This interview took place on April 4, 2021 between Rafael Arráiz Lucca and journalist Hugo Prieto, and was originally published in Prodavinci under the title, “Rafael Arráiz Lucca: ‘La Historia de Venezuela está llena de paradojas’”
IQLatino has acquired the rights to translate and publish this interview in English.
The most recent book by Rafael Arráiz Lucca *Venezuelan Democracy: an unfinished project published by Editorial Alfa, has just come off the press. In this long conversation, he pointed out the aspects that, in my opinion, were the most relevant in this difficult, elusive, and often painful search to give us a government system that inoculates us with the vaccine against authoritarianism and the cruelty of dictatorships.
Those who have insisted on twisting history, on rewriting it, on turning it into a record for their own ends, have no choice but to repeat it. And here is proof. The lack of recognition between political factors, sooner or later, turns into violence, and in paroxysm, fratricidal violence.
The title of his book caught my attention: Venezuelan democracy: an unfinished project. Wouldn’t a liquidated project be better? However, when turning the pages, one notices the great difficulty, the continuous obstacles that Venezuelans have faced to build a democratic order in Venezuela. The governments of forces, authoritarianism, chieftain, predominate. I don’t know if in that order, but I think democracy is at the bottom of that list. What are the reasons for these difficulties?
You have to go to the origins. When Venezuela was part of the Republic of Colombia (La Gran Colombia is a denomination that does not appear in the records), Bolívar’s supporters suggest him that he become a monarch, so that he agrees to be a king. There is a letter (1826) from Santander to Bolívar where he says: We have been at war for 14 years, fighting to establish a Republic. And now we are going to establish a monarchy? Bolívar gave wind to the hypothesis of the monarchy, but finally denied that possibility. No, no. I am a republican, a liberal and I cannot subscribe to the monarchy. Since the very creation of the Republic, there have been centralist, authoritarian forces, coexisting with forces a little more republican, more federal. Something happens that marks us a lot: those who consolidate the Republic are the military, but those who create it are the civilians. And that is a paradox. This is where a good part of the initial problems come from. We have an extraordinary moment when Venezuelans, in a second degree election, elect Dr. José María Vargas as President of the Republic. A year later, Mariño, Monagas, that is, the generals of the independence give him a blow. And who restores Vargas to power, with exemplary republican behavior? Páez. What leads us to see this? That you have military with authoritarian roots, as Monagas was (and would be), and you have military with republican roots, as Páez was at that time.
It is true, Páez restores Vargas, but he does not bring the military who have carried out the coup to trial. There, the germ of impunity thrives. The dismal precedent that the Constitution can be violated, without political costs of any kind. What could you say about this germ and what effects did it have afterwards?
General Páez always privileged negotiation and pardon for those who had committed flagrant violations of the Constitution. Páez pardons Mariño, Monagas, goes home and nothing happens. So, Páez is a paradoxical figure. On the one hand, he restores Vargas, but on the other he pardons the coup plotters. There, a truly regrettable tradition is inaugurated. Of pardon, pardon, pardon, to those who are violating the National Constitution. Many of the revolutions of the 19th century constitute coups d’état. They are de facto governments. Military dictatorships. That tradition is inaugurated by Páez and it has not been anything convenient in our history.
We see, in the crisis that unleashed the fall in coffee prices, a perverse dynamic that also became a tradition and that we could summarize with these words: Who is in government does not recognize the opposition. And likewise, the opposition does not recognize the government. Political factors escalate this dynamic until the paroxysm of the Federal War. What could you say about this dynamic?
What happens in the 19th century is that we take up arms in many occasions. But on the basis of that experience, when Guzmán Blanco (protagonist of the Federal War) came to power (1870), he called all the regional leaders of Venezuela to a congress and recognized them. So there is a major political change there. Guzmán Blanco understands that if he is permanently at war with the regional leaders, he will not be able to carry out a government work. And he calls them to an agreement. There is a smart policy there. However, two or three years later, the uprisings begin in the interior of the country and Guzmán has to deal with appeasing them. But it was not a generalized war like the Federal War. So there were attempts to recognize the adversary. But we cannot ignore that (in the 19th century), what is happening is that one of the central elements of the modern State – the control of the territory by the National Armed Forces – does not take place. There is a national Army that fights with regional armies (led by chieftains) and this lasts for 70 years and ends with the arrival of the Andean people to power. Here comes another new Venezuelan paradox. The one who ends chieftains in power and establishes that the National State is a military dictator (Juan Vicente Gómez and Cipriano Castro). So that the control of the territory and the defeat of the chieftains is achieved by a military sector. But Gómez (already in the 20th century) did not recognize his political adversaries. He really did chase them with blood and fire.
