José Cárdenas

May
15
2012
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Jane’s: Venezuela’s Difficult Days Ahead

DSC 0754 150x150 Janes: Venezuelas Difficult Days AheadJosé R. Cárdenas served in several foreign policy positions during the George W. Bush administration (2004-2009), including on the National Security Council staff. He is a consultant with Vision Americas in Washington, DC.

The May 2012 issue of the venerable Jane’s Intelligence Review features an interesting and in-depth analysis of the political situation in Venezuela leading up to October’s presidential election and beyond. It takes as its starting point that the mystery regarding the severity of Hugo Chávez’s illness indicates that the months ahead are unlikely to be smooth. It then posits various scenarios for the possible course of events, systematically assessing how Venezuela’s stability across a range of fronts will be influenced by whatever direction those events take.

Jane’s concedes that the lack of official transparency about Chávez’s health complicates any effort to predict outcomes. That same obfuscation, however, raises the destabilization factor: the lack of a succession plan has led to Chávez’s PSUV party being “riven with factional divisions” — primarily breaking down along military and civilian lines.

The individual to watch is Diosdado Cabello, currently head of the National Assembly and a former Chávez military colleague. Jane’s believes he is the military’s preferred candidate. On the civilian side, the President’s brother, Adán, a true-blue Marxist and governor of Barinas, is thought to be favored by the Castros.

Complicating matters further is that Chávez over the past decade has so politicized the military and tolerated so much corruption that it has made the military as an institution “inherently more unstable and unpredictable.” Not helping matters are the number of armed militias prowling the country that answer only to Chávez, which could prove to be another destabilizing factor.

Another variable is Cuba, whose ties to the Chávez government Jane’s calls “the most important external relationship that has a bearing on the current and future risk situation in Venezuela.” Given the Castro regime’s precarious economic situation and its extensive intelligence and political ties to Venezuela, it is easy to assume it will take every action to ensure its preferential economic relationship with Venezuela is not threatened.

Against this backdrop, Jane’s offers three possible scenarios that could define Venezuela’s future in the coming months, assessing the likelihood of each and discussing how they could impact Venezuela’s stability across several fronts: political, economic, social, military/security, and externally.

Scenario one (probability: significant; country risk: high) is that Hugo Chávez is physically unable to stand for re-election; scenario two (probability: low; risk: significant) is that Chávez is able to run, but is defeated by opposition challenger Henrique Capriles; and scenario three (probability: high; risk: significant) is that Chávez wins re-election, but succumbs to his illness in late 2012 or into 2013.

Recent events, however, would seem to alter that calculus, with scenario one appearing now to be more likely than scenario three. Chávez today spends more time in Cuba (ostensibly receiving treatment) than in Venezuela, rarely appears in public, and recently appointed loyalists to a long-neglected “Council of State,” which many see as the first step toward the establishment of a junta to govern in Chávez’s absence or name a successor if Chávez is forced to step down.

Still, whether it is scenario one, two, or three, the bottom line remains that events in Venezuela are unlikely to proceed smoothly. How could it be otherwise? Twelve years of Chávez building his personality cult, sowing class warfare and social polarization, and gutting democratic institutions are all prescriptions for political turmoil in any kind of transition. Even if he dies an untimely death, Chávez will continue to wreak havoc on Venezuelan society.

Particularly troubling in this environment is the absence of the United States, which has considerable interest in what happens in Venezuela — from energy to counternarcotics and counterterrorism concerns. However, Jane’s points out that U.S. policy of attempting to contain Chávez’s influence from expanding regionally “has given way to a more benign view,” concluding “that Chávez may be now be best handled by leaving him alone to face his possibly terminal illness.”

This would be a huge strategic error. The U.S. government doesn’t need to cast itself as the running mate of Mr. Capriles, which would not help either. But it does have an interest in forestalling violence if Chávez’s successors try to strong-arm a transition or their candidate loses to Capriles in the fall. If anything, it should at least be pressuring regional governments like Brazil and Colombia to act in unison should events in Venezuela take a turn for the worse. Indeed, only preparing for the worst gives you the best chance of things turning out the best.

 
Apr
16
2012
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Beware of Dubious Assumptions on Future of Chavismo

DSC 0754 150x150 Beware of Dubious Assumptions on Future of ChavismoJosé R. Cárdenas served in several foreign policy positions during the George W. Bush administration (2004-2009), including on the National Security Council staff. He is a consultant with Vision Americas in Washington, DC.

Hugo Chávez’s emotional appearance on Venezuela television on Easter Sunday was clearly the picture of a man facing his own mortality. If anyone needed final confirmation that the Venezuelan president is seriously ill, then that was definitely it.

The stark realization that Chávez may not be able to stand for re-election will only accelerate the struggle for succession within chavismo, as various candidates with questionable credentials jostle for position to replace their ailing leader and gain the keys to the billions of petro-dollars in the Venezuelan treasury.

The irony is that, despite the fact that some polls show opposition challenger Henrique Capriles Radonski doing very well in October’s election against any number of presumptive Chávez successors, the disappearance of Chávez from the political scene would likely not make any easier the challenge the faced by the opposition. In fact, it would probably make their job more complicated.

