Chávez's defeat energizes his rivals

Defectors key to momentum

Caracas was the scene of celebrations yesterday after voters learned that the referendum proposed by President Hugo Chávez was defeated. The changes called for expanding his powers. (Yri Cortez/AFP/Getty Images)

CARACAS - The surprising defeat of a referendum this weekend to accelerate President Hugo Chávez's socialist-inspired revolution has given new energy to his long-suffering opposition.

But just how long that momentum lasts will depend on whether his opponents can keep within their ranks the Venezuelans who defected from Chávez to vote no on the proposals.

For nine years, a combination of populist politics and rising oil prices have propelled Chávez's socialist program with an almost inexorable momentum. On Sunday his country put on the brakes.

Those results have given the opposition a sudden boost and demonstrated the resilience of Venezuela's institutions. They also showed that many of Chávez's once-stalwart backers have grown frustrated with the rising prices and food shortages that have become symptomatic of his revolution, despite his promises to the poor.

Interviews in the barrios where Chávez's support has run strong indicated that many of those no votes were as much an expression of frustration with government mismanagement as a warning to Chávez that he had finally overreached in proposing constitutional changes that would have ended term limits for the president and greatly centralized his power.

The rejection of his proposals amounted to a sharp rebuke from Venezuelans who let Chávez know they were hesitant to follow him much farther up the path to a socialist future if their current needs were not being met.

At play now is a large portion of the electorate. Chávez won re-election last year with about 63 percent of the vote, compared with the 49 percent that supported his proposed constitutional amendments. The opposition, which never won more than 41 percent in four national elections during Chávez's presidency, got 51 percent over the weekend, illustrating its ability to win over voters who were loyal to Chávez in previous races.

The real test for the opposition will be to fashion viable alternatives to keep those defectors. That will not be easy. Chávez and his supporters still control the National Assembly, the Supreme Court, almost every state government and the entire federal bureaucracy. The opposition, meanwhile, is recovering from years of tactical errors and marginalization from the country's political life.

But in an unforeseen challenge to Chávez, the new leaders of this opposition have emerged from the disaffected within his own movement. They are hewing to leftist ideals while expressing increasing unhappiness with state control of the economy and the intensifying cult of celebrity around Chávez.

"The president wanted to obligate Venezuelans to accept this project," said General Raul Isaias Baduel, the retired top commander of this nation's army who broke with Chávez last month.

Baduel, speaking at a news conference here yesterday, said "the people did not propose one comma or period to the text" of the defeated proposals, which would have formally created a socialist state. As a next step, Baduel proposed that the country convene a new constitutional assembly to rewrite Venezuela's laws.

Aside from Baduel, other leaders whose stars are rising are Ismael Garcia, a deputy in the National Assembly, and Ramon Martinez, governor of Sucre State in eastern Venezuela. Both men were supporters of Chávez who distanced themselves from him in recent months.

They were joined by a student movement that led protests before the vote. In contrast with some traditional opposition parties, few of the student leaders describe themselves as conservative critics of the president, preferring to tout their own progressive ideals.

Though Chávez looked unusually humbled, he and his supporters tried to make the most of their setback, quickly portraying it as evidence that democracy survives in Venezuela.