23 january 1958 The right wing dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez, supported by several USA administrations, flees Venezuela and is replaced by a democratic government. For the next 40 years the electorate will vote for social democrats and christian democrats to run the country alternatively. Venezuela profits from oil revenues and modernizes at great speed. When right wing dictatorships took over South America in the sixties and seventies, waves of southerners (my family among so many others) settled in Venezuela, the most stable democracy of the continent, as my father used to say. Nevertheless this true great leap of modernization, which included extensive health services, modern transport networks and advanced education system; the levels of corruption are appalling throughout all the years of democracy. Arguably worse, inequality grew as hard as modernization. By the eighties, Venezuela counts 80% of her population living with less income than needed to afford 1800 calories per day.
27 February 1989. Social democrats win election in 1988 with a neoliberal program, widely acclaimed by the medium classes. In my university campaigners claim that the pronoum “neo” represents a social component added to the tenets of classic liberalism. One of the measures, an unannounced doubled in the price of public transport, triggered unplanned and widespread protests that ended a week later with the army in the streets and 3000 deaths. I myself witness piles of corpses unattended at the entrance of public hospitals. Nobody imagined the dimensions of the violence or of its causing discontent. This day marks an inflection in the history of Venezuela. Later on the government collapses by first time since the beginning of democratic rule and it is replaced by a caretaker cabinet.
4 February 1992, Hugo Chavez, a paratrooper commander, attempts a coup d’etat. Defeated, he is brought to prison, not before appearing in national television to surrender publicly. He ask his confederates to stand down “for now”. The expression makes headlines and grants him unexpected political capital. Seeing his demeanor, many Venezuelans are thrilled by a caudillo that is young, brave and capable of threatening politicians even in defeat.
5 December 1993, Rafael Caldera, the founding father of the Venezuelan Christian Democrat party wins elections (also) against a candidate of his own party. Right after grants pardon to Hugo Chavez, who expend the next years organizing his own political force.
6 December 1998, Hugo Chavez wins his first election. He run against a single candidate supported by both social and christian democrats, defeating him by 16 points. A great deal of his support comes from the middle classes. If Venezuelans can agree in one thing, it is that the traditional agreement of two alternating parties ruling the country has outlived itself. In the process, families like mine are forever split, and eventually stop talking to each other. I can’t begin to fathom how my father could support a militar caudillo, like the ones that tortured him in Argentina. He does not understand how a left winger like me can not support the coming revolution. Venezuelans start the long road towards radicalization and split.
15 December 1999 A new constitution is agreed by a national referendum, after having been written by a constitutional assembly popularly elected. Among many far reaching reforms, the bicameral structure of the legislative power is changed to a single national assembly. Also, five branches of government are created the three known legislative, judicial and executive plus the electoral and citizen ones.
30 july 2000 Hugo Chavez is reelected, according to the new constitution. His opponent was one of his three comrades of the ‘92 coup, Francisco Arias Cardenas, who grouped all opposition parties. Chavez won the election with a 20 points margin.
11 april 2002 After an anti governmental demonstration is bloodily interrupted by unidentified snippers, resulting in 19 deaths and 110 wounded, several military leaders retreat their support to Chavez government, and Chavez himself is taken off the government palace. Opposition leaders took the government, in a clear coup d’etat, and among other measures disown the ‘99 constitution. The abruptness of this power grab doomed their already limited support, and by 14 April Chavez has returned to the presidency.
The years following are of almost permanent conflict. A referendum to reform the constitution pushed by the opposition is defeated narrowly. A national strike turns into a strike of the oil industry workers, attempting to break the government, but is defeated ending with the firing of thousands of employees, removing their expertise and crippling the main source of income of the country. Production diminishes ever since. Yet the high prices of oil support years of expanded “social missions”, programs where social services reach layers of the population that have not been affected by governmental policy for decades. The power base of Hugo Chavez changes. His first elections were won by medium class votes, yet the last ones by the poor and the dispossessed. A referendum to recall his presidency in 2004 is defeated with 60% of voters supporting him.
