Win Some, lose some

 

 

The electoral defeat of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela’s constitutional reform voting has brought down the curtain on this maverick leader’s dream of reappearing for the presidential elections in 2012. The result though was marginal with the vote against such reforms being 51% compared to 49% in favour of them. Chavez’s victory in the election would have given him sweeping powers to press for constitutional reforms and make Venezuela a socialist state while nearly making him President for life

The defeat of Chavez can be read as a referendum and comes as a dampener to all those who have been expecting him to spearhead the so called anti-US brigade. But in his quest to consolidate power it seems somewhere down the line he has trampled on individual liberty of the common Venezuelan who assumed such actions by him as indications of his ambition to become unchallenged leader.

Chavez’s defeat has no doubt added to the glee of the Americans. The US Under Secretary of State during his visit to Singapore stated, "In a country that wants to be a democracy, the people spoke, and the people spoke for democracy and against unlimited power." Incidentally the defeat of Chavez comes at a time when President Vladimir Putin won a landslide victory in Russia’s parliamentary (Duma) elections, vindicating the show of solidarity that Russians have with Putin’s United Russia Party and its blueprint for a new resurgent Russia. While Chavez has gone for the rhetoric, chauvinism and embargo to put forward his opposition to US policies, Putin had slowly worked towards creating a more economically and militarily stronger Russia. Like Venezuela, Russia too has been using its vast reserve of oil and gas to lift the country’s fortune but unlike Chavez, Putin resisted US policies when the need be but did not altogether shun US. When needed he often shook hands with George Bush even though the chances of the revival of the cold War era between US and Russia has never been so high as it is now. No wonder Putin has kept behind Chavez in the race to fill the anti-US vacuum. Chavez would do well to keep aside chauvinism and embrace Putin style geopolitics for once