I would like to dwell on a particularity of Guzmán. A novelty (in the second half of the 19th century), the cult of personality. Without a doubt, it is an element contrary to a democratic process. The idea of continuity and what ended up being an autocratic government thrives. Personally, it reminded me of what we later call indefinite reelection. What would you say around this point?
Guzmán is an enlightened autocrat. On one hand, it is a modernizer, because it is the creator of the decree of public education, free and mandatory; because it takes away privileges from the Church and makes the State an increasingly civil entity, because it carries out urban reform. It is a modernizer French style. But on the other hand he is an autocrat, he eliminates the secret ballot, with which he mortally wounds democracy, later he eliminates the direct vote, which had been achieved in the Constitution of 1858. So Guzmán is very contradictory. In addition, he is the one who establishes the Bolivarian myth. He is the one who creates the currency (the Bolivar). He is the one who turns the Plaza Mayor of Caracas (and its equivalents in all the cities and towns of Venezuela) into the Plaza Bolívar. He is the one who celebrates the centenary of the Liberator’s birth with a great apotheosis. So Guzmán seeks national unity around the figure of Simón Bolívar. But he is also appointed by the Regenerative American Congress of the Republic. A thing completely out of place. Two statues are ordered to be erected in Caracas. If anyone promoted a disgusting personality cult, it was Guzmán Blanco. That is why he was such a contradictory character and so difficult to assess.
But let’s go back to the beginning of the 20th century. There, it is true that we get into the wolf’s mouth, into total darkness. However, one can see clearly liberal traits in Juan Vicente Gómez, especially in the handling of the economy. A cruel dictatorship runs a sensible economy. What would you say about this approach?
Manuel Caballero’s study of the period of Juan Vicente Gómez is entitled “Gómez, the liberal tyrant.” Yes, there were economic freedoms, but there were no political freedoms. That didn’t only happened with Gomecism. This is what is currently happening in China. That was what happened in Chile during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Actually, General Gómez, in many ways, brought benefits to Venezuela; among others, the disappearance of the chieftains, the consolidation of a national state, but for democracy it was a very important setback. A nepotistic structure was created, let us remember that his sons were vice-presidents of the Republic and that his brother held very high positions, and he was lagging behind. So, with López Contreras came an update regarding the Western world.
Let’s go back to post-Gomez Venezuela. After the coup that overthrew Medina, the possibility of electing the governors of the states arose by direct vote. You cite the intervention of Rafael Caldera and that of Gustavo Machado, who demonstrate in favor of this proposal, while Democratic Action party rejects it. What is striking is that the obstruction does not come from a government of force but from a democratic experience. What happened there?
Democratic Action party killed the tiger, but it was afraid of its leather in the 1947 Constitution, because in all the political policies banners of AD there was the direct election of governors and mayors. And when they could do it, they didn’t want to do it. Betancourt did not want to. There began a series of antidemocratic arguments. Things like this were said. If we go to the direct election, in Mérida the Parra Picón family will elect the governor. In Táchira, the followers of López Contreras will elect the governor. In Zulia, the Montiel and the Rincón are going to elect the governor. There, the complement of democracy was lacking. Perhaps one can understand it in ’47, but in ’61 they repeated the formula and were left in debt, in a very serious debt, and the one who paid the debt is Carlos Andrés Pérez in 1989. Venezuelan democracy lagged behind tremendously in this regard. Above all, if we take into account that the 1864 Constitution already directly elected governors and mayors, including regional deputies, because that is the Constitution that creates the United States of Venezuela.
There we clearly see the figure of the “cogollo”, the centralist vision of the political parties and the inability to build a federal system of government.
The matter is resolved in 1989, with the decentralization law. It must be recognized that it is a fruit of the COPRE (Presidential Commission for the Reform of the State). The fruit, moreover, of a pre-electoral agreement between Carlos Andrés Pérez and Eduardo Fernández, who commit themselves (whoever wins) to approve this law so that governors and mayors are elected in Venezuela in a universal, direct and secret way. There was an important failure of the political parties, but it was achieved, it was a great conquest of Venezuelan democracy.
