Is Venezuela ready to support a new leadership?

Chavez, Cancer and Socialist Project Recent news have shown President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, is beaten by cancer and in the following weeks will return to La Habana to start a new phase of treatments. Many analysts have stated the health of the President is an important variable that could affect his leadership in the future. In conference offered yesterday (8/12/12) he declared: If any circumstance that does not allow me to continue in charge of the Presidency, in that case, new elections will take place, and pointed that Nicolas Maduro should be elected as the new President of Venezuela. That statement showed two important conditions: (1) Chavez will not accept the ruling of institutional procedures, letting the 1st Vicepresident to take command, without elections. (2) Is Nicolas Maduro prepared to assume the continuity of the socialist project? Nicolas Maduro has been chosen strategically for one important reason: the support for the foreign community. Maduro has been the main engagement between Venezuela and other important allies like China, Iran, Russia, and many socialist countries in Latin America. He has been the main political actor in the birth of the UNASUR. He also has been participant in major events, like the coup in Nicaragua (2009), the recent situation in Paraguay (2012), and as well as the complex relations with the United States. In that sense Maduro has political expertise to keep the ties with the international community. However, at the institutional level Maduro has received many critics for the way he handles the appointment of public officers in the government. In order to become the successor of Hugo Chavez, Maduro must come with a plan that shows adjustments to the socialist project. These changes should be announced periodically, resembling the political model applied by Raul Castro in Cuba, after Fidel Castro stepped down from the presidency. To produce a stable political cohesion, Maduro will need the support not only of the socialist block, but the political opposition. In comparison to Cuba, the Venezuelan opposition has gained significance in the political scenery. Chavez has argued that political groups potentially could take advantage from his health situation, producing political instability. In that sense, instead of letting Maduro finish the actual presidential term (2006 2012) and assume the next one, he (Chavez) blocks this democratic procedure and open the possibility to new elections, creating an unnecessary political polarisation. Instead of backing its program through an institutional network, the announcement of new elections could damage the socialist project of Chavez. He is underpinning his institutional framework with specific characters.

Another critical point in the possible scenario of elections is the vacuum of representation. Is Maduro capable of retaining the electoral support obtained in the last election? It is not clear if he can. Although, it is recognised by colleagues, and opposition leaders, his expertise as a union leader could give him some advantage. Still, the fate of the socialist project could be at a critical with the absence of Chavez. The uncertainties of Chavezs delicate situation are now news in Venezuela. In the authoritarian political model Chavez, his absence can produce a vacuum of power, Vicepresident, Nicola Maduro, has an important mission, socialist project alive. commented imposed by and the 1st to keep the

Unfortunately, as usually happens on authoritarian governments, if Chavez dies he will be glorified and this will produce a polarisation between groups pro and against Chavez; situation that the country does not need with an appalling economic situation. The next month is going to be crucial for Venezuela to show democratic matureness, as they have preached since Chavez won. Hope this not turns into a worst scenario, the one we never imagined.