Tag Archives: successor

Apr
18
2013
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ICYMI: Venezuela’s Maduro Fails to Imitate Chávez’ Success

Atlantic Sentinel
April 15, 2013
By Nick Ottens

130414 nicolas maduro ap 605 e1366308092446 ICYMI: Venezuela’s Maduro Fails to Imitate Chávez’ Success

Courtesy of: Associated Press

Acting president Nicolás Maduro was declared the winner in Venezuela’s election on Sunday, defeating the opposition’s candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski by over two hundred thousand votes, according to the state’s election board.

Maduro succeeds the Latin American nation’s fiery socialist leader Hugo Chávez who died of cancer last month after fourteen years in power.

Although Capriles, who won 44 percent of the votes in last year’s election against Chávez and just under 49.1 percent on Sunday, according to the official results, accused the ruling party of fraud and demanded a recount, it is unlikely that Maduro’s victory will be reversed. “We will know what to do if someone raises their insolent voice against the people,” the socialist warned on Sunday night.

Still, Maduro’s unexpectedly narrow win—opinion polls had predicted a landslide—casts doubt on the ruling party’s ability to hold onto power without its popular leader.

Chávez’ protégé lacks the charisma that enabled the deceased former president to win four consecutive elections and influence the politics of neighboring countries, including Bolivia and Ecuador where Presidents Evo Morales and Rafael Correa, respectively, imitated his populist left wing policies.

Risa Grais-Targow, an associate with the Eurasia Group consultancy, expects that Maduro, lacking a base of support of his own, “will struggle to manage internal disputes, especially as social discontent rises in a deteriorating economic environment.”

She writes at Quartz that the new president’s priority will likely be to reverse social discontent, “which means he is unlikely to make needed economic adjustments.”

Foreign exchange and price controls will remain in place. Maduro might pursue even more stringent state controls to “prove his revolutionary credentials,” like pushing an antitrust law through parliament.

The National Assembly is considering a law that would empower the government “to confiscate any business that it deems not acting in the public interest,” writes José R. Cárdenas at Foreign Policy. It would install a panel that decides whether a company has a “decisive domain” over the setting of prices or other market conditions in a particular industry, without stipulating what “decisive domain” means.

In other words, any successful company runs the risk of confiscation at any time by crossing the government’s arbitrary line of being “too successful.” And with the judicial sector also controlled by the government, private companies are left with no outlet to appeal adverse decisions.

Cárdenas predicts that the law will depress private sector production and further tilt the playing field in favor of state owned enterprises which are exempt from it.

Chávez hugely expanded the public sector and nationalized key industries, including oil. But lack of industrial development has forced Venezuela to import refined oil products even if it is the world’s tenth largest petroleum exporter.

The country has also had to cope with energy and food shortages as well as skyrocketing inflation that is projected to top 30 percent this year.

Market reforms are needed to revitalize Venezuela’s economy which the consultancy firm Ecoanalitica projects will expand less than 1 percent this year. Maduro, however, lacks the political credibility and quite probably the will to deviate from the party line and tamper with his predecessor’s legacy.

Significant changes in economic policy are unlikely in the short term even if more Venezuelans than preelection polls suggested apparently agree with Capriles that the current model is “not viable.”

To read this article at the Atlantic Sentinel, please click here.

 
Jan
3
2013
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An Ailing Chávez Hides From View As A Constitutional Crisis Looms

hugo chavez campaign stump An Ailing Chávez Hides From View As A Constitutional Crisis Looms

Courtesy of: Reuters

In Venezuela, the significance of events during the last several weeks cannot be overstated. After promising the Venezuelan people that he was “totally free” of the abdominal cancer that plagued him for more than a year, Hugo Chávez won re-election on October 7. Two months later, however, a visibly weak Chávez announced that his cancer had returned. He was rushed to Cuba for surgery on December 11; reports later surfaced that he had suffered serious “complications” after his fourth operation in 18 months.

Before leaving the country, Chávez designated newly-named Vice President Nicolas Maduro as his successor. According to Venezuela’s constitution, if a president dies or is unable to serve, a new election must be called within 30 days. A pallid Chávez, speaking on December 8th at the presidential palace, asked Venezuela to “elect Nicolás Maduro” if a special election occurs.

Though the special election requirement seems unambiguous, any transition of power is likely to be protracted and – because to several confusing provisions in Venezuela’s constitution – perhaps quite contentious. Chávez is due to be re-inaugurated on January 10th. As Foreign Policy explained this week, Chávez’s inability to be sworn in will pose significant problems for his party and thereby, the future of his self-styled socialist revolution:

“The problem for Maduro is that his term as vice president expires January 10th, when the current presidential term ends and a new one begins. Chávez, who is also president-elect, may not be healthy enough to be sworn in and appoint him vice president again. If that doesn’t happen, Maduro will be out of a job, even though he would remain the ruling party candidate in any follow-up election.”

If Chávez misses his inauguration, National Assembly president Diosdado Cabello would then assume control of the government until the President is finally sworn in or declared by the Assembly to be “totally absent.” Such a declaration, however, is unlikely to occur unless the President actually dies. Indeed, some of his socialist allies have suggested postponing the inauguration to accommodate Chávez’s health – a constitutionally dubious step that has drawn criticism from opposition leaders.

