Chavez, Castro, Carter, & Democracy

With Hugo Chavez's claim to victory backed up by Jimmy Carter, and his corrupt and increasingly dictatorial regime supported by his ideological comrade Fidel Castro, Venezuela is sinking into a totalitarian mire. Worse, it threatens to take much of the region with it.

While the election and the opposition's skepticism of the results is getting a fair amount of coverage in newspapers, the blogosphere is unusually quiet. Partly that's a result of the ongoing coverage of Kerry's Cambodia story, which the major papers are either ignoring or just beginning to cover.

The most notable exception here is David Adesnick at Oxblog (via Pejmanesque), who closes his commentary by noting that, contrary to the claims of the Washington Post's reporter, "Rather than a revolution of the poor, Chavez is demonstrating the poverty of his so-called revolution."

Yesterday's WSJ ($) ran an editorial that summed up the gloomy forecast for democrats in South America:

"Sunday's vote is a metaphor for the sorry state of Venezuela's "democracy." Mr. Chavez controls the military, the Supreme Court, the Congress, the National Electoral Council (CNE), the state-owned oil monopoly and the intelligence services. There is no balance of power, no transparency, and Venezuela is fast becoming an authoritarian state.

"Equally worrying is that when the oil-rich Mr. Chavez claimed victory, he claimed it for all of the Americas, reinforcing his commitment to spread revolution on the continent. With Fidel Castro as his closest ally, Mr. Chavez is a dangerous presence in the region. . . .

"Mr. Chavez has already made it clear that it is his way or the highway for Venezuelans. . . . In recent years Mr. Chavez has praised Middle Eastern terrorism as heroic and lobbed rhetorical grenades at George W. Bush. On his own continent he has given Columbian guerrillas sanctuary inside Venezuelan territory."

Today's news is no better. The AP reports: "Strengthened by his victory in a recall referendum, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez set his sights Tuesday on centralizing power, including exerting control over the courts, local police and the nation's broadcast stations."

It adds: "Congress, which is controlled by Chavez supporters, recently approved a measure allowing that body to remove and appoint judges to the Supreme Court. One Supreme Court justice has already been ousted for allegedly falsifying his resume, a charge he denied. The government is also seeking to exert control over TV and radio stations, many of which are deeply critical of Chavez and carry one-sided news reports against him [emphasis added]. The government plans to submit a bill to Congress that would allow the government to ban programming it sees as slanderous or an incitement to violence and to punish violators. The government is also studying the possibility of unifying municipal and state police forces into a national police force, wresting control from mayors and governors, many of whom are Chavez opponents."

Juan Pablo Toro, the AP reporter, may not approve of what he and Chavez supporters call "one-sided coverage" when it's critical of Chavez and his henchmen, but I'll bet we won't read such criticism once the coverage is one-sided in its coverage of Venezuelan democrats, which it will be soon if the regime gets its way with the proposed "reforms."

The WSJ today ($) reports that Chavez has imported 17,000 Cuban "doctors, dentists, therapists and sports trainers" to the barrios. After noting the popularity of such moves among the poor, it reveals some of the results of Chavez's efforts to purchase the electorate at the expense of the country's infrastructure and future:

"It has been less effective in providing jobs and easing poverty: In the past five years, extreme poverty has nearly doubled in Venezuela to 40% of the population, according to a recent study by the Social and Economic Research Institute of the Andres Bello Catholic University. Unemployment is 15%.

"In a country where government largess is as common as beauty queens, Mr. Chavez's approach is nothing new. Throughout Venezuela's recent history, political leaders have handed out oil wealth liberally. Citizens enjoy gasoline that currently costs about 20 cents a gallon, and price and currency controls help keep the cost of key goods down. But the country long has delayed changes to its economy that might make it more competitive and create jobs."

Which brings us to Brother Jimmy Carter, who is telling Venezuelan democrats to drop dead: "There is no evidence of fraud, and any allegations of fraud are completely unwarranted." Given Chavez's overt seizure of the judiciary, military, media, and other vital elements of civil society, how Sunday's election could be billed as fair and open is a mystery. Then again, Carter has rarely seen a dictator he didn't embrace. From Leonid Brezhnev to Hafez al Assad to Yasser Arafat (Carter's fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner) to Chavez, the list of men Carter has trusted is a rogue's gallery of our era's worst violators of human rights. No reputable scholar would place Carter anywhere near the top of a list of America's best presidents, so here's a suggestion for making him number one: In a ranking of the worst former leaders of any country, Jimmy gets my vote for first place.