José R. Cárdenas 
served in several foreign policy positions during the George W. Bush administration (2004-2009), including on the National Security Council staff. He is a consultant with Vision Americas in Washington, DC.
How ironic that just as the U.S. State Department announced a basketball “sports diplomacy” visit to Venezuela, that country’s National Assembly is debating yet another grandiose Hugo Chávez project to virtually expropriate and nationalize Venezuela’s entire sporting sector.
Included in the U.S. delegation is NBA player Greivis Vásquez, a Venezuelan native, who will spend five days conducting clinics, visiting schools, and interacting with underprivileged youth. Such exchanges are meant to present a “softer” side of the United States and can have value, provided that governments like that of Mr. Chávez don’t try to hijack them for their own narrow political purposes.
On the other hand, there is nothing redeeming about the Venezuelan government‘s latest harebrained scheme to exert government control over an increasingly large part of Venezuelan society. If the Venezuelan government has its way, Venezuelan athletes chasing their sports dreams will soon encounter a vastly different environment – one most assuredly not for the better.
Mr. Chávez wants to designate the entire sporting sector – including sporting leagues and purveyors of goods and services – as “public services,” meaning that they must be made available to all sectors of Venezuelan society. If a particular entity is deemed by a government bureaucrat not to be fulfilling that mission, it runs the risk of confiscation by the state. We have seen this movie before. This is usually the first step the government takes before it expropriates an entire sector of the Venezuelan economy. Declaring anything a “public service” it’s a sure sign that the government will exercise its power over that sector.
The new Ley Orgánica del Deporte (“Organic Sports Law”) is yet another Chávez promise that, while cloaked in noble rhetoric, will accomplish none of its goals and lead to declining sports opportunities, more inefficiency, and more corruption.
For example, the Venezuelan private sector has traditionally been able to claim tax deductions for their support of sporting activities – everything from buying uniforms for professional teams to building local facilities for underserved communities. Under Mr. Chávez’s law, Venezuelan businesses will now be levied a new tax that would go directly to a National Fund for Sports Development, which will have sole authority to decide where and how the funding is spent.
It constitutes one more circumscription of the rights of individuals and the private sector to make choices and exercise freedoms. Moreover, with the government hovering over every sports enterprise and examining their decisions under threat of confiscation it will simply drive investment capital elsewhere.
There is even a more ominous dynamic at play here. An authoritarian system is usually defined as one in which the government exercises control of the political system, but usually allows relative freedoms in the economic and social sectors as long as no one challenges the prevailing political order. On the other hand, a government that invades the peoples’ social space is a dangerous slide into totalitarianism.
The days when millions of Venezuelans turn to baseball, basketball, soccer, or any other sports as a quiet respite from the country’s problems and political polarization could become a thing of the past. As history tells us, whatever sector of society the Venezuelan government touches is immediately politicized. Will all sports teams now be forced to wear red uniforms? Will pictures of Ché Guevara now replace the Maltín Polar logo or that of other popular Venezuelan brands common in stadiums?
The Venezuelan caudillo has always tried to hide his true colors behind an aura of democracy. But as the government seeks to control more and more of Venezuela’s society, he fools no one. It would seem he is trying to emulate his idol, Fidel Castro, who has survived 50 years in power by maintaining a stranglehold on all facets of Cuban society. After all, when populations have to rely on the state for the delivery of all goods and services, dissent is inevitably suffocated. Cuba stands as the tragic example.
Mr. Chávez, of course, is not there yet, but think of the imagery of a frog in a frying pan. Turn up the heat too fast and it jumps off; turn up the heat slowly and it is cooked before it knows it. The Venezuelan people should oppose Chávez’s latest power grab before his dream becomes their nightmare.
