EDITORIAL ANALYSIS

This 4th of December, Venezuela prepares for its eleventh electoral process since President Chávez won in 1998. This includes a referendum to determine if the Venezuelan people wanted to call for a Constituent Assembly; the election of the members of this Assembly; a second referendum to approve the Project for a new

A new electoral process will take place on December 4th in order to vote for the members of the National Assembly. Once again this election will be supervised internationally. Among the organisations that have agreed to participate are the European Union, which sent a delegation of 160 members and the Organisation of American States.

So, there is nothing to object regarding the legitimacy of origin in Venezuelan democracy. It could be argued, however, that right in front of the legitimacy of origin there is another type of legitimacy and that is, legitimacy of performance. Can this last one be measured? There is no doubt that the best way to measure it will be to consider the level of satisfaction of the Venezuelan people regarding their democracy. In this sense, one would have to review the results of the most respected opinion poll taking company in Latin America, the Chilean Latinbarómetro, which for almost 10 years has been measuring levels of acceptance of Latin American democracies in countries around the region. According to the results of their last poll in Latin America, Venezuela leads the level of satisfaction regarding the performance of its democracy. This is what The Economist had to say about it in their edition of October 29 th 2005: "Support for democracy is lower in a dozen countries today than in 1996...On the other hand, support for democracy is very high in Venezuela ...But only in Uruguay and Venezuela are a majority of respondents satisfied with the working of democracy..." As they indicate the level of acceptance towards democracy shown in Venezuela today is 14 points higher than in 1996, The Economist also confirms that it increased 14 points to position itself with 76 point over 100. This is evident in a table published by the magazine, which shows it is not only the highest increment, but one of the only four cases of increment in a region characterized by a general decrease in their sympathy for democracy. The Venezuelan newspaper Ultimas Noticias also published the poll by Latinbarómetro on its edition of 6th November 2005, saying "these results place Venezuela in a vanguard position.In an evaluation poll asking people from 1 to 10 'How democratic is your country?', Venezuela is the first one with 7.5%, followed by Uruguay with 7.1%... To the question 'Is your country progressing?' Chile had the highest percentage with 62%, followed by Venezuela with 54%..."

Now, together with the legitimacy of origin and the legitimacy of performance, and closely related to the last one, are the values: what type of society are we trying to privilege? This is fundamental in a democracy that tries to be more than just a formality. The goal of the Venezuelan government is very clear in this sense: promoting social development and civic culture, from the bottom to the top. It does so by emphasising on basic principes like health, education, people's participation, self esteem and organisational abilities. In other words, instead of waiting for the trickle down generated by economical growth to fill the empty social pool, it inverts the process.

Unfortunately, authorities in Washington insist on presenting Venezuela as a non-democratic society, promoting that image everywhere. All this in spite of having sponsored and recognised the provisional government that overthrew and jailed President Chavez on April 11th 2002, dissolving the Supreme Court, the National Assembly and the public institutions legitimately constituted, annulling at the same time the National Constitution. While that provisional government deserved compliments from Washington, Chavez must now face everyday criticism for being an "authoritarian" President. Orwell's "Newspeak" becomes an understatement when we listen to Washington's rhetoric in regards to Venezuela.

Unfortunately, opposition parties want to continue using striking and short term actions, rather than rebuilding themselves through serious, constant and systematic work. If instead of using short cuts as their resource, they would have followed an electoral strategy planned years ahead; their situation today would be different. However, when facing the evidence of their low electoral flow, they choose to practice show business instead of politics.

Now, once they overcame these objections - specially the last one - opposition parties chose to reject the electoral arbiter, precisely because it had eliminated the biometric identification machines. The one thing they asked for! Claiming a lack of transparency in the electoral process - even though more than 400 observers from the European Union, the Organisation of American States and most of the Latin American electoral councils will be present - they chose to drop out of the legislative elections on December 4th.

There seem to be three main reasons behind their decision. First, to be able to argue that the low turnout in this election (abstention is historically important in parliamentary elections in Venezuela), will not be the result of their lack of convocation abilities, but a product of the governments illegitimacy. Secondly, to hide behind a "civic protest" their very low electoral convocation; and thirdly, to associate themselves with Washington's strategy.

The most worrying thing is that once again Washington and the Venezuelan opposition decide to join each other (directly or tacitly) to destabilize a democratic government. None of them realize this would take them through a road that has already made Washington loose all influence on the real issues going on in Venezuela (one of its main oil providers and owner of the largest energy reserves in the hemisphere) and will make the opposition loose every connection with Venezuelan voters.

It has become clear however, that on one hand, we have the desition of the top brass of opposition parties, and on the other, the opinion of the candidates themselves. In fact, the majority of the opposition candidates for parliamentary positions showed more common sense than the leaders who decided to drop out. The night before the election, just a minority had withdrawn their candidacy. In fact, of the 5,516 candidates enrolled, only 556 dropped out, representing 10.8% of the total.

In conclusion, the opposition is building the walls of its own ghetto, while country and history pass them by. Meanwhile, national economy continues to grow strongly (17.5% in 2004 and between 9% to 10% in 2005), industrial productivity continues its expansive development (12.4% in the last 12 months) and the country's face is changing under the impact of massive social programmes.

October 27, 2005
The Economist: Emerging-market indicators