InfoAnda - Insight: Can Chavismo outlast Venezuela's Chavez? |

Pakistanis angry over detentions in Times Sq. case
Monday, May 24, 2010
ISLAMABAD – Relatives of three men detained by Pakistan for alleged links to the suspect in the attempted Times Square bombing say the men are innocent.
They

Taiwan denies boycotting Australian film festival
Thursday, August 6, 2009

AFP - Thursday, August 6TAIPEI (AFP) - - Taiwan's Beijing-friendly government on Wednesday denied boycotting an Australian film festival amid a row over the e

Merkel's support dips, regional ally resigns International
Thursday, September 3, 2009

By Sarah Marsh and Noah Barkin

BERLIN (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel suffered a double blow on Thursday as a senior party ally in east German

Minister seeks closure of anti-Berlusconi websites
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
ROME (AFP) - – The Italian government moved Tuesday to close down Internet sites encouraging further violence against Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who

Asian markets mixed after Wall Street rally
Wednesday, March 18, 2009

By ELAINE KURTENBACH,AP Business Writer AP - Wednesday, March 18SHANGHAI - Asia's stock market rally seemed to be running out of steam Wednesday, despite an

China's Baidu to shut e-commerce platform | | 31 March 2011
Rusty Serena on track as French tennis opne revolution gathers pace | 24 January 2009
Sarkozy goes prime-time after mass protests | 5 February 2009

Plane catches fire in Iran, injures 42 | 25 January 2010

Forum Views () Forum Replies ()

Read more with google mobile : Insight: Can Chavismo outlast Venezuela's Chavez? |

