During November 2008 the population of the four most populous and industrial states
of Venezuela elected new governors and mayors affiliated with
opposition parties. Their victory is considered as an expression of
the public yearn for a legal framework that will enable returning to
a competition between the public and private sectors for meeting the
population's needs, in contrast of the current local governments led
by the socialist party which is striving for state control of most
human activities.
The
case of the capital city of Caracas and its neighboring state of
Miranda stands out as a return to plurality and diversity, as various
ideologies are now represented in government. While the federal
government and Western Caracas remain in socialist hands, Eastern
Caracas, Miranda state and the Metropolitan District now have the
responsibility of respecting many requests from their voters; among
them, providing incentives to private businesses to take over a huge
amount of failed government solutions to crime, road works, hospitals
and education. The populous oil-rich state of Zulia and Margarita
island will remain in the opposition as their populations have always
embraced free markets more dearly than elsewhere in the country. The
border state of Táchira, having witnessed first hand the progress in
neighboring Uribe's Colombia, also chose a new governor from the
opposition. The industrial heartland of Carabobo state wishes to
revert its recent decline, restore its factories to capacity and
improve facilities at the port of Puerto Cabello with the help of a
market friendly governor.
Some
red supporters of the incumbent party are not happy with changes that
are coming and have already rioted in a few jurisdictions, despite
President Chávez calls for accepting their partial defeat. This is a
natural reaction of grief, which is also evident even at educated
internet fora such as Mises.org, where opinions diverging from the
status quo perpetuated by the most active posters are at times
dismissed as crap and threatened to be censored, despite the
administrators' effort to ensure that liberty and private expression
are protected. Perhaps the extreme left and the extreme right are
connected at the same point because they form part of a circle, not a
straight line.
This
shift in the balance of power is just at its earliest stages. A huge
contrast remains in light of rural Venezuela's confirmation of
socialist ideals and leaders. They have become progressively
disillusioned due to corruption and poverty, but are still faithful
in the socialist ideology imposed to them. If the work performed by
the new blue opposition majors and governors turns out to actually
fulfill expectations, it is likely that red rural Venezuela would
follow this new lead in the forthcoming elections for Congress in
2009 and for President in 2012. Many sections from the map of the
country would revert from red back to blue, similarly as it is
already happening in the United States.
Rivero&Cooper, Inc.
