December 10, 2012 6:39 pm
Chávez departs
Chavismo will struggle without its charismatic leader
On Friday, Hugo Chávez seemed in ebullient form. Returning to Caracas from cancer treatment in Havana, he asked jovially: “Where’s the party?” Yet the following day the Venezuelan president made an astonishing volte face. Flanked by dour-looking ministers, he revealed in a televised address that his cancer had got worse, forcing him to return to Cuba on Monday for an operation.
Latin America in 2013 may well be the year when biology trumps ideology. The actuarial odds are shortening that both Mr Chávez and Fidel Castro may soon die. Mr Castro, the father of Latin America’s left, is 86 years old and infirm. Mr Chávez, his protégé, is only 58 years old, and still with a body that looks like “packed concrete,” as Gabriel García Márquez put it. But even he is now contemplating succession. For the first time in 14 years, Mr Chávez has endorsed a successor, Nicolás Maduro, the vice-president.
Mr Castro and Mr Chávez are both windbags. So their departure would mark a profound change in the region’s political air. Mr Castro’s death would also mark a major symbolic passing. Yet the post-Fidel Cuba that many have feared or hoped for over the past 50 years has already arrived. Mr Castro stopped governing Cuba several years ago, when he ceded power to his brother, Raúl. In many ways his era ended long ago.
In Venezuela, Mr Chávez might wish he could hand over power as smoothly as Mr Castro did. But Mr Chávez faces a different set of historic conditions. Unlike the Castro brothers, who came to power as leaders of a popular armed rebellion, his legitimacy derives from the ballot box. And Venezuela’s own constitution, as approved by Mr Chávez, requires snap elections should the president depart office.
“Chavismo” faces an uncertain future without him; it was always a highly personal project. How uncertain will be glimpsed at regional elections on December 16.
Venezuelans will not then choose their leader, as they did in October when Mr Chávez comfortably won the presidency, but rather local governors. Nor will Mr Chávez be campaigning to boost the chances of his party’s placemen either.
The opposition has always struggled to maintain unity. But chavismo is also riven by factions. Whether it now unites behind Mr Maduro will be a test of the institutions that Mr Chávez built while in power. A hard task anywhere, it will be especially so in Venezuela, where infrastructure has been left to crumble and other institutions wilfully disembowelled.
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Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2012
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