Edition: U.S. Africa Arabic Argentina Brazil Canada China France Germany India Italy Japan Latin America Mexico Russia Spain United Kingdom Home Business Business Home Economy Technology Media Small Business Legal Deals Earnings Social Pulse Business Video The Freeland File Markets Markets Home U.S. Markets European Markets Asian Markets Global Market Data Indices M&A Stocks Bonds Currencies Commodities Futures Funds peHUB World World Home U.S. Brazil China Euro Zone Japan Mexico Russia India Insight World Video Reuters Investigates Decoder Politics Politics Home Election 2012 Campaign Polling Tales from the Trail Political Punchlines Supreme Court Politics Video Tech Technology Home MediaFile Science Tech Video Tech Tonic Social Pulse Opinion Opinion Home Chrystia Freeland John Lloyd Felix Salmon Jack Shafer David Rohde Bernd Debusmann Nader Mousavizadeh Lucy P. Marcus David Cay Johnston Bethany McLean Edward Hadas Hugo Dixon Ian Bremmer Lawrence Summers Susan Glasser The Great Debate Steven Brill Jack & Suzy Welch Frederick Kempe Christopher Papagianis Breakingviews Equities Credit Private Equity M&A Macro & Markets Politics Breakingviews Video Money Money Home Tax Break Lipper Awards 2012 Global Investing MuniLand Unstructured Finance Linda Stern Mark Miller John Wasik James Saft Analyst Research Alerts Watchlist Portfolio Stock Screener Fund Screener Personal Finance Video Money Clip Investing 201 Life Health Sports Arts Faithworld Business Traveler Entertainment Oddly Enough Lifestyle Video Pictures Pictures Home Reuters Photographers Full Focus Video Reuters TV Reuters News Article Comments (0) Full Focus Photos of the week Our top photos of the week. See more Images of May Follow Reuters Facebook Twitter RSS YouTube Read Sandusky lawyers may use NBC tape error in appeal 24 Jun 2012 Denver police officer shot dead at outdoor jazz concert 12:45am EDT Egypt's Islamist president begins building government | 3:26am EDT Lonesome George, last-of-his-kind Galapagos tortoise, dies 24 Jun 2012 Iraq orders closure of 44 media outlets 24 Jun 2012 Discussed 126 Obama campaign requests outside Republican group disclose donors 119 House panel to vote on Holder contempt charge: aide 89 California tobacco tax hike narrowly defeated at polls Watched The Knuckleball: The science behind why it’s so damn hard to hit - Decoder Fri, Jun 22 2012 Morsy vows to respect human rights. Sun, Jun 24 2012 Tropical Stom Debby churns off Gulf Coast. Sun, Jun 24 2012 Pictures Reuters Photojournalism Our day's top images, in-depth photo essays and offbeat slices of life. See the best of Reuters photography. See more | Photo caption Hunting hogs in Alabama The wild boar was once the most prized catch in ancient Greece. Slideshow Rise of the megacities Cities of over 10 million are growing fast. Slideshow Insight: Can "Chavismo" outlast Venezuela's Chavez? Tweet Share this Email Print Related Topics World » Venezuela » Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez waits to receive his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Miraflores Palace in Caracas June 22, 2012. Credit: Reuters/Jorge Silva By Enrique Andres Pretel and Marianna Parraga CARACAS | Mon Jun 25, 2012 4:03am EDT CARACAS (Reuters) - Twenty years ago, Hugo Chavez launched the most powerful movement in Venezuela's history with an improvised speech of just 90 seconds. Bound for prison after a failed February 4, 1992, coup that was the culmination of years of conspiring within the military, the then-lieutenant colonel was allowed by his captors to address the nation to exhort fellow dissident soldiers to surrender. Wearing what would become his trademark costume of red beret and green military fatigues, Chavez took advantage of their mistake. "Unfortunately, for now, the objectives we had planned were not obtained," said Chavez, electrifying Venezuelans with his hint of an unfulfilled radical agenda to eradicate poverty and corruption in the South American OPEC member. Now, a battle with cancer has weakened him and is posing an existential threat to "Chavismo": the unruly movement of hardline leftists, conservative military men, political pragmatists and opportunistic entrepreneurs who came together to fulfill the words from 1992. Nearly a year after Chavez announced his diagnosis, only his closest confidants and an inner circle of doctors know the exact nature of his condition, beyond its location "in the pelvic region." Efforts by reporters, other doctors and even bondholders to predict whether the socialist stalwart will recover or die - or what cancer he has - still look like no more than educated guesswork. That has turned the once theoretical debate over "Chavismo without Chavez" into a very real enigma with major political and economic repercussions. The future of Chavismo is closely watched by oil companies outside Venezuela seeking improved access to the world's largest crude reserves, investors excited about a more free-market government, and regional allies such as Cuba, Ecuador and Nicaragua who benefit from Chavez's politically inspired largesse. With no way of knowing for certain what ails "el comandante," all are asking variants of the same question: Will he survive cancer and, if not, can Chavismo continue without its founder and guiding light? "It seems, unfortunately, the health of the president is the health of the revolutionary process," said Nicmer Evans, a pro-government analyst who has been warning the ruling Socialist Party that over-dependence on Chavez and personalization of the state make it vulnerable in any scenario without him. If the president's foes have their way, Chavismo will end the same day his rule does. Supporters say he is recovering but insist Chavismo would continue in its current form even beyond him, just with different men leading Chavez's vision. Chavismo could also simply metamorphose into a diluted and nostalgic philosophy like "Peronism" in Argentina. CHAVEZ: 'NOTHING WILL STOP THE REVOLUTION' Chavez, whose indefatigable optimism has helped him defeat challenges ranging from a military coup to an oil industry shutdown, has insisted his recovery is a fait accompli. He has been increasingly prominent in the last two weeks, calling into state media and appearing in public several times, emphatically asserting that he is on course for another six-year term where he will deepen socialism in Venezuela. Nearly two-thirds of the country agree he will make it to the October 7 presidential elections, according to polls that also show him handily beating opposition challenger Henrique Capriles to win a third term. Most surveys give him a double-digit lead. "Whatever my personal destiny is, the revolution already has its inertia. Nothing and nobody will be able to stop it," the 57-year-old president said after his latest operation in February to treat a recurrence of cancer eight months after surgeons removed a baseball-sized tumor from his pelvis. Nevertheless, the unusually long silences for the famously loquacious leader, his months of flying back and forth to Havana for treatment, and even a tearful plea that God spare his life, have shed doubt on the future of his movement. Failure to consolidate "Chavismo without Chavez" could bring prolonged instability - a power struggle between factions, civil unrest - and potentially unsettle the oil industry. For millions of poor Venezuelans, the combination of Chavez's insurrectionist past, humble roots and fiery discourse demanding social justice give him a quasi-religious status. "The role of strongmen in certain historical eras is to move the masses: to be a representative of the masses without any formal legitimization," Chavez told historian Agustin Blanco in 1995 when discussing his evolution from failed coup leader to virtual pop icon. Presenting himself as an inheritor of the ideals of South American liberation hero Simon Bolivar, Chavez has portrayed his movement as an extension of the 19th century struggle to end Spain's colonial rule. Chavez has enjoyed a series of successes at the ballot box and stayed in power for 13 years, helped by the largest wave of oil revenue in the country's history that has bankrolled an unprecedented social spending crusade. He cemented his status as a provocateur of Washington early on through an alliance with Cuba, undermining the U.S. embargo there by providing favorably priced oil. Chavez drew on a mixed bag of ideological influences, from 19th century Venezuelan land crusader Ezequiel Zamora to Argentine radical Norberto Ceresole whose denial of the Holocaust made him perennially controversial. The Argentine's vision for a union