By Petardo de Petare

Petardo de Petare

Actions, it is said, speak louder than words. A cliché, to be sure, but it is instructive when evaluating events in Venezuela during recent months.

For example, no matter how high-minded Hugo Chávez’s rhetoric may at times sound, the president’s actions are drawing a marked contradiction. It is an indisputable fact that he and the PSUV have co-opted the government’s cadena authority to expand the candidate’s reach while battling cancer. They have tilted the playing field against Henrique Capriles and the opposition through their control over many facets of the government, such as the judiciary and the electoral commission, known as the Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE). Chávez’s party has used its control over the Supreme Court to threaten Globovision, one of the last remaining television stations bold enough to air criticism of the president. The tightly controlled CNE told Capriles he was not permitted to wear a Venezuelan-themed baseball cap, even as every element of Chávez’s stage, bus, and piece of clothing bears the very same colors. The PSUV may try to convince us that their sole concern is the future of Venezuela; their actions, however, reveal a rapacious cartel devoted to maintaining its own power.

The PSUV’s abuses are indeed regrettable, but they are not surprising to most. More curious is how one might apply the “actions speak louder than words” test to Chávez’s economic policies.

For years, Chávez has heralded his expropriations policy as beneficial to Venezuela’s economy. Every time Chávez expropriated a company, utility or tract of land, he assured Venezuelans that his government would manage it better than the wasteful, profiteering private owners. The election is but months away, and Venezuela’s economy is in dire need of a jolt; indeed voters in Venezuela, as elsewhere, largely base their votes on economic factors. One would think, then, that Chávez would have increased his much-touted expropriations in order to foster economic growth ahead of October.

You would, however, be wrong. Chávez has barely expropriated anything at all in months.

Why, with economic performance so crucial to his re-election hopes, would Chávez cease one of his principal economic policies? If expropriations are as beneficial to Venezuelans as he boasts, why wouldn’t he go on an expropriation binge ahead of the election?

Perhaps he secretly acknowledges what so many already believe: that expropriations do not help the economy. In fact, his suspension of the policy suggests that he realizes that expropriations actively damage the economy.

Consider the following examples, which have already been amply documented by many prominent sources, including this website. Chávez seized farmland because he thought Venezuela’s agricultural industry needed a boost, but, even as Venezuelans suffer from dire shortages at the grocery store, hectare upon hectare of the expropriated land remains untilled. In the years following such expropriations, importation of basic foods traditionally grown in Venezuela, such as rice and coffee, has skyrocketed. He seized factories because he declared their private owners were not producing enough, yet today many expropriated companies remain in such shambles they are not even open for business. And all the while, Venezuela’s infrastructure – which Chávez’s government has controlled the entire time – continues to crumble, at times turning reliable electricity into a privilege and a simple commute into a treacherous endeavor.

Add to this the desperate (and temporary) ramping up of government support for the poor and homeless ahead of the election – financed through borrowed money – and it seems that, despite the rhetoric, Chávez is fully aware his policies have failed the very people he pledged to help.

Venezuela’s lower-class has long been Chávez’s largest political constituency; they have also been hardest hit by the struggles of recent years. And with reports out today of new polls showing Capriles surging into the lead, it appears he is losing ground with this constituency. In October, they will render their final judgment on whether Chávez has delivered positive results, not on how much progress has been made towards Chávez’s “Bolivarian Revolution.” And, if recent months are any indication, it seems that even an avowed socialist like Chávez will reject his own ideology if he thinks it will get him votes.