If democrats in Latin America and the United States are at least as active in supporting their values as Havana is in promoting its interests, Venezuelans may have a chance of recovering their country and their future

On Venezuela, Latin America’s democrats

 must come out of hiding

BY ROGER NORIEGA - RNORIEGA@AEI.ORG

In the days and weeks ahead in a post-Chávez Venezuela, there will be political turmoiland, God forbid, violent unrest. 

However, rather than being consumed by a mafia-style power struggle within chavismo, Venezuelans of good will should begin the hard work of building a national consensus to restore their country’s values, social fabric, political institutions and economic wellbeing. 

After years spent avoiding confrontations with Chávez, the Obama administration should step up boldly now to help the Venezuelan people recover from a man-made disaster.

Chávez’s election in 1998 enjoyed broad support. Most of all, he inspired Venezuela’s poor majority who saw too few benefits from their country’s oil wealth. 

Massive spending on social programs gave millions of Venezuelans a stake in chavismo. 

Indeed, he captured the imagination of aggrieved persons throughout Latin America and the developing world by speaking half-truths to power: skewering his country’s political establishment and economic elites and heaping scorn on the United States as “el imperio.” 

It is important to recognize that Chávez’s grandiose socialist project at home and check-book diplomacy abroad would not have amounted to much if the price of oil had not increased five-fold since his election. 

And the folly of chavismo is evident in the simple fact that a trillion dollars of oil revenue is exhausted, billions in foreign loans are piling up, oil production is down 30 percent,infrastructure is crumbling, and basic staples are scarce. 

In short, the only people who think Chávez’s economic model is sustainable were on his payroll.

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