of "the strongman, the people, and the armed forces" helped shape Chavez's fusion of military authoritarianism with grassroots citizens' networks that use state resources to fix local problems. MILITARY LEADERSHIP Those ideas helped him create direct economic and political links to citizens, sidestepping clumsy state bureaucracy through social programs known as "missions" and community councils that solve local problems with state funds. It also gave the military an unprecedented role in governance during Venezuela's post-dictatorship modern history, from 1958, putting soldiers and officers at the helm of everything from social development projects to state-backed agricultural schemes. "Chavez believes in obedience more than anything else, which is why he depends so much on the military world," said Raul Salazar, a former defense minister under Chavez now in the opposition. "The armed forces are fractured because they fulfill a strange mix of administrative functions." For leftist activists, Chavismo politics are the apex of how to reinvent the state as the driver of social change. For critics, they are a thinly veiled excuse to put state institutions and the country's purse strings in the hands of one man. "Chavismo has become much more than a party or a movement," Diosdado Cabello, National Assembly president and one of Chavez's closest allies, told Reuters. "The relationship between Chavez and the people goes much beyond the merely political, it goes straight to the spiritual." His links to the country's downtrodden echo a century-long history of Latin American populism, perhaps most famously embodied by Argentina's Juan Peron. But his intense involvement in government decisions large and small is unprecedented since the end of Venezuela's last dictatorship. From personally approving scores of projects carried out by a state investment fund totaling some $90 billion, to intensely debating where to build the parking lot of a Caracas community center, Chavez's micromanagement has earned his government the moniker of a "hyper-presidentialist" system. For this reason his cancer, more than the illness of one man, is a monumental threat to a system built around him. WAITING IN THE WINGS Two simple campaign posters hung along a Caracas highway were enough to fill newspapers for almost a week. The signs featured Chavismo's signature red backdrop, a crowd of supporters in the background, and a picture of his ally Cabello with the words "Diosdado Presidente" beneath. Government supporters quickly pulled them down, the assembly president denounced it as a desperate opposition plot, and a state TV talk-show host even accused an anti-Chavez newspaper editor of staging the incident. The furious reaction highlighted Chavismo's sensitivity to even the slightest discussion of succession, which has been expunged from all official discourse. "Plan A, B, C, D, all the way to Z is Chavez," Cabello said. Yet potential replacements are quietly waiting in the wings. Chavez's constitutional successor is Vice President Elias Jaua, who emerged as a leftist student leader in Caracas during the late 1980s and early 1990s and gained prominence via his participation in frequent rock-throwing protests. Considered very smart with a longstanding belief in radical socialism, he is, according to the polls, the most popular of Chavez's protégés. But the 42-year-old Jaua does not have the confidence of the top military brass and has little personal charisma. Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro, a former bus driver who in less than a decade rose from union organizer to cabinet minister, is increasingly perceived by bankers, diplomats and journalists as Chavez's secretly anointed successor. Though well-liked because of his working-class roots, Maduro, 49, is often seen as less of a decision-maker than reverend preaching the gospel of Chavismo from Bogota to Beijing. Cabello, whose participation in the failed 1992 putsch puts him in an elite circle of Chavez allies, has excellent links with both the military and business circles. But many within Chavismo have more fear than respect for the 49-year-old former soldier. No matter which one Chavez might tap, none would be a successor as much as a standard-bearer for the fallen president. Chavismo's undisputed leader will continue to be Chavez, dead or alive. Interestingly, polls show Capriles is more popular with voters than any of Chavez's other possible successors. Analysts say that could change if the president were to appeal to voters to support a handpicked candidate. CHAVISMO WITHOUT CHAVEZ While Chavismo would almost certainly exist in some form were Chavez to exit the political stage soon, it may have to evolve as radically as communist China's about-face from centrally planned economy to savior of global capitalism. "The day Chavez is no longer here, a much more collective leadership will have to be constructed, because none of today's players have his stature," said Jesse Chacon, a former minister and retired military officer who now heads polling firm GIS XXI. "President Chavez's leadership is of a kind that only appears once in centuries," he told Reuters. Chavez's clear designation of a successor would be crucial to maintaining the movement intact but may not be enough to overcome the rivalry. Some of the ministers who constantly jockey for his favor are rumored to despise one another, and Chavez has at times had to intervene publicly in disputes between allies. Even investors who bid up Venezuelan bonds in cautious anticipation of Chavez's illness worry that a disorderly transition could be worse than a continuation of predictably interventionist socialism. "There's very little transparency within Chavismo to identify groups and positions," said Jose Antonio Gil, a partner at prominent Venezuelan pollster Datanalisis. "The biggest doubt is whether they can stay united." Though plenty of Venezuelans fear unrest of some sort, the possibility of civil war remains remote. Unlike neighboring Colombia, which has been mired in civil war for nearly fifty years, Venezuela has historically negotiated solutions to conflict via liberal distribution of oil revenue. Since his cancer diagnosis last year, Chavez has never publicly contemplated what his abrupt exit from the political scene would mean, beyond saying it would spell "chaos." He did once question the wisdom of a system that rests on a single individual. In 1995, three years before he took power, he reflected: "Could this be a curse, to leave a political movement dependent on a single man?" (Additional reporting by Mario Naranjo, Diego Ore and Eyanir Chinea; Writing by Brian Ellsworth and Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Kieran Murray and Prudence Crowther) World Venezuela Tweet this Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints We welcome comments that advance the story through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of Reuters. For more information on our comment policy, see http://blogs.reuters.com/fulldisclosure/2010/09/27/toward-a-more-thoughtful-conversation-on-stories/ Comments (0) Be the first to comment on reuters.com. Add yours using the box above. Edition: U.S. Africa Arabic Argentina Brazil Canada China France Germany India Italy Japan Latin America Mexico Russia Spain United Kingdom Back to top Reuters.com Business Markets World Politics Technology Opinion Money Pictures Videos Site Index Legal Bankruptcy Law California Legal New York Legal Securities Law Support & Contact Support Corrections Connect with Reuters Twitter Facebook LinkedIn RSS Podcast Newsletters Mobile About Privacy Policy Terms of Use AdChoices Copyright Our Flagship financial information platform incorporating Reuters Insider An ultra-low latency infrastructure for electronic trading and data distribution A connected approach to governance, risk and compliance Our next generation legal research platform Our global tax workstation Thomsonreuters.com About Thomson Reuters Investor Relations Careers Contact Us Thomson Reuters is the world's largest international multimedia news agency, providing investing news, world news, business news, technology news, headline news, small business news, news alerts, personal finance, stock market, and mutual funds information available on Reuters.com, video, mobile, and interactive television platforms. Thomson Reuters journalists are subject to an Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests. NYSE and AMEX quotes delayed by at least 20 minutes. Nasdaq delayed by at least 15 minutes. For a complete list of exchanges and delays, please click here.

