"A Bolívar for our times"; "a Latin American liberator". This
extravagant praise in Cuba's communist mouthpiece Granma was the send
off from Havana for Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez as he returned to Caracas
on 4 July. It sounded eerily like an elegiac obituary. Chávez appeared on the
balcony of the Miraflores palace in time for his country's bicentennial
celebrations, but great uncertainty continues to surround the state of his
health after he broke his 18-day silence on 30 June by revealing that he had
been diagnosed with cancer and had been operated on for a cancerous
tumour.
Neither Chávez nor his government has elaborated on the message he delivered
on state television on 30 June so it remains unclear what type of cancer he has,
or whether it has metastasized (or spread), which would provide a fair
indication of the severity of his illness. How much treatment will Chávez
require in the weeks and months ahead and where will this take place? In the
absence of this information, it is difficult to know what his chances are of
even surviving until the presidential elections in December 2012 let alone
standing in them.
In the short-term at least it is clear Chávez will not be able to continue
with his customarily demanding schedule of public appearances, media commitments
and foreign travel. His weekly broadcast Aló, Presidente will need to
be seriously curtailed or suspended; likewise his prolix public speeches. Chávez
is the lifeblood of the Bolivarian Revolution: without his physical
omnipresence, there will inevitably be a leadership vacuum. The fact that his
Vice-President, Elías Jaua, reacted to the revelation by instructing supporters
to maintain "unity" and "maximum discipline" clearly implies there is concern at
the top echelons of government that uncertainty could lead to infighting within
the ruling Partido Unido Socialista de Venezuela (PSUV), if not a potential
challenge from within. This might explain in part why Chávez felt the need to
hurry back for Venezuela's bicentennial celebrations against the advice of
Cuba's Fidel Castro.
There is, however, clearly no obvious successor to Chávez. Even his chief
lieutenants have conspicuously failed in elections where the vote is about the
PSUV and the abstract concept of 21st Century Socialism, rather than Chávez.
One close confidant of Chávez, Diosdado Cabello, lost the governorship of the
state of Miranda to opposition figurehead, Henrique Capriles, in regional
elections in November 2008, while another, Jesse Chacón, even contrived to lose
the Caracas municipality of Sucre, a Chavista stronghold which includes the
Petare slum, home to nearly one-third of the capital's residents.
The announcement
Chávez might personally have been too
ill to speak during some of the near three-week news blackout between his
surgery on a pelvic abscess and his announcement that he had cancer, but his
government could and should have released more precise information during this
hiatus. If US President Barack Obama had been taken ill, it would have been
inconceivable that he could have kept secret the severity of his illness for so
long - and the Venezuelan government would have been quick to denounce the US
for undemocratic practices and lack of transparency if he had. The stage-managed
proof-of-life videos released in Cuba before Chávez's announcement were more
reminiscent of Colombia's Farc guerrillas than the actions of a democratic
state.
At best the whole episode shows that the country's state institutions simply
do not function without Chávez; at worst it shows a blatant disregard for
constitutional procedure. When Paraguay's President Fernando Lugo left the
country to undergo chemotherapy in Brazil during his fight against lymphatic
cancer he transferred power to his Vice-President Federico Franco, a politician
who he distrusts because he is openly critical of Lugo. Chávez did not transfer
one iota of power to Jaua, and he is a staunch loyalist. Fernando Soto, the head
of the national assembly, a key organ in any democracy, had categorically denied
that Chávez had cancer and insisted he would say so if he had. Either he is an
outright liar or he was simply not kept informed of the true nature of Chávez's
illness. The latter seems more likely and must have caused some disenchantment
among senior Chavistas who now realise they were not as close to the throne as
they might have thought.
The return
Chávez managed to address supporters amassed
beneath the balcony of the Miraflores palace for about half an hour on 4 July.
"Here I am in the epicentre of my greatest love," he said, adding that he could
not possibly be absent on the occasion of Venezuela's independence celebrations.
He said he had overcome "the first stage" of his battle, experiencing some "very
difficult hours", but he disabused supporters of the notion that his presence
indicated that the battle was won. He said that "strict medical treatment" lay
ahead and that he would behave with the discipline of a new recruit henceforth
on the medical front. Still, his failure to attend the military parade a day
later on 5 July fuelled speculation about how challenging his forthcoming
struggle is likely to be. Instead, he briefly met Lugo as well as Bolivia's
President Evo Morales and Uruguay's José Mujica, who travelled to Caracas to
attend the celebrations.
Chávez might be hoping that the shockwaves in Venezuela in recent weeks, and
his fortitude in the face of a genuinely mighty foe, might drive up his
popularity. To put it crudely could "the cancer effect" be used in the same way
that Argentina's President Cristina Fernández has tapped into the death of her
husband Néstor Kirchner to see a surge in her popularity in the polls and all
but ensure her re-election in October? Probably not. Polls were already
suggesting that Chávez would require a vigorous campaign to stave off the
challenge of even an emasculated opposition in December 2012 and there must be
real doubts about whether he will be fit enough to do that. Paradoxically, even
though the chances of the opposition Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (MUD) winning
next year would be immeasurably strengthened if they faced any rival other than
a fully fit Chávez, a debilitated Chávez is more likely to preserve the unity of
the MUD, which is its only hope of emerging victorious.
Foreign repercussions
Fidel Castro had more at stake than
the loss of a close friend when he sought to nurse President Chávez back to
health over the last month. If Chávez were to die he could well take the Cuban
Revolution with him to his grave. Not only does Venezuela provide nearly 100,000
barrels of crude per day to Cuba but it also pays inflated costs for the
services of Cuban doctors in Venezuela. If the umbilical cord to Venezuela were
cut Cuba would face a more serious crisis than the not so special period after
the dissolution of the USSR (see sidebar).
Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega was also quick to send Hugo Chávez a "get
well soon" message: Venezuela has provided some US$500m in cooperation to
Nicaragua over the last three years that has enabled Ortega to roll out social
initiatives to alleviate poverty and strengthen his chances of re-election in
November. Intriguingly, the head of the Dominican central bank, Vicente Bengoa,
also publicly expressed the concern which must be felt across the Caribbean by
all the recipients of Venezuela's discounted oil scheme Petrocaribe. Bengoa said
cheap oil through Petrocaribe was instrumental in helping the Dominican Republic
weather the 2008 global slowdown. He said it showed the sort of "solidarity"
alien to the IMF, which had the government "on its knees" demanding tough
austerity measures. He urged Dominicans to pray for Chávez's
health.