Even within the ruling socialist party there are divisions. Maduro and Cabello have emerged as the figureheads in a behind-the-scenes battle over the future of the party. Already faced with a slumping economy, a much-needed currency devaluation and a cancer-stricken president, Venezuelans may well have a full-blown constitutional crisis on their hands to start 2013.

If recent reports are to be believed, the country draws ever closer to such a scenario. Multiple outlets report that Chávez, his immune system ravaged by the cancer, suffered a severe respiratory infection following his most recent surgery. News also emerged that the infection was so serious it prevented Chávez from breathing, requiring doctors to perform a tracheotomy. Last month, Maduro sped to Havana to speak with the ailing president, sparking rumors that Chávez was on his deathbed.

For their part, members of the Venezuelan opposition have demanded the government tell ‘the whole truth’ about the president’s health. So far, the information released has lacked much needed specifics to determine the likelihood of Chávez’s survival.

For Venezuelans seeking clarification from the president himself, it may be a long wait. Chávez has not been seen or heard from since his statement nearly a month ago on December 8th. And this week, a source inside the Cuban hospital claimed that Chávez has been put in an induced coma, is “only kept alive by life support,” or may have even died. Chávez’s end may indeed be near, but we can be sure this is only the first chapter of a critical period for the future of Venezuelan’s government.

 
Dec
10
2012
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ICYMI: Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, facing a 4th cancer surgery, anoints successor in case he has to leave office

The Washington Post
December 9, 2012
By Juan Forero

hugo chavez ICYMI: Venezuelas Hugo Chavez, facing a 4th cancer surgery, anoints successor in case he has to leave office

Courtesy of: Miraflores Press

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will undergo his fourth cancer surgery in Cuba in the coming days, the fiery leader said over the weekend, explaining that he had decided to designate a successor in case the illness forces him to resign from the office he has held for nearly 14 years.

The announcement was the clearest sign yet that Chavez’s battle with cancer could abruptly end his self-described socialist revolution. It prompted his followers to flock to churches and public squares Sunday to pray and chant slogans supporting him.

Saturday night, in a dour address on television, the president said “some malignant cells” had been detected in his pelvic region that would necessitate surgery in Havana’s Cimeq hospital, where he has been treated before. Chavez said he would fly to Cuba on Sunday, although the government did not confirm his departure.

Chavez, 58, said his vice president and confidant, Nicolas Maduro, would assume control if he has to step down. The populist leader urged supporters to vote for Maduro, who made his mark as Chavez’s foreign minister, should there be a need for a presidential election.

“If something happens that sidelines me, which under the constitution requires a new presidential election, you should elect Nicolas Maduro as president,” Chavez said, sitting at a table with Maduro at his side. “I ask that of you from my heart.”

Moises Naim, a former Venezuelan government official who is an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, called the announcement “basically a farewell speech.”

“He said goodbye to power,” Naim said. “It’s a statement full of resignation and appeals to God. There is no plan. The only talk of the future is that there will be elections and he asks for people to vote for Maduro.”

Chavez’s departure would mark the end of a tumultuous rule in which the leftist former army officer harnessed Venezuela’s considerable oil wealth to shower the poor with social programs while engineering a sharp diplomatic shift away from the country’s historical ally, the United States.

Chavez’s government forged alliances with some of Washington’s most intransigent adversaries, including Cuba, Iran and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. He has used his lock on practically all levers of power, from the courts to the congress, to push forward the nationalization of hundreds of private companies and the seizure of wide swaths of farmland.

For Venezuela’s opposition, the possible scenarios that Chavez discussed in Saturday’s address amount to the first time the president has publicly acknowledged the severity of his illness and the impact it could have on the future of the country.

No one in the government is authorized to discuss Chavez’s medical condition except Chavez himself, who astonished his countrymen in June 2011 by telling them he had gone under the knife twice to remove a malignant growth. A third surgery followed in February.

Chavez has never disclosed what kind of cancer he has or where it is located. He has twice pronounced himself cured, without providing details.

“It was time to tell the truth to the country,” said Maria Corina Machado, an opposition member of the National Assembly. “Venezuela has been living with a lot of uncertainty. In a democratic country where the constitution is obeyed, the president must talk about his health when it is compromised.”

Should Chavez die or have to resign, the constitution calls for Venezuela to stage presidential elections within 30 days. Maduro, a 50-year-old former union organizer and bus driver who has risen through the ranks of Chavez’s movement, would become the candidate of the president’s United Socialist Party.

The constitution also requires that the vice president fill in for the president should he be temporarily absent. Chavez has spent many weeks in Cuba in the past 18 months, undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatments. But he has remained in charge of the government, signing decrees and bills from Havana.

Machado said the opposition will call for a strict interpretation of the constitution now that Chavez has suggested the possibility of stepping aside.

“Article 233 of the constitution is clear about the only mechanism, an election within 30 days,” she said. “He can’t name a successor. It’s the Venezuelan people who decide.”

An election would mean a contest between Maduro and the opposition’s leader, Henrique Capriles.

Capriles lost to Chavez in the presidential election held Oct. 7, with the incumbent winning 55 percent of the vote to the challenger’s 44 percent. Polls, though, have shown that Capriles is more popular in Venezuela than all of Chavez’s closest associates, including Maduro.

The president’s swearing-in for another six-year term is scheduled for Jan. 10, but his announcement, following weeks in which he remained out of public view, raised questions about whether the inauguration will take place.

“This is how life goes,” Chavez said in his televised address. “God willing, I hope to be able to give you good news in the coming days.”

To read this article on The Washington Post, please click here.