3 december 2006 Hugo Chavez is reelected by 26 points, a record difference with also a record turnout in Venezuelan history. His counter candidate, a former christian democrat, concede defeat in a widely observed election. Oil prices keep granting Venezuela a time of plenty, yet the political confrontation remains. My friends begin to emigrate, after taking part in constant and eventually useless demonstrations against the government. Yet from all the Venezuelans that I know still living in Venezuela, these years allow them to save dollars, currency that floods the country. Slowly a so called “boliburguesia” (from Bolivarian Bourgeoise) develops, a new affluent class that aligned with the government makes impressive and unexplained economical gains. Corruption is, once again, plain to see.
2 december 2007 This is the first election that the government loses. A referendum on a series of reforms to the constitution, promoted by the government, rejects them. Discontent with revolution creeps on the electorate.
From 2010 onwards the economical situation of Venezuela accelerate the decline of the country’s welfare. The international collapse of commodities prices restrain the expenditures of Chavez government. None of the programs implemented ever produced structural change, so in despite of the well documented advances in literacy and health care, the fundamental inequalities of the Venezuelan population remains, from now on with crippled by corruption and incompetence social missions to staunch the growing levels of critical poverty. In the best known of such cases, tons of rotten meat were found, after being bought by the government as poverty relief, but are left un distributed in containers.
7 october 2012 Hugo Chavez reelected, by first time with a diminished advantage of 11 points. The opposition, me included observing from The Netherlands, believes in a win that didn’t materialize. Enrique Capriles, the opposition candidate, conceded the election. Hugo Chavez before and during the election is treated for cancer in Cuba. He died the 5 of march of 2013, being replaced by Nicolas Maduro as president.
14 april 2013 Nicolas Maduro and Henrique Capriles go to election. Maduro wins by 1,49 points, the smallest election difference in our history, under widespread criticism of malfeasance. Venezuelan economy continues in free fall. The opposition radicalized, with parties calling for civil disobedience, which manifest in increasingly violent demonstrations and their repression. In 2014 a series of protests called by a coalition of Leopoldo Gonzales and Corina Machado, leaders of different parties, are regularly violent. The regime stepped up repression. Yet another sector of the opposition believes in the electoral way. In several crucial moments in the years to come, opposition politicians will disagree on the tactics and strategies needed to win elections, or take power.
6 december 2015 Parliamentary elections are won by the opposition by first time since 1998. Not surprisingly, the government creates a “national communal parliament” nominated by themselves, which receives administrative powers comparable to the national assembly. In these years is not any more the middle classes that leave the country, but neighboring countries are repeatedly in humanitarian crisis due to the stream of Venezuelans fleeing the regime on foot. Currently it is estimated that 20% of the population has fled. The absolute number, 6 millions, is comparable to the number of refugees from the Syrian war.
From 4 August 2017, the parliament put together by the government, convenes to rewrite the constitution. Four days after its first session it declares itself the governmental branch with maximal power. More than 40 countries do not recognize this assembly.
20 may 2018 Nicolas Maduro wins presidential elections widely recognized as fraudulent. The chairman of the national assembly elected in 2015, Juan Guaido, calls himself interim president, and is recognized as such by over 40 countries. Yet the Maduro administration remains in power.
30 april 2019 Juan Guaido publicly calls for the uprising of the people and the military to topple the government of Maduro. His mere undeterred street presence give us, observers from abroad, the belief that something is afoot, at last. Yet the uprise failed to materialize. In an even more caricatural moment, two speed boats launching in neighboring Colombia and packed with tens of Venezuelan dissidents and two former North American green berets attempted to kidnap Nicolas Maduro the 4 of may of 2020. The operation was well known to the regime and was stopped at landing. It counted with early support of Guaido’s team, apparently retired at later stages of planning.