Chavez Concedes Venezuela's Constitutional Reform Lost in "Foto Finish" | venezuelanalysis.com

Chavez Concedes Venezuela's Constitutional Reform Lost in "Foto Finish" | venezuelanalysis.com

As my housemate and I raed the first reports, and then listened to the concession speech, our first and lasting response was simply "Wow."

This was not what we had expected.

Several other scenarios seemed more likely.

The first, of course, the one that we believed would happen, was that he would win the referendum by ten points or so, the margin predicted by independent pollsters. Then the opposition would cry foul, and havoc would ensue in a possibly violent fight between Chavez, backed by the poor, and the wealthy opposition backed by the US (including the CIA and USAID).

The second likely outcome was a Chavez win and a reaction by the opposition muted by Chavez's threats to cut off the oil suppy to the United States if there was interference in the vote or a disturbance afterwards.

The third result we considered a possibility was a loss by Chavez without the result being honored by Chavez, as some sort of evidence of massive vote tampering or voter intimidation would be released.

But a loss with immediate, and even genial, concession from Chavez... Not what we expected.

In a way, though, I'm happy with the outcome. I know this may come as a shock to people who know me as a wild-eyed leftist, but I'm more pragmatic than I let on. Its a good outcome in my book for these reasons:

-There was an almost complete lack of the violence that all sides had predicted. No matter who "wins," violence is violence.

-Chavez's concession speech will hopefully quell a lot of the "tyrannical dictator" talk. The concession itself, and the speech particularly, were not in the vein of a dictator. They belonged much more to what Chavez is: a democratically elected populist.

-What a lot of people don't know about the referendum is that it also would have made a number of progressive changes to the constitution in the areas of education and social security. As my housemate and I discussed, these probably didn't belong in a constitutional amendment in the first place. They more appropriately shjould be dealt with in the normal legislative process in the National Assembly, and hopefully they will and will succeed. After all, Chavez has enough support there to pass it. It would appear, to my untrained eye, that it was added as some sort of a "rider" to try and increase public support for the ending of term limits, which was the real heart of the referndum. And that isn't right. If the people don't support the ending of term limits on its own, it shouldn't pass.

-And finally, I wasn't really comfortable with the idea of ending term limits in the first place. As a general rule I support Chavez, but this one was a little too much. First, it would have cemented in everyone's mind that he was what the international press has always called him: A dictator.
But more importantly, I still believe that there is a grass roots revolution occurring in Venezuela, with a movement towards grassroots activism and socialism. And if that revolution can't move forward with anyone else at the helm of the government, then it was never a real revolution in the first place. I would like to believe that Venezuela is not Cuba, and does not need the heavy hand of one man to avoid being turned back to US control, and Chavez stepping down will be the test.

And lastly, of course, is the issue of Chavez stepping down. We do, after all, have him until 2013.