Chavez and the end of "Partyarchy" in Venezuela

Journal of Democracy

Volumn 10, Issue 3, 1999, Pages 64-77

  McCoy, Jennifer L ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0039032409     PISSN: 10455736     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (6)

1. This and the next section draw from Harold Trinkunas and Jennifer McCoy, Observing the 1998 Venezuelan Elections: Special Report (Atlanta, Ga.: The Carter Center, 1999).
2. VenEconomy special publication, Elections 1998 - Meet Your President, 55-56. Polls conducted by Datanálisis.
3. Opinion polls by Datanálisis, Mercanálisis, and Datos, published in the week 23-29 November 1998. The brief interval between the regional and presidential elections prevented most Venezuelan polling organizations from conducting more than one survey of public opinion, and the results of these were all hurriedly published in the last week of November, since Venezuelan electoral law forbids publication of poll results in the final week before an election.
4. This confrontation was reminiscent of the standoff between President Rafael Caldera and Congress in 1994. Caldera, faced with the collapse of the banking system, had unilaterally declared a state of economic emergency, assuming the power to intervene by decree before the Congress granted him special economic powers. Like Chávez, Caldera had only minority support in Congress but strong popular backing, and critics had predicted that he would try to dissolve Congress in a Fujimori-style autogolpe. Instead, the tension escalated into a game of constitutional brinksmanship during the summer of 1994, with Caldera suspending several constitutional guarantees and, in the face of congressional protest, threatening to submit his decisions to a public referendum. If he lost, he would resign, but if the public supported him, the Congress would have to resign en masse. With the polls showing strong public support for Caldera, the political parties backed down, and the constitutional crisis was defused.
5. Speech given by President Chávez to the World Bank-Government of Venezuela Forum on "A Dialogue on Institutional Reforms for Growth and Equity," Caracas, 21 March 1999.
6. For an extended analysis of political learning and its limits in Venezuela, see the chapters by Francine Jácome and Jennifer McCoy in Jennifer L. McCoy, ed., Do Politicians Learn from Crisis? Political Learning During Redemocratization in Latin America (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, forthcoming 1999).