Other News on Monday, 25 June 2012
Sudan's Bashir defiant after Khartoum protests |
At least 32 killed in bus accident in Mexico |
Iraq's Sadr demands reforms for support of PM |
One killed in blast in Kenyan port of Mombasa |
Bolivia leader rules out troops as police rebel |
Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek suffers mild heart attack |
All is Well, Drought win top LA Film Fest honors |
Egypt's Islamist president begins building government |
Greek PM to miss EU summit; hopes fade of major action |
At least 32 killed in bus accident in Mexico |
Tunisia extradites former Gaddafi PM to Libya |
Turkey turns to NATO over Syrian attack |
Insight: Can Chavismo outlast Venezuela's Chavez? |
Nigeria says it needs new anti-terrorism tactics |
One killed in blast in Kenyan port of Mombasa |
Sony, Panasonic to cooperate on OLED televisions |
Lenovo shares hit over 4-month low on concern over PC outlook |
Samsung sees higher Q2 handset earnings; U.S. supply crunch to ease |
RIM considers splitting business in two: paper |
ABC the big winner with five Daytime Emmys |
Kuwait government submits resignation |
Netanyahu urges action on Iran after meeting Putin |
Pakistan army protests to NATO, Afghans over attack |
Iran envoy returns to Azerbaijan after Eurovision |
Ukraine trial put off until after Euro 2012 final |
Many feared dead in Uganda landslide on Mt. Elgon |
Insight: Baltic countries' austerity lesson for Europe
Exclusive: Dell bids $2.32 billion for Quest Software
T-Mobile ups U.S. smartphone service in Verizon deal |
GeoEye shares tumble on loss of government contract |
Rambus appoints new CEO |
Developers target Canadian fridges for carbon credits |
Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek suffers mild heart attack |
Amazon's LoveFilm, taking on Netflix, adds Fox in Britain |
Greece at new risk of being pushed off euro
Bodies of missing Tenn. mom, Jo Ann Bain, and daughter found
Female Breasts Are Bigger Than Ever
AMD Trinity Accelerated Processing Units Now in Volume Production
The Avengers (2012 film), made the second biggest opening- and single-day gross of all-time
AMD to Start Production of piledriver
Ivy Bridge Quad-Core, Four-Thread Desktop CPUs
Islamists Protest Lady Gaga's Concert in Indonesia
Japan Successfully Broadcasts an 8K Signal Over the Air
ECB boosts loans to 1 trillion Euro to stop credit crunch
Egypt : Mohammed Morsi won with 52 percent
What do you call 100,000 Frenchmen with their hands up
AMD Launches AMD Embedded R-Series APU Platform
Fed Should not Ignore Emerging Market Crisis
Fed casts shadow over India, emerging markets
Why are Chinese tourists so rude? A few insights

USD EUR - 1 year graph		BlogMeter 1.01