The February 4th, 1992 Coup Attempt
The coup was launched on February 4th, 1992, though without the involvement of Causa R, as Chávez intentionally neglected to include its participation in the revolt (Harnecker, Hugo Chávez 31). The plan for a transitory government defended the Bolivarian thesis. In their manifest, they called for a national Constituent Assembly to draft a new constitution and build new institutions as envisioned by Zamora and Rodríguez in the 1800s. Six features prompted military officers to stage the coup attempt: 1) the high level of corruption and the privileges enjoyed by government officials; 2) the lack of punishment of people who were widely known as guilty of taking public money; 3) the economic measures that deepened poverty of the Venezuelan low classes; 4) the privatization of fundamental state-owned companies (Ortega et al., 4057) [The Compañía Venezolana de Navegación (National Navigation Company) had been dissolved; the major Venezuelan Airline, VIASA, was in bankruptcy and had been sold to a Spanish Consortium; the Venezuelan Iron and Steel Industry also had been sold; and by 1992 there were plans to sell the Aluminum Company (Morales 242)]; 5) the impossibility of most Venezuelans to meet their basic needs, and the inefficiency of the health care system and all public services; and 6) the inability of the government to defend the country’s sovereignty over the Venezuelan Gulf (Ortega et al., 4058). For these reasons, coup leaders Lieutenant Colonels Hugo Chávez Frías and Francísco Arias Cárdenas, gained astonishing popularity and became heroes, posing a challenge to democratic politics and the prevailing party system, and provoking a division in the country’s armed forces.
When the coup failed, Chávez was the first and only officer who surrendered to the Armed Forces. The other states commandants successfully achieved control of such posts, and were forced to surrender because Chávez did not complete the objective in Caracas (Garrido 129). Once in jail, Chávez began to distance himself from his coup partners who recriminated him for making wrong decisions in key moments of the revolt. A group of leftist-oriented politicians contacted Chávez and offered him new strategies for his political career. Chávez took advice from this group - where current Vice-President José Vicente Rangel was an important mentor - and transformed the Bolivarian Project into a political platform (34).
Hugo Chávez left jail in 1994 with the support of only half of his initial military comrades. The rest of his allies would be lost throughout his administration. He traveled across the country to gather support and sponsorship for his political movement. During his tour, he attacked the corruption and power of the dominant parties and the consequences of the neo-liberal model adopted by President Carlos Andrés Pérez in 1989. In addition, he offered social justice, equality and employment. Moreover, he possessed a charismatic personality that gave people new hope and rejuvenated confidence in politics. Based on MBR-200 principles, Chávez offered to return the government to the people. Also, he promised to suspend privatization of key state companies in order to elevate nationalist feelings (Ellner 80). In 1997, Chávez announced his candidacy for the 1998 presidential elections and also the creation of the Movimiento Quínta República (Fifth Republic Movement, MVR). This movement was created in order to transform the original group into an electoral front (Harnecker, Hugo Chávez 201; Ellner 83).
II. RISE TO POWER
Chávez’s rise to power was facilitated by the country’s environment of poverty and the traditional parties’ game of politiquería. Politiquería is the act of referring to political issues without having proper political capacities. By mid-1998 people had a high degree of frustration with the inefficiency of public services, monetary inflation, and widespread corruption. As a result, Chávez wisely proposed a new distributive scheme. More importantly, he proposed “revenge” against politicians who were considered responsible for the countries’ problems. Thus, playing the old-authoritarian, populist, paternalistic and messianic role, Chávez won the 1998 Presidential elections with 56.2 percent of the vote (the second highest percentage in Venezuela’s electoral history). However, the 1998 elections were also marked by the country’s highest abstention record. Out of a total electoral population of 11 million, nearly 4 million did not vote, resulting in 37 percent turnout abstention (Venezuela, Consejo Nacional “Elecciones Presidenciales” 5).
The newly elected president capitalized on the profound mistrust and anger toward those associated with the old political system. Besides, he was the first candidate who made the most of his non-privileged origins to gain support. He reinforced the prevailing sense in Venezuela’s poor majority that he was one of their own. In his inaugural speech in 1999, President Chávez declared himself apolitical by definition. He considered himself the spokesman of a widespread apolitical national feeling (Caballero 148). Nevertheless, he received wide support from the political left. More importantly, the post-1958 communist generation, marginalized throughout the Punto Fijo period, quickly identified itself with Chávez’s revolutionary ideal.
