The Slow Death of Chavismo

Venezuelas President Maduro inherited a vast empire of

propaganda from his charismatic predecessor. Heres how he
lost it.

BY DANIEL LANSBERG-RODRGUEZ-DECEMBER 6,
2015

Venezuelas president, Nicols Maduro, seems to be stumbling towardselectoral

defeat in the countrys legislative elections today, potentially triggering a long goodbye
for the countrys seventeen-year-old socialist revolution. Polls show that, while
Venezuelans may differ somewhat when assigning blame for their countrys ongoing
economic collapse, discontent is nearly universal and only about 20 to 25
percentapprove of the president himself. As the hand-picked successor of Hugo
Chvez, the countrys longstanding former leader, Maduro inherited one of the most
innovative and successful propaganda models in the world, developed by Chvez
between 1998 and 2002. Why hasnt Maduro been able to use it?
Hugo Chvezs 14-year stint at the helm of Venezuelas revolutionary government

produced many uncertainties for its population: a new constitution, radical reforms,
soaring inflation, and a veritable boom in street crime and urban violence, to name but
a few. But for most of that time, one thing was certain. Every Sunday, viewers could
watch Chvezs television talk-show Al Presidente, an eclectic mix of variety show,
televangelical preaching, real-time government, and musical extravaganza. Chvez
used his show, which was broadcast on the state television channel, to share his
views on matters ranging from baseball to geopolitics, answer phone calls from the
populace, share personal anecdotes, or spout his trademark ideological pedagogy,
liberally peppered with outbursts of song.
On the show, Chvez would expropriate businesses, renounce Venezuelas
membership in international associations, and expel ambassadors; he might even
indulge in mobilizing troops to the Colombian border or announce modifications to the
flag, currency, and other national symbols. For many Venezuelans, Al
Presidente represented a window into national events and decisions, taking place in
real time a reality show which affected the lives of its viewers. Chvez also used the
show to reward his supporters with gifts and patronage with the dramatic beneficence
of a Caesar in a coliseum deciding, if not matters of life and death, then at least the
destinies of individual citizens, by doling out everything from scholarships and jobs to
cooking supplies, all to thunderous applause.
For Venezuelans, Al Presidente became a ready reminder of the benefits of working
with the regime and Chvezs largesse contrasted with threats, invectives, and
even arrest orders against those who broke rank. When ministers were regularly
chastised, fired, and replaced on air, viewers received a clear message: the
governments many failures were due to poor execution of Chvezs otherwise
infallible plans by incompetent minions. He claimed, for example, that an important
bridge had been felled by El Nio (not lack of maintenance); that periods of scarcity
were the fault of hoarders or speculators (not economic mismanagement); and that the
lights went out in several cities because an iguana had somehow got loose in the
electrical mainframe. Conspiratorial scare tactics likewise abounded: shadowy
opposition intrigues were alleged; CIA cabals brandished cancer injections and
earthquake rays; Coke Zero (but not other Coca-Cola products) wasaccused of
being poisonous. There were even cautionary tales such as the story of a oncethriving civilization on Marsbrought low by the adoption of capitalism.
Ironically, while excoriating capitalism, Chvezs state media empire learned to wield
its best-known commercial and marketing tricks in pushing its main product: Chvez
himself. Foreign heads of state and left-leaning international celebrities, such as
Naomi Campbell, Danny Glover, and Sean Penn, would appear on the show, lending
their star power to the Chvez brand of permanent revolution.
Al Presidente represented the perfect populist vehicle: it kept Chvez in the public
eye, helped define his political agenda, and drove the media conversation during any
given week. When the Sunday afternoon format proved too limiting, Chvez became
heavily reliant on cadenas, a type of broadcast permitted under Venezuelan law that
gives presidents a constitutional prerogative to seize airtime on every radio and TV