That’s because the chavista power struggle will not be transparent, smooth, or predictable. Chávez has groomed no successor and has gutted the institutions one would otherwise rely on to determine what, or who, comes next. Not only will the opposition be unaware of who they are running against, but they could be blindsided from any number of directions. It will be three-dimensional chess on steroids.

In this complicated environment, it is important to be wary of assumptions that appear to offer simplicity and comfort, but would in reality prove disastrous if used as a basis for decisions.

One popular assumption, recently repeated in the Economist, is that there can be no chavismo without Hugo Chávez. In other words, some claim that a semblance of normality would return to Venezuelan politics with Chávez’s departure.

But if chavismo is understood as more than a mere cult of personality, but as a governing philosophy centered on state encroachment on the free market and the pursuit of common cause with anti-systemic international actors like Iran, then there is no reason why it couldn’t continue without Chávez, especially when others like Russia, China, and Cuba have such a vested interest in its continuation. Perhaps no one can match Chávez’s charisma and connection to the masses, but a successor can overcome those obstacles with ruthless will and government control of the media.

It would be dangerous for anyone to presume otherwise.

A second dubious assumption is that “business can be done” with certain figures poised to replace Chávez. Already, some media are floating the notion of top Chávez crony Diosdado Cabello – head of Chávez’s PSUV as well as the National Assembly – as a favorite for succession. Cabello is seen as a “pragmatist“ostensibly in contrast to some of the more Pro-Bolivarian ideologues around him.

While there are many ways to describe the ambitious, shrewd, and cutthroat former military man, “pragmatic” is not one of them. Any campaign to portray him as such is a disingenuous effort to suggest that chavismo will not outlast Chávez himself, designed to keep the opposition off-balance and falsely assuage them that if they fail in October, they can still “do business” with a figure like Cabello.

Such assumptions will not be the only ones that the opposition — and, I might add, U.S. policymakers — will be tempted by in the months ahead. It remains imperative that no one become distracted by imagined easy ways out of Venezuela’s ongoing crisis. There will be no shortcuts or “soft landings” to a different future for Venezuela.

October’s election will offer a stark choice about whether the chavista project lives on under some new guise or whether Venezuela enters a new, less polarizing and less dysfunctional phase in its national development.

 
Mar
27
2012
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Hugo Chávez and Pope Benedict

DSC 0754 150x150 Hugo Chávez and Pope BenedictJosé R. Cárdenas served in several foreign policy positions during the George W. Bush administration (2004-2009), including on the National Security Council staff. He is a consultant with Vision Americas in Washington, DC.

Some have speculated that cancer-stricken Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez may seek an audience with Pope Benedict XVI during the latter’s trip to Cuba this week.  Chávez, who is in Cuba as well for another round of radiation treatments, is said by some to be seeking the Pope’s blessing as the president struggles with his serious illness.

So far, there is no indication such a meeting will take place (nor, for that matter, is one scheduled with Cuban dissidents), but if it does, it would be the height of irony, given the rancor and hostility that have characterized Church-state relations in Venezuela since Chávez came to power.  It also likely reflects less any conversion on Chávez’s part than it does his need for favorable political optics heading into October’s presidential election.

Venezuelan Church leaders have been outspoken in their criticisms of Chávez’s authoritarian creep, but his attacks against Bishops and the Vatican have truly been beyond the pale.

Perhaps Chávez’s most notorious attack was when he called the Church a “tumor” on Venezuelan society following his temporary removal from power in 2002.  Chávez accused the Church of being complicit in his ouster, but Church leaders responded that the massive anti-government strikes and protests were not part of any conspiracy, but the Venezuelan people’s reaction to Chavez’s own radical behavior.

In 2010, following another round of Church criticisms of his polarizing policies, Chávez even attacked Pope Benedict himself, whom he had met in 2006 in the Vatican, saying, “He is not an ambassador of Christ.”  “Christ,” he said, “is in the people.”

Chávez’s troubles with the Church stem from the fact that he can tolerate no domestic challenge to his absolute authority.  Once in power, he went about systematically undermining all alternative poles of authority.  That is why he has sought to displace the Church’s social services with state programs, why he has pressured Catholic media, and tried to undermine Catholic education in Venezuela.  But the Venezuelan Catholic Church, with a few centuries head-start, has proven to be resilient and unintimidated.

Certainly, the Vatican is savvy enough not to allow itself to be used as a political prop for Chávez’s benefit back home.  But if it proves to be the case that Chávez, a man starkly facing his own mortality, was seeking a blessing and some sort of repentance, he ought to be reminded that redemption is not a one-way street; in fact, in involves penance. And there is still time to ensure that October’s elections are conducted freely and openly, with the opposition given a fair opportunity to state their case before the Venezuelan people.

If not, the Pope could always follow the advice of the late Venezuelan Cardinal Rosalio Castillo Lara, another critic of Chávez’s authoritarian ways, who was asked once whether he would ever give Chávez a blessing.  He replied, “More than a blessing: I’d give him an exorcism.”