I want to stop at this point. Paradoxical, too. Venezuelan democracy is the product of a coup. Betancourt defends that option because he saw in Medina the continuity of Gomecism. One could understand the logic of Betancourt (exposed in “Venezuela Politics and Petroleum”), but the truth is that both López Contreras and Medina were immersed in a process of transition towards democracy. And the question is: Why abort it, participate in a coup that, finally, led to the Pérez Jiménez dictatorship?
Because in the constitutional reform of Medina, the direct, universal and secret election is not enshrined. That is the main reason. If Medina had made a reform where they are open to a democratic election, then the coup d’etat of ’45 would not have happened. As simple as that. There, I think, is the explanation. Also, let me tell you something. It is not the first time that democracy has come through a coup or war. America’s democracy is the product of seven years of war against England. The French Republic, which Napoleon later throws overboard and finally turns into an Empire, is the product of the execution of kings, the storming of The Bastille and the wars of the French Revolution. So, many times, democracy and the republic have come by way of arms. In that sense, the Venezuelan case is no exception. Betancourt reaches an agreement with Escalante (Medina’s candidate) for the constitutional reform to materialize and Betancourt desists from the coup project, but when Escalante loses his head in the Ávila hotel, the option of the coup (with Marcos Pérez Jiménez) is reactivated . What one sees (in the coup of ’45) are two antagonistic figures. Two different political projects. Betancourt is giving the coup to establish liberal and representative democracy. And Pérez Jiménez to install a military government.
Part of his reflections and his work as a historian stop at the Puntofijo Pact. It is not a matter of agreeing only, but of signing a governance pact, something of greater depth. I believe that Venezuelan society has not become aware of the meaning of that pact. It is even underestimated to this day. What would you say around that point?
The Puntofijo Pact is the consequence of 10 years of military dictatorship. The Venezuelan democratic political parties understood that the main enemy that democracy had was a sector of the armed forces. Not all, but an important sector. And as soon as they arrived in Venezuela, they verified it, because Larrazábal had to face the attempted coup of Castro León. And two other attempts. So the undemocratic sector manifested itself immediately. There is a smart policy there. Why then has the Puntofijo Pact been demonized so much? Because the left was not included. The PCV was not summoned, which, however, supported a good part of what was agreed therein, which was fundamentally the construction of a representative liberal democracy.
There is, in the middle, the influence of the Cuban revolution. We cannot forget that the armed fight of the 1960s was sponsored by Mr. Fidel Castro. Perhaps the exclusion of the PCV had to do with the fact that communism is the opposite of representative liberal democracy and what was happening in the world.
A necessary clarification. The Puntofijo Pact was signed on October 30, 1958, and Fidel Castro triumphantly entered Havana on January 1, 1959 (a little over a year between one thing and the other). Then, the pact worked to neutralize a sector of the Armed Forces, and later the guerrilla insurgency that had the support of Fidel Castro. Many people think that having invited the Communist Party was a contradiction, among other things, because the PCV supported the Soviet system. That is to say, to a regime of a single party. How are you going to invite someone who does not support the democratic game to sign a pact for the consolidation of democracy? So there was a major short circuit to watch out for.
I would say that contemporaneity prevents a rigorous evaluation of history. So there is some chronicle at the end of his book. These are the years of our generation. Venezuelan democracy became a mirror of oil revenues. It was abundant, tasty, cool, when there was money. But it stopped being interesting and turned into a mortification when there was no money. It seems that we could not escape from that roller coaster. Was there no political capacity to overcome this dynamic?
What you are pointing out is exacerbated by the nationalization of oil. When that decision was made, 98 percent of Venezuelans agreed. To this date, we can verify that this decision created very large imbalances for Venezuelan democracy, among other things, because the source of wealth remained in the hands of a single actor: the Venezuelan State and the importance of and the influence of private companies. Democratic balances suffered notably. And from the nationalization, one begins to see that the dynamics of the country depends on whether oil prices are low or high. Because there is a total dependence of the economy on oil production. From there (1976), Venezuela began to look more like a Middle Eastern country than a Latin American country. On the other hand, another paradox, Venezuelans were able to attain great achievements, thanks to the oil income. You have to see the number of schools and high schools that were built in the first four periods of democracy. What is built is something amazing. I’m not saying it. There are the numbers. Thousands and thousands and thousands of Venezuelans studied at high quality public universities. So it is impossible to analyze Venezuelan democracy without considering oil income.
We are witnessing the disappearance of mass political parties and bipartisanship. Something that also happened in almost all of Latin America. But in Venezuela there is a peculiarity. What happened? Why couldn’t we give continuity to the democratic process?
