{"id":34812,"date":"2013-03-05T17:59:29","date_gmt":"2013-03-05T23:59:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=34812"},"modified":"2013-03-05T17:59:29","modified_gmt":"2013-03-05T23:59:29","slug":"chavismo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=34812","title":{"rendered":"Ch\u00e1vismo"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Hugo Chavez: Pining for the Fjords<\/p><\/div>\n

Hugo Chavez is dead. \u00a0Will his political philosophy be far behind?<\/p>\n

He was the ubiquitous face of Venezuela, both domestically and abroad, for over 12 years. \u00a0Bombastic, dictatorial and often paranoid in style, Hugo Chavez signified, in his own words, “Socialism for the 21st Century,”<\/a>. \u00a0In reality,\u00a0his political orientation (known as Ch\u00e1vismo<\/em> in his home country)\u00a0was little more than a mixture of traditional\u00a0Bolivarianism with sprinkles of nepotism and populism for good measure. \u00a0Or perhaps to more bluntly put Chavez in his proper context, he was just another Latin American dictator who was more interested in projecting his power than his philosophy. \u00a0He was also among the relatively few left-leaning leaders that human rights groups publicly challenged<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In short, Hugo Chavez will not be missed<\/a> on the international stage.<\/p>\n

The news of Hugo Chavez’s death has prompted the usual obituary postings recapping the Venezuelan leader’s life. \u00a0His attempted coup in 1992, his rise to power in 1998, the coup against him in 2002, and his attempt to become a counterweight to the U.S. in Latin America, aligning himself with China and Iran while promoting socialist agitators in other countries.<\/p>\n

What been less discussed is what Chavez’s passing means for his country and\u00a0Ch\u00e1vismo<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In the immediate term, the answer is, well, nothing. \u00a0Chavez had already appointed his successor, the radical <\/a>Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a>, as vice-president, ensuring the continuation of\u00a0Ch\u00e1vismo\u00a0<\/em>and its political patronage<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maduro has also continued the other tradition of Chavez’s reign – bizarre pronouncements. \u00a0Hours before Chavez’s death, Maduro proclaimed that Chavez had been somehow given cancer<\/a> by “established enemies” (the U.S.), followed by expelling two U.S. attaches:<\/p>\n

The U.S. government may be mum so far, but Latin American experts were quick to dismiss Maduro’s speech as wild and nonsensical.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis clown show demonstrates that these guys are amateurs and play their hands too easily,\u201d said Chris Sabatini, an analyst for America’s Society\/Council of the Americas, a think tank in New York City.<\/p>\n

It’s poorly executed plan for a post-Ch\u00e1vez Venezuela, Sabatini said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a desperate government peddling in absurdities,\u201d he said.\u201cThey needed some sort of cover and now they don\u2019t know what to do.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Despite his likely backing of those who supported Chavez, Maduro is not the only viable option. \u00a0Opposition candidate and former mayor\u00a0Henrique Capriles Radonski<\/a> is likely to run again, having lost to Chavez in October by only 11%. \u00a0Capriles is most certainly the anti-Chavez, having been jailed for joining the coup attempt in 2002, while opposing most of Chavez’s high profile policies, including backing away from alliances with Iran and the Colombian rebel group FARC. \u00a0Worst for Chavez’s legacy? \u00a0Capriles would embrace the economic policies of\u00a0Brazilian President\u00a0Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva.<\/p>\n

Despite the reputation of Latin America falling further into the Socialist clutches of Chavez and his followers, the real trendsetter has been Lula<\/a>. \u00a0Initially feared to be a Chavez clone when he came to power in 2002, Lula’s more moderate economic policies have turned Brazil from being the largest debtor among emerging economies to a net creditor, while moving more Brazilians out of poverty and into the middle class.<\/p>\n

Lula wouldn’t be recognized as moderate or conservative north of the Rio Grande, although his successor’s plan to privatize airports, ports, and roads is more conservative than policies here. \u00a0Nevertheless,\u00a0“Lulismo” represents a definite turning of the political tides in Latin America.<\/p>\n

Is it a pipe-dream to believe that Chavez’s policies could follow him into the dustbin of history? \u00a0Perhaps not. \u00a0In the days before Chavez won re-election against\u00a0Capriles, the polls showed another outcome was possible – Capriles would beat Maduro by six points<\/a> if they faced off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hugo Chavez is dead. \u00a0Will his political philosophy be far behind? He was the ubiquitous face of Venezuela, both domestically and abroad, for over 12 years. \u00a0Bombastic, dictatorial and often paranoid in style, Hugo Chavez signified, in his own words, “Socialism for the 21st Century,”. \u00a0In reality,\u00a0his political orientation (known as Ch\u00e1vismo in his home […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":425,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[105,51,62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-ringer","category-liberal-tyranny","category-state-of-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/425"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34812"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34814,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34812\/revisions\/34814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}