The results of today’s election in Venezuela are not likely to be a surprise to anybody. After six years of record oil prices and a policy of spend-and-boom populism, President Hugo Chavez is clearly favored by the opinion polls to win another six-year term. This would be the case even if it were not for certain irregularities--the misuse of government resources in the campaign, possible tampering with electronic voting machines, harassment of opposition elements--typical of Chavez’s elections. It may indeed be that this particular race will be a turning point in what Chavez likes to call the “Venezuelan revolution”--that is to say, he will regard the result as a mandate to finally discard what is left of his democratic mask. The Venezuelan president himself suggested as much last week when he made reference to a possible plebiscite which would authorize him to close down opposition television stations.

Resident Scholar Emeritus Mark Falcoff

It is possible, though not inevitable, that Venezuela will become a rather cheap paperback version of Castro’s Cuba. It is not inevitable because Venezuela as a country is too disorganized, too chaotic, above all, too corrupt and too culturally porous to easily replicate Castro’s model, which thrives on geographical isolation and a highly efficient military and police. Even the so-called “missions” which bring, or are said to bring, health care and education to the poor, are inefficient and irregularly deployed.

But whatever happens in Venezuela does not necessarily point in  any particular direction for the rest of the region. True, Chavez has been actively intervening in the internal affairs of other countries, including--in a very crude and obvious way--in Chile, but he has not always done so successfully.  The Venezuelan strongman overplayed his hand in presidential races in Mexico and Peru, and even in countries where his allies have recently won elections--notably Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador--they probably would have done so even if neither Chavez nor Venezuela existed. As it happens, however, electoral outcomes outside of Venezuela do not tell the whole story. The president-elect of Ecuador, having repeatedly denounced U.S. President George W. Bush in his campaign, now speaks of looking forward to a respectful and cordial exchange of views with his North American counterpart. This does not sound like a very successful export of chavismo. As for Bolivia, who knows whether that country will even exist under that name and in that geographical form by the end of Chavez’s current presidential term?

In the United States official circles and the media are just beginning to grasp the fact that there are two lefts in Latin America--one which is pluralistic, civilized and respectful of the rules of the game, both domestically and internationally  (as in Chile, Uruguay, and Brazil), one which is messianic, improvisational and heedless of institutional restraints (as in Venezuela, Bolivia and to a certain extent Argentina). Why it has taken them quite this long to reach an obvious conclusion is anyone’s guess, but the point is that U.S. policy is bound to become as complex and nuanced as the situation which it faces.

Washington has had to accept the fact that as long as oil prices remain at record highs, Chavez is bound to remain in power in Venezuela. But perhaps not forever. Given high oil prices, as well as Chavez’s claim to being a “revolutionary socialist” or some sort of another, it is remarkable how little social and economic progress the country has made these last six years. Venezuelan official government statistics or those of international organizations reveal that the gap between rich and poor have widened, not closed; Caracas has become the most violent city in the Western hemisphere after Recife (its murder rate is twenty times that of Washington, D. C.!); the country’s appalling housing deficit has actually increased, and both malaria and dengue have spread to dangerous levels. Imagine the economic and social consequences in Venezuela when, as must inevitably occur, oil prices drop.

Perhaps this is why the opposition candidate, Manuel Rosales has done surprisingly well in the polls---surprising, that is, in a country where the old political class and traditional political parties have been completely (and justifiably) discredited. The big surprise of today’s elections in Venezuela may not be their outcome so much as the persistence of an opposition which, after years of disunity and confusion, seems to be finding a voice and a project of its own. If Chavez continues to mismanage Venezuela’s resources and hedge all his bets on eternally high oil prices, and if he does not succeed in closing down all other alternatives, this may not be Rosales’ least successful presidential campaign, or his last.

Mark Falcoff is a resident scholar emeritus at AEI.