Chavez based his government on channeling petroleum revenue to address legitimate social issues. He reduced poverty, increased social services and supported the arts and sport. He got results, so he got votes. However, he did not anchor these objectives in any institution building, he launched projects without examining how sustainable they would be and he was not able, or did not try, to attack crime, which has reached extremely high levels. Fiscal accounts have been disorderly while inflation and price and currency controls are increasingly untenable. Venezuela depends on oil just as much as in the past, if not more. Chavez’s style of government was essentially personal, genuinely anti-imperialist, and with overtones of the demagogue. There may have been excesses, but it was not a dictatorship: nobody was tortured, opponents were not imprisoned.
To further his mission, Chavez imposed effective state control over the state petroleum company. This measure, unquestionably legitimate for any government to take, gave rise to a deep crisis in the first years of his administration because of opposition from the interests that were in control of the oil business.
In international politics, Chavez was certainly controversial. He was, to some extent, the leader of the Latin American left. He forged understandings with other petroleum-dependent governments, including Iran and Libya, but what was essentially a convergence of common interests combined with common enemies was perceived as a strategic alliance thanks to his loud rhetoric. Chavez improved relations with Colombia which, under President Santos, moderated its stance towards a trading partner which it needed. He could not help but distance himself from the U.S. when the latter supported his overthrow, which lasted only a few days in the event. This mutated into head-on confrontation and caused him to draw close to totally discredited figures such as Ahmedinajad as well as to other despots (such as Lukashenko of Byelorussia and Mugabe of Zimbabwe). Chavez was unique in his condemnation of George W. Bush. When he delivered his denunciation at the UN, he was expressing the feelings of a great part of humanity. But its impact was muffled by its almost clownish presentation and language heavy with mystic religiosity.
Chavez has created a new reality in Venezuela. On the domestic front, no future government, of whatever stamp, will be able to ignore his achievements in the field of social welfare and distribution of wealth. This is perhaps his great legacy. But the need for greater efficiency in the economy and for better fiscal order are increasing priorities. In most instances, administrative price controls are not working. In a modern society, the direction of economic policies cannot be confided to a single person, no matter how forceful his personality, nor to changing rules in the political process. Venezuela needs to create lasting, democratic mechanisms and institutions. This is what Lula is calling for.
On the international front, Venezuela’s relations with the rest of the world need to be prioritized and organized, even if they retain some important aspects of the Chavez era. For instance, normal relations with Iran are certainly desirable and should be maintained. In this context, Venezuela’s opposition to any attack on Iran is widely shared by the great majority of countries. But this should not translate into a fraternization that can be mistaken for a strategic alliance with a government or regime which is essentially reactionary. And it is not in the interest of any Latin American country to associate with despots like Lukashenko and Mugabe.
The new government to be elected in April, it will probably be Maduro, will face a stronger opposition. It will have to recognize that this opposition, headed by Capriles, is not the same as that which existed before, that is to say, the more radical right which in the past ruled and pillaged Venezuela. Capriles has something of a social-democratic side to him: he recognises that many of the social programs Chavez initiated will have to be maintained and his reaction to Chavez’s death was respectful. Naturally, he has the support of the right but he does not seem to be counting entirely on that to be elected and might well represent a wider social spectrum.
Whatever policies Maduro adopts, he is inevitably fated to see his position weaken. If he begins to implement the adjustments the economy is crying out for, while keeping the more important social programs in place, and if he moderates his international stance to be more in line, say, with Brazil or even Argentina, he will probably be secure for a time. But he will lose the support of the more radical Chavistas and certain sections of the population. Some Chavistas, it should not be overlooked, may see more of a future in a Capriles cast off by the more traditional right. If Maduro chooses the path of necessary reform, Venezuela’s situation will come more to resemble that of Brazil than that prevailing while Chavez was alive (with the complications of a petroleum economy). On the other hand, if Maduro maintains the status quo, the situation will deteriorate and may become unmanageable. The political cost of not implementing changes may far outweigh that of implementing them. The `presence` of an embalmed Chavez, a primitive practice which diminishes the moral stature of Chavismo, may symbolize an emotional attachment to the past but it will not remove the necessity of taking big decisions.