I believe that the crisis of the political parties begins well in advance of 1998. In fact, when Caldera wins the 1993 elections, he does so riding the wave of anti-politics. And the anti-politics was the denial of political parties by Venezuelan society. It is certainly a continental phenomenon. It was happening all over Latin America. To this date, I would say that we are probably in a transition stage in relation to the functioning of political parties. What there has been, in almost all the countries of the region, is the arrival of the left to power. Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, Uruguay, Argentina. Very few countries have been left out of the so-called pink wave.
Would you say that the role of the left has been contrary to democracy in Latin America?
No. The left committed serious excesses in Venezuela. In the Bolivian case, half, among other things, because Evo Morales tried to remain in power forever. But the Morales government did a relatively orthodox management of the economy. Neither Tabaré Vásquez nor Pepe Mujica affected the Uruguayan economy, rather there was growth. Even in Lula’s Brazil, beyond the gigantic corruption, the economy did not collapse. Something similar could be said of Rafael Correa in Ecuador. So I would not say that the entire left in Latin America was a disaster.
What would explain the fact that the left that arrived with Hugo Chávez destroyed the Venezuelan economy?
The role that Cuba has played. The influence of Fidel Castro in the spirit of Hugo Chávez was very great. When Chávez came to power, oil production was 3.5 million barrels a day and Chávez (as of 2004) had all the money in the world. He could apply whatever policies he wanted. However, Venezuelan society opposed many of his projects. Let’s not forget that the 2007 referendum was lost by Chávez and he was unable to pass a constitutional reform that was openly socialist. So the difference is that the Cuban model has greatly influenced the Venezuelan rulers of the last 20 years.
At this point, I cannot say whether the Venezuelan State, in its attempt to impose the Cuban model, persistently, and already openly repressive, defeated Venezuelan society.
I do not know, i do not know. We still don’t know, because events are happening in Venezuela. In any case, let’s see what is happening in the National Assembly. A new hydrocarbons law is under discussion, which opens the door to foreign investment, which is absolutely correct. How is that law going to be applied amid the sanctions? We’ll see. But that indicates that there is a fundamental political change, because starting a new oil opening supposes a 180-degree change in relation to the Chávez model, if that is finally approved. What could this say? That there is also the possibility that the Venezuelan State will also reform itself. But I see this as very difficult within a framework of international sanctions. There, I think the project that is underway is stuck.
History has shown us, over and over again, that the lack of recognition between political factors (government and opponents) has turned, sooner or later into violence. Why don’t we draw the conclusion that the lack of recognition invariably leads to the violence?
Absolutely. I would say more: the most important moments of humanity happen when the parties in conflict agree and apply sensible and reasonable policies. They recognize each other and agree to a common development program. There are countless historical testimonies about that. On the other hand, when one sector of society, through violence, imposes itself on another, sooner or later the bills return. There is the case of Spain, the open wounds, after 46 years of the death of Francisco Franco. But what is reasonable and common sense is the most difficult. Human beings have a hard time controlling emotions, passions. And that’s what we are made of. What Jung called “the shadow dwells within us” and leads us, many times, to our own destruction. There is a wonderful phrase from Bolívar in that sense. The one that says: “An ignorant people is a blind instrument of their own destruction.” Well, that’s where the shots go, right?
I believe that my generation, the same as Hugo Chávez’s, was very frivolous, very indolent, in relation to democracy. We took it for granted. And it turns out that democracy, by definition itself, is a political system that divides and limits the concentration of power. I mean, it has an intrinsic weakness in its own design. And if we don’t take care of it, if we don’t protect it, it simply dies out.
Agree. The best example is that in the strongest democracy in the world (the United States) they elected Donald Trump. And Trump is not a Democrat. It is an authoritarian spirit, violator of the laws, absolutely irresponsible in relation to American democracy. Fortunately, on the edge of the precipice, democracy decided not to re-elect him. But if that happens in the United States, imagine what our case will be like. So I agree. Democracy is a very fragile system, which must be cared for every day, which is only consolidated with a practice of inclusion and respect. Democracy, above all, is a cultural project. It is a pedagogical project, because we come from millennia of authoritarian tradition.
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- Professor at Unimet. Individual of Number of the Venezuelan Academy of the Language. Lawyer. Magister and Doctor in History (UCAB). Andrés Bello Fellow of Saint Antony’s College, University of Oxford (1999-2000). Principal Professor of Career at the Universidad del Rosario, Bogotá.