Venezuela without Chavez?

Let's say that Caldera doesn't pardon him but orders Chavez and his co-conspirators tried for sedition and/or treason. Perez still gets impeached and removed from office, and Caldera returns to Miraflores for his second term as per OTL. What happens in 1999? Does Salas Romer win instead? Does the COPEI/AD 2-party system still collapse without Chavez?


No flamewars please.
 

yourworstnightmare

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More elitist and larger differences between the rich and the poor. More democratic, and probably a somewhat stronger oil producer than OTL.
 
What happens in '99 though? Presumably Salas Romer wins, because now Venezuela has to find new leaders. When you've had the same ones for over 50 years, that becomes a dilemma...
 
Given the chronic insurgencies and military coups before the party leaders signed that pact in 1958, I don't think they can be faulted for that. Where I would fault them is failing to develop any sort of service or manufacturing economy and instead relying on oil, which is far too unstable for long-term economic development.
 
As much as I dislike Chavez, not much different. Less aid for the FARC, better relations with neighbors, and less nationalized buisnesses. That's about all I can think of.
 
Sean, seizing the oil service industry because the workers had this most peculiar idea that Chavez was supposed to pay them for services rendered did nothing but harm as he now desperately needs their expertise, without which the stolen equipment isn't much use, and they have absolutely no reason to trust Chavez. This tends to make negotiations problematical.

Doesn't do much for oil production either.

He's having similar difficulties convincing French and Norwegian oil interests to return after he threw them out.
 
So how does Salas Romer perform as president? He ran on a neoliberal platform IOTL, so should be interesting to see what happens when that's done without IMF prodding, unlike Perez, or undiluted by expanding the social safety net, as Caldera did, in their second terms. Perhaps amending the 1961 constitution to say that a president can be elected no more than twice removing the ban on immediate re-election, as with the US 22nd Amendment. Might as well, since the OTL workaround was wait 10 years before running again after leaving office- as Chavez's 2 predecessors did, and leads to the same people being endlessly recycled at ages when they should be in retirement homes, not in the Venezuelan equivalent of the Oval Office.
 
If anything, substantially less democratic, with death squads, urban strife, probable significant infiltration of narcotics trafficking, a higher crime rate, poorer infrastructure. Venezuela had a polarized society with a large poor and disenfranchised class that found itself making common cause with teachers, labour organizers, journalists and intellectuals.

This underclass is what supports and enables Chavez. Without him, they wouldn't magically go away. More likely, they'd express grievances through a variety of legal, semi-legal and illicit means, the state response would be various forms of repression and violence. I can see recurring states of martial law and real dictatorships.

I'm not persuaded that the Venezuelan economy would do significantly better, given the past performance of leadership.
 
Let's keep this OT, not a discussion of Chavez. No one has any idea of how Salas Romer's presidency would turn out, the future of the Venezuelan 2-party system?
 
No one has any idea of how Salas Romer's presidency would turn out, the future of the Venezuelan 2-party system?


I see this non-Chavez Venezuela being merely "the same, but different". That is, different mechanisms may be at work, but the results will essentially be the same.

You'll still have huge income disparities, dysfunctional/incompetent governments, endemic corruption, narco-terror, oppression, extrajudicial murders, and all the rest. The seductive safety net provided by oil wealth will prevent all but hollow gestures towards the structural reforms the nation requires. The labels will be different and the excuses for the various parties' actions will be different, yet the nastiness created will be the all too familiar.

So, the details will vary and the results will not. Romer's presidency will be more of the same, the 2-party system will produce nothing of note, and Venezuela will remain unchanged.
 
Why would it be more democratic
A lack of certain subversions of the democratic process would be a strong sign. Venezuela wasn't a great democracy, but like most of the continent it was improving a dozen years ago.

and why a stronger oil producer? Has oil production dropped under Chavez.
Yes. Significantly: Chavez is having to beg back the foreign oil companies he kicked out years ago because, with no thanks to a large blacklist of political non-suporters and opponents in the state oil company, Venezuela has lost much of its ability to maintain, let alone boost, oil production.


Edit:

Ahem. To get off the Chavez track:

Venezuela without Chavez would have a stronger economy, at the very least. With oil production not down, and with more stable and conventional economic management, Venezuela would be on better economic footing vis-a-vis the South American continent. Economic fundamentals improved. Others can argue if the poor are much worse off, if at all: there is a lot to argue that many of Chavez's programs are very poorly managed inititives that fall through. Good governance, perhaps in the model of Brazil or Chile, could even see constructive reforms.

Venezuela would certainly not be trying to be the anti-American leader. Fewer aid projects for others. Fewer Cuban intelligence service operations in Venezuela. More in line with American efforts to isolate Iran: possibly an oil-dove during the boom years, like Saudi was pressed to be? Less undermining of Colombia will only help relations with its western neighbor.
 
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Let's keep this OT, not a discussion of Chavez. No one has any idea of how Salas Romer's presidency would turn out, the future of the Venezuelan 2-party system?

Only better in some areas, and worse in others. Venezuela would stay more democratic, but equally as corrupt. A larger disparity amongst the poor and the rich and a heightened elitism. Also, Dean posted, larger oil production.
 
Narco-terror? I doubt it. As for extrajudicial, undoubtedly. The banking crisis fallout would still have to be dealt with. Caldera, as in his first term 25 years earlier, had stabilized the security situation and kept the economy on a relatively even keel by Venezuelan standards by the time he left office. Of course Romer would try an all-out neoliberal approach, which would be... interesting in the Chinese sense. The first priority along with the economy would be improving health and education, then developing an alternative to oil in the service sector to provide stability that cannot be had with a petrodollar. But all that requires a succession of presidents committed to it and is impossible to change in a 5-year term. Hence the need to modify the term limits provision. Maybe that's just me, but for every Betancourt or Caldera thrown up by that system, you get a Perez to undo all the good done and FUBAR. Given that there were fewer than 10 major players on the Venezuelan political scene between 1958 and 1993, might as well keep the goodies for as long as they're young and healthy enough and the voters approve.
 
Only better in some areas, and worse in others. Venezuela would stay more democratic, but equally as corrupt. A larger disparity amongst the poor and the rich and a heightened elitism. Also, Dean posted, larger oil production.
Why equally? While certainly a possibility, a decade is plenty of time for differences to emerge, and there's always the argument that more even democracy has its own anti-corruption effect.
 
Oh, and as I said earlier better relations with Colombia. I doubt Romer would go dicking around with the FARC. Correct me if I'm wrong of course.
 
Sounds good. So a moderate improvement in the economy, and what happens in 2005 assuming that the term limit provisions remain untouched? Who runs? There was no second generation of Venezuelan politicians, only old men who left office the first time before many of their second-term voters were born.
 
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