Despite all the praise given Latin American countries in recent years for their alleged transitions to democracy, it seems the same old rules apply to elected leaders as applied to the unelected dictators: Who rules and for how long is determined according to who the generals like.
This is a lesson Venezuelans recently re-learned. Last year their elected President Mr. Hugo Chavez began implementing the left-of-center policies that won him election by a wide margin. He proposed nationalizing major industries such as the oil industry. Then he re-valued the national currency. Then he urged the National Assembly to impose new regulations on the industries he nationalized.
Unlike the response in most Western democracies, Venezuelan voters realized that although technically Mr. Chavez was keeping campaign promises, he was not keeping them in the way the voters believed he would when they elected him. Instead of praise and support for his actions against the oil companies, Mr. Chavez was jeered, and protesters took to the streets. As the world's fourth largest oil-producing country, any problems in Venezuela will have consequences for the international petroleum markets. Combined with the announcement from Iraq that it would suspend oil exports for thirty days to protest US Mid-East policy, the labor difficulties in Venezuela forced crude oil prices to rise by more than USD1.50 a barrel. Despite its long-expressed desire for higher oil prices, to other OPEC members, Venezuela's method to ensure oil price rises was not a good method.
On Thursday 11 April 2002 the Venezuelan army decided it was time to restore order. A group of generals whose politics were definitely right-of-center went to the Presidential Palace and gave Mr. Chavez an ultimatum in the classic "This is a coup!" fashion: Resign freely or resign at the point of a gun. Mr. Chavez resigned (by which method remains unclear) and was taken captive. The generals then installed a prominent Venezuelan businessman as the new President.
The new President very quickly found the job not to his liking when he realized he had insufficient support from the National Assembly. Probably at the urging of the generals who put him there, the new President did the next thing all leaders who come to power from a coup do: He abolished the Assembly. The protesters who rallied in support of the oil workers' labor strikes changed their cause from labor problems to opposing military intervention and then to opposing suspension of the Assembly. The new President restored the Assembly, then he resigned.
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