IV Online magazine - Archive

At the beginning of October, much of the world’s media descended on Caracas hoping to report on the end of an authoritarian regime. “Too close to call” was the refrain on almost every network. Market analysts at places like Barclay’s Capital urged investors to pile into Venezuelan debt on the assumption of an opposition victory. Months earlier Robert Zoellick, then still head of the World Bank, revelled in the certainty that Chavez’ days were numbered. Better still, Chavez’ defeat would put a stop to Venezuela’s subsidies to Cuba and Nicaragua and spell the end for those ’regimes’ too, bringing “an opportunity to make the Western Hemisphere the first democratic hemisphere”. When those pictures came out a week before the poll, of tens of thousands at the final opposition rally, it seemed they might be right. Many of us had forgotten that the Venezuelan opposition turned out dozens of equally massive rallies and marches back in 2002 to 2004. Even among left activists there were more and more of us mumbling about whether there was really much to save in the Bolivarian revolution.