station for use in emergencies, or to broadcast major events such as the Venezuelan
equivalent of the United States yearly State of the Union speech. Undeterred by
convention, Chvez began serially invoking the law to deliver multi-hour speeches,
meticulously timed to moments when opposition leaders were speaking elsewhere.
According to one estimate, Chvez resorted to 2,000 cadenas during his first 11 years
as president, averaging one every two days. From late 1999 onwards, Chvez
averaged nearly 40 hours of personal media time a week.
By the time the final episode of Al Presidente was transmitted from Chvezs home
state of Barinas on January 29, 2012, the show had, according to government figures,
logged nearly 657 hours of airtime over 14 years, averaging a robust four to five
percent of national television viewership for much of its existence and sporadically
spiking to up to three times that amount.
Since Chvezs death, attempts by others to fill the void have produced consistently
underwhelming results. Chvezs handpicked presidential successor, Nicols Maduro,
his wife, National Assembly chief Diosdado Cabello, and other major regime players
have tried to take up the mantle with their own shows in similar formats. The armed
forces, the socialist colectivos, and various community groups also appear in official
media spots. But despite similarities in content, the glut of budget Al
Presidentes have invariably failed to recreate the magic not one of them has topped
even one percent of the national audience. Maduros own show has seemed to take a
back seat to that of Cabello, whose penchant for airing secretly taped private
conversations to humiliate or threaten his enemies at least makes for dramatic
television.
For the perennially gaffe-prone and unpopular Maduro, a system designed to run on
the personal dynamism of Chvez himself has made for an awkward fit. Chvez was
quick to sideline potential rivals, and Maduros innocuousness and unwavering loyalty
allowed him to navigate those treacherous waters successfully enough to be anointed
successor. But since taking over the presidency, these assets have become
liabilities.In a system tailored to channel Chvezs larger-than-life persona, his
absence is all the more palpable. As Venezuela approached this weekends electoral
contest, the regime has striven to remind disaffected voters of that connection
however they can. On December 3, Maria Gabriella Chvez, the former presidents
favorite daughter, published an open letter to her countrymen beseeching them to
defend the revolution of My Father, the brother of all, Our Chvez, referencing a
government-promoted rewrite of the Catholic Our Father prayer, featuring Chvez,
that made the rounds last year.
In addition to his lack of Chavez-like charisma, Maduros lack of television success can
perhaps be explained by his tweaking of the bombastic former leaders grand narrative
for Venezuela. The message of chavismo is similar in many respects to that of other
revolutionary authoritarian Marxist ideologies: history is reinterpreted as a grand
redemptive narrative of revolution, repackaged as a set of crucial dates and figures
which point to the inevitable (and thus legitimate) status quo. The official mythology

views Venezuelan independence hero Simn Bolvar, who fought bravely for
independence, social equality, and freedom only to be cynically betrayed by capitalist
elites, as a direct precursor of Hugo Chvez. Subsequent Venezuelan history is
simplified into two centuries under the brutal yoke of oligarchs and foreigners until the
arrival of Hugo Chvez on the political scene.
The worldview that results is rigidly dualistic, almost Manichean; and the Venezuelan
governments rhetoric is heavily reliant on diametrically opposed sets of loaded terms.
On the side of good are el pueblo (the people),la patria (the homeland), socialism,
revolution, the global left, liberty, sovereignty, Latin America. Representing evil are
imperialists, the United States, oligarchs, the CIA, international elites, ultra-rightists,
fascists, and Zionists words that can be used interchangeably to denote any enemy
that criticizes or meddles in Venezuelan government affairs.
While Maduros administration still relies on a version of Chvezs grand narrative, the
tone has changed, becoming less hopeful and more paranoid. Machiavelli once
advised his prince to rule by either love or fear (famously recommending the latter, as
it could be more easily controlled); Maduro has opted for fear. According to a tally by
Colombias NTN24 network in February, Maduro had at that point claimed to have
foiled at least 16 coup attempts, and by my count there have been at least five more
since then. He regularly announces imminent threats of invasion and sabotage from a
range of intractable enemies. To hammer home the message, Maduro has taken to
paranoid theatrics such as showing up at the April 2015 Summit of the Americas in
Panama with an obvious show of security personnel, a body double, and at least
seemingly a bulletproof vest.
The resulting siege mentality makes it easier for the government to pass the buck for
the regimes failures in crime prevention and the economy, or else to justify
increasingly authoritarian social controls. Since Chvezs death, media controls have
become more powerful, if at times less direct. Despite his socialist rhetoric,Maduro has
found that the best way to control the independent media is to use the invisible hand of
capitalism. The free market was used as a cudgel: the government simply had its
friends buy up the media. The result has been an increasingly desolate media
landscape, and with no competition, the pro-government media, too, has lost
dynamism.
Which is not to say Maduro himself cant be dramatic. Last month an
uncharacteristically grave-faced Maduro, incongruously garbed in a festive crimson
Adidas tracksuit, took to the government airwaves and warned potential detractors that
they had best pray for a government victory lest the revolution be forced to take it to
the streets. Ominous words, but they lost much in the telling.
Today Venezuelans head to the polls, and they will likely hand the socialist candidates
their first defeat in a national election. The government may yetminimize the impact of
that loss through institutional control of the national judiciary and electoral council
but the socialists defeat will be a public rejection of Maduros vision. Chvez was a
charismatic and positive figure, a huckster who conjured fantastical futures in

exchange for electoral support. In contrast, Maduro has been more like a low-level
thug, warning of doom for Venezuela should voters abandon him. The message is
increasingly unwelcome. Having once been promised and denied a beautiful future,
Venezuelans will not stand for being threatened. The people could suffer the
salesman, less so the racketeer.
This article is adapted from an essay written for the Legatum Institutes Beyond
Propaganda series.
In the photo, electoral graffiti depicts Hugo Chvez, Simn Bolvar, and Nicolas
Maduro in the Petare shantytown in Caracas on December 1, 2015.
Photo credit: FEDERICO PARRA/AFP/Getty Images
Posted by Thavam