its government officials are currently bedevilled. Not letting up on his attacks, perhaps having learnt a thing or two about the attack dog style of the erstwhile President Chavez, Capriles attended several rallies organised by his supporters in which he wasted no time in ‘sticking it’ to his foes. Referring to claims of endemic corruption within government circles, Capriles told the partisan crowd: “They talk of socialism, but it’s on the surface only. Look how those well-connected ones live, what they wear, what cars they go round in, how many bodyguards they have.” Ratcheting up the rhetoric, Capriles topped things off by labelling his opponents “skin-deep socialists”.

 

Whether this newly unveiled firebrand persona will be enough to see Capriles through to victory is anybody’s guess although recent polls show that Capriles’s Democratic Union Party still lag behind the ruling Socialist Party. For Capriles, the difficulty lies in convincing sufficient numbers of the electorate that the country requires a movement away from Chavez’s imbued socialist principles and ideals which has served the country’s ordinary folk so well in recent years to the centrist position which Capriles’s party advocates. While Capriles is no doubt a very able politician, he is perhaps finding that his toughest battle is not against the incumbent Maduro but against a dead man in the form of the indefatigable figure of Chavez whose ghost lurks in the background. The reality therefore is such that even if Maduro does no campaigning from today’s date until the date of the election, the groundswell of emotion following Chavez’s death is more than likely to see him through to the finish line, proving that even in death, Chavez remains the force of nature which he certainly was in lifetime.