SERVIÇO PÚBLICO: A obra do caudilho Chávez (2)

Em complemento do post de ontem, vale a pena recomendar a leitura de outro artigo da Economist: «Hugo Chávez’s rotten legacy», um requisitório da governação despótica e incompetente deste querido líder.

Alguns excertos:

«Mr Chávez proceeded to dominate his country for more than 14 years until his death this week from cancer. His secret was to invent a hybrid regime. He preserved the outward forms of democracy, but behind them he concentrated power in his own hands and manipulated the law to further his own ends. He bullied opponents, and encouraged the middle class to emigrate. He hollowed out the economy by mixing state socialism and populist redistribution with a residue of capitalismo. …

Chávez had the immense good fortune to come to power just as an unprecedented commodity boom was about to get under way. As the oil price soared the dollars rolled in, without the Bolivarian revolution having to work for them. Mr Chávez used this windfall to buy himself popular support, with social programmes and handouts. The oil-fuelled bounty seemed to vindicate his claim that before his advent, Venezuelans had been impoverished by “neo-liberalism”. …

Behind the propaganda, Venezuela’s ugly reality is that of a corrupt, cynical and incompetent regime (see article). It is regrettable that Mr Chávez will not be around to reap the whirlwind he has sown: perversely, the worse things now get in Venezuela, the more this will flatter his memory. So despite its malign effect on Venezuela, chavismo will survive its creator’s demise, much as Peronism has outlived Colonel Juan Perón in Argentina. …

Mr Chávez’s fans claim that, thanks to him, Latin America freed itself from subjection to the United States. The continent certainly grew in confidence while he was in power, but that happened because of better economic management and rising trade with China, not because of anything Mr Chávez did. His scarlet beret may look good on bourgeois T-shirts in Greenwich Village and Islington, but Latin America’s real working-class hero has been Brazil’s Lula. And despite all the bear hugs at Latin American summits, Mr Chávez did not further the continent’s cause. Although Latin America’s leaders—including Lula—have been reluctant to denounce Mr Chávez, they know that he prevented it from fulfilling its potential and uniting behind democracy and open markets.»