Once in power, Chávez began his Bolivarian Revolution based on the civil-military union. The project had undergone important modifications. President Chávez adopted ideas from the Argentinean ideological adviser Norberto Ceresole to include them into the Bolivarian Project. Such ideas are the fundamentals of “post-democracy,” that devise the triple alliance caudillo-army-people, and exclude all institutions and any other type of mediation other than the people’s will (Rodríguez 1). According to Ceresole’s argument, a president must govern with popular legitimacy and through the army so that the political divisions inherent to representative democracies can be avoided (Caballero 51).
III. CHÁVEZ’S MILITARIZATION OF POLITICS
A) - Through the New 1999 Constitution
President Chávez launched the first phase of the revolution in 1999, calling it a political revolution. Its first step was to dismantle the Puntofijista institutional structure. As a consequence, a national referendum was called on February 2, 1999 to approve a National Constituent Assembly. The constituents were elected by another referendum five months later. The assembly was initially composed by 131 seats, out of which 121 were MVR members. It also included party members, indigenous movements, and 19 military ex-rebels from the failed February 4th, 1992 coup (“El Sanedrin” 62). In a third referendum, the new 1999 Constitution crafted by the National Assembly was approved by 72 percent of the electorate (Venezuela, Consejo Nacional “Referendo” 1).
The 1999 Constitution contributed significantly to expanding the military’s role in Venezuelan politics. The presence of military officers in the government and administration furthered this tendency. Some were elected, while others joined the leadership of MVR or were appointed by Chávez to key positions in the new government. The new version of the constitution proclaims that the military “should be without political militancy,” and that its “fundamental pillars are discipline, obedience and subordination” (Venezuela. Congress “Constitución Bolivariana” 121). This phrasing does not, in itself, politicize the Armed Forces. However, it replaces the term “apolitical’ present in the 1961 Constitution: “The National Armed Forces form an apolitical, obedient, and non-deliberating institution, organized by the state to ensure the stability of democratic institutions […]” (Venezuela, Congress “Constitución de la República” 20). The absence of the non-deliberative character of the military institution implies space for a fair amount of political activism within the Armed Forces. Also, the new Constitution contains in Article 330 the military’s right to vote. However, it acknowledges, “it would not be allowed to participate in acts of propaganda or political proselytism” (Venezuela, Congress “Constitución Bolivariana” 121). This new military right does not imply direct politicization of the institution, but it does grant the military a wider scope for political debate. This scope for political action was deeply limited by the 1977 Suffrage Organic Law in its Article 7: “ The members of the Armed Forces will not exert suffrage while in military service” (Venezuela, Consejo Supremo 8). The same limitation was reinforced by the 1990 Organic Law of the Armed Forces, LOFAN, in its Article 6: “ the military personnel cannot have direct or indirect participation in politics, or exert any political right whatever be its nature […]” (Venezuela, Congress “Ley Orgánica” 1).
In order to eliminate the source of political meddling between military officials and deputies, the new constitution eliminated parliamentary control over military promotions. Article 236, Ordinal 6 left the issue in the hands of the president. This change has a two-fold effect: it limits broader political oversight of the Armed Forces, and it concentrates power in the president and in the military high command. In this respect, the first promotion under the new criteria occurred in July 2000. According to some retired officers (including Francísco Arias Cárdenas, Chávez’s ex-comrade in arms), only those who participated actively in the Plan Bolívar were promoted (Colomine A-4).
Another important aspect of the constitution regarding military rights is that of the control over weapons. Article 324 assigns the military institution the responsibility of virtually all issues related to weapons: “The National Armed Forces is the institution authorized to regulate and control the importation, exportation, storage, trafficking, registration, inspection, trade, possession, and use of other weapons, munitions, and explosives […]” (Venezuela, Congress “Constitución Bolivariana” 119). Some issues in this article correspond to other government entities such as Foreign Relations, Customs Office, or the Commerce Ministry.
President Chávez’s government has also made a series of important modifications in the military institution without the corresponding judicial procedures. First, in an attempt to minimize the administrative role of the entity, the Armed Forces unit of command was reconstructed as a singular unit. Second, the macro-structure of the armed institution was transformed into Estado Mayor Centralizado (centralized high command). This modification concentrates general planning of military defense in one major organism. Instead of a Joint General Staff, now there is a Centralized General Staff. This scheme was used by former dictators such as Gómez and Pérez Jiménez to exert total control over the armed institution.
