March 7, 2009
Caracas, Venezuela: Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan President on February 15, won a referendum to eliminate term limits and vowed to remain in power for another decade. On the balcony of Miraflores Palace, the official seat of the executive arm of the government of Venezuela, Chavez declared to the thunderous acclaim of his supporters.
“Today, we opened the gates to the future. In 2012, there will be a presidential election and unless God decides otherwise, unless the people decide otherwise, this soldier is already a candidate.” Hugo Chavez was a former paratroop Commander.
Chavez now finds himself in the league of similar possibly “elected indefinitely” leaders. Paragons, such as Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe), Kim Jong-II (North Korea), the latter was elected with 100% of votes with an election of 99.9% turn out. Oh, and the likes of Daniel Ortega, Hosni Mubarak, the Castro brothers etc. Some of the busily held elections had been marred by breath-taking and sickening levels of violence and intimidation. Think of Zimbabwe.
President Hugo Chavez managed to get a democratically limiting and an odd feature of democracy as term limits removed and set tongues wagging on the rise of dictators (again) in Latin America in the 21st century. Opponents within and outside Venezuela argue that no matter how beneficial the politics may be or may not be, an unlimited and open-ended power is never a good idea. There is a potential danger, they bemoan, because countries that have implemented no term limits have fallen into this trap.
Coincidentally, February was also the month the Peoples Democratic Party,(PDP), the ruling party in Nigeria feverishly floated a trial balloon with regards to first time Presidents, and first term Governors in the party to be given a free ride in 2011.
The proposed amendment to Article 9.2(iv) of the PDP Constitution reads: “The party shall issue automatic tickets to any first term serving president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and all first term serving governors who have expressed interest to re-contest for a second term without going through party primaries” (Nigerian Tribune,17/02/09). I read this Article with mild amusement. O, give me strength, the trial balloon was quickly shot down by the’ ME Too, Us Too’ hand-raising by a section of the legislators which saw the proposal make a quick descent to the netherworld of irrelevance in the face of challenges of a tanking economy.
A fair segment of the Venezuelan population confirm that Chavez has done a lot for the poor in his country than say the bête noire of Columbia, President Alvaro Uribe. And their Presidente,it is said is no where near being linked to death squads designed to murder union activists, dissidents and the opposition. Yet.
Alvaro Uribe, agency reports also say, is equally poised to removing the 22nd Amendment which sets the President’s term limits to two. What is the problem there?, asked a fellow blogger on WAPo. Is it because Chavez is left wing?
My own question is, are democracies with no term limits damaged then?
Lest we forget. In a goodly number of Western democracies, there are no term limits on how long a leader can be Prime Minister or President. Here is how it works. If the people grow tired of their leader they vote the person out. Australia, Britain, Canada. and New Zealand,(the list is inexhaustible), do not practice term limits. In Australia, John Howards won elections for four terms and was the Prime Minister for eleven years and would, well, could have done so while he lived and being re-elected. He was voted out in the end. Wasn’t he?
Mrs Margaret Thatcher (as she was then) was Prime Minister in Britain for 11 years, Mr Tony Blair sat on the prime ministerial seat for 10. Both Baroness Thatcher (Conservative) and Blair (Labour) kept winning the elections until booted out by their parties. Would any one dare say then that these parliamentary democracies are oddities in the context of a democratic system of controlling the abuse of power? Even in the USA, term limits were not developed until after Roosevelt’s four terms.
Here in the UK, the leader of the largest party or the party which can muster the biggest coalition gets to be the Prime Minister and remains so, so long as the party can command a majority. As Head of State, Her Majesty ,the Queen of England’s position can be likened to that of the US President, diplomatically speaking. Mind you, her position is entirely ceremonial. But both in law and in theory, the Queen is the only person authorized to declare war in the UK. In practice however, and in our lifetime, try searching for her declaration of war against Iraq. If you can nail such a declaration then you have just pulled out the mythical weapons for mass destruction and you probably do not know it.
Queen Elizabeth 11’s term ends only at her death and secondly, where she voluntarily abdicates. Still a democracy? Non?
Venezuela suspended term limits in order to keep Hugo Chavez. 54% out of 94% of votes counted were in favour of the Constitutional Amendment. Chavez says that he needs 10 more years in power to complete his Bolivian revolution. The elections were monitored by outside groups and it was reported that former President Jimmy Carter was also present. If Venezuelans swear that the election was free and fair, that’s good for them. That Chavez was anti- Bush in his public utterances has no bearing to the referendum which is an entirely domestic matter. Most people on this planet and even in the well of both Houses of Congress were anti-Bush in their utterances as well. Voters in Venezuela could also boot Chavez out when they choose to do so.
The point being that we must always bear in mind that there is no unidirectional, glorious path to either development or the democratic process. Equally important is the independence and strengthening of the two other arms in the democratic path, viz the legislature and the judiciary in holding up an enduring democracy.
“I won a referendum to end a two term presidential limit. Ten years is nothing. I do not know what they are complaining about,” Chavez replied his opponents.
The fear of unbridled power perhaps?
The other day, I woke up to switch on my radio which is permanently set on BBC’s Current Affairs station, Radio 4. With eyes still closed, I stretched out my hand to press the standby/on button and thank goodness these digital inventions are devoid of interferences from wavelengths from the high seas. I heard Presidente Chavez on the World Service fuming with anger--------“and I will not pay them with money but with coupons’’. And I thought, who is he owing? The USA?
The President of Venezuela has just nationalized all the rice mills in his country because the millers failed to sell rice at government approved prices. Chavez was refilling his reservoir of political capital with ---rice, the super, wonder, electioneering grain, an affirmed vote-getting grain throughout the developing world of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Venezuelans know that Chavez has got their backs and he knows in Wilde’s words that’ one day, they would cave in’. Leaders and politicians in the developing world, surely, know how to tickle their constituents’ belly buttons with rice.
It’s 2011. Rice,anyone?
Maudlyn Park wrote in from Cambridge,UK
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