Democracy in the Americas
By ROGER COHEN
New York Times
CARACAS, Venezuela
I salute you, Hugo Chávez.
Those are words I never thought I’d write. But nor did I think it possible that a Latin American strongman, issued from the barracks, accumulating power through threats, slandering opponents as “traitors,” buying support with $150 million a day in oil money, and bent on a socialist revolution, would accept a marginal electoral defeat.
No, if it came to the humiliation of a 51 to 49 percent rejection of his proposal to end term limits and undermine private property rights and centralize authority, he would surely use a controlled Election Commission to tweak the numbers for Venezuela’s glorious march to socialism.
And yet, there was a glum Chávez declaring in the unadorned language no totalitarian system can abide that: “The people’s decision will be upheld in respect of the basic rule of democracy: the winning option is the one that gets most votes.”
The United States might ponder those words — not just because of what happened in the presidential election of 2000; not just because the arithmetic of voting has proved unpalatable in Palestine; not just because of the past U.S.-abetted trampling of elected Latin American leaders in Chile and elsewhere — but because democracy was alive and vital in Venezuela on Sunday in a way foreign to President Bush’s America.
I watched as “Chávistas” and their opponents exchanged arguments in the sun. The issue was grave — a change of economic system under a comandante eyeing lifelong rule — but civility prevailed. When the result came in the early hours Monday, supporters of the “No” campaign partied undisturbed.
(Continued here.)
New York Times
CARACAS, Venezuela
I salute you, Hugo Chávez.
Those are words I never thought I’d write. But nor did I think it possible that a Latin American strongman, issued from the barracks, accumulating power through threats, slandering opponents as “traitors,” buying support with $150 million a day in oil money, and bent on a socialist revolution, would accept a marginal electoral defeat.
No, if it came to the humiliation of a 51 to 49 percent rejection of his proposal to end term limits and undermine private property rights and centralize authority, he would surely use a controlled Election Commission to tweak the numbers for Venezuela’s glorious march to socialism.
And yet, there was a glum Chávez declaring in the unadorned language no totalitarian system can abide that: “The people’s decision will be upheld in respect of the basic rule of democracy: the winning option is the one that gets most votes.”
The United States might ponder those words — not just because of what happened in the presidential election of 2000; not just because the arithmetic of voting has proved unpalatable in Palestine; not just because of the past U.S.-abetted trampling of elected Latin American leaders in Chile and elsewhere — but because democracy was alive and vital in Venezuela on Sunday in a way foreign to President Bush’s America.
I watched as “Chávistas” and their opponents exchanged arguments in the sun. The issue was grave — a change of economic system under a comandante eyeing lifelong rule — but civility prevailed. When the result came in the early hours Monday, supporters of the “No” campaign partied undisturbed.
(Continued here.)
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