"Defeat means he is unable to stand again, legally, for the presidency. His aura of invincibility is forever damaged, and the battle for the succession seems bound to begin soon. Survival strategies no longer necessarily involve unquestioning loyalty to the 'comandante'. Fractures may begin to appear in important institutions like the supreme court and parliament."
"For the first time", we are told, "it is possible to envisage life after Mr Chávez." Really? With a mandate until 2013, the outlines of post-Chavez Venezuela are far from settled - and it remains naïve to believe that Chavez will not take another tilt at the constitution before he is obliged to stand down. The idea that we are now witnessing the beginnings of a succession struggle is to take Chavez's own rhetoric at face value. True, the referendum campaign saw the emergence of a reinvigorated opposition and the first signs of popular disillusionment among his Bolivarian base, but Chavez easily retains the upper hand over his rivals. He need but gather in the alienated arms of his movement, and we are no nearer a world without him than we were last week.
It is quite clear by the letter of the law that Chavez is unable to stand again for the presidency. Yet it is also quite clear that this was not his last attempt at constitutional reform: he echoed the combative tenacity of his defeated 1992 coup when he cast the outcome of the referendum as only "for now". He retains a pliant National Assembly, and has the time to re-introduce his proposals at an opportune moment of his own choosing. It would not take much to overturn the result in a future plebiscite; the margin of his defeat was tiny, fewer than 200000 votes out of a registered pool of 16 million, and its explanation lies in the high rates of abstention among his supporters, not a decrease in that support. Venezuelans are still largely in support of the president, but were alarmed at the extent of the power he was trying to amass. A few peripheral concessions tempering the excesses of the proposed reform, say by abandoning proposals which would allow presidents to declare an unlimited state of emergency or to choose provincial and municipal leaders, and there is no reason why in a future referendum he would not secure widespread support for his central objective: the dismantling of term limits and the opportunity to be president for life. Buttressed by extensive exposure on television, he remains a charismatic and popular leader who many Venezuelans genuinely want to remain in power after 2013.
There is thus little reason why a less blatant power grab would not succeed where his current proposals foundered. If it does, the optimistic conclusions of the Economist are to naught. The one undoubted positive to have emerged from the referendum is that Venezuela clearly remains a functioning democracy; a functioning democracy moreover, with an enlivened opposition, rooted in student protest. Having secured their first electoral victory in nine years, we can at least hope that the opposition now has faith in the system, and will not attempt another electoral boycott in the near future (as they did at the last parliamentary poll, which handed Chavez the National Assembly). They might even try and force a presidential recall referendum after 2010 (the mid-point of Chavez’s mandate beyond which such recalls are allowed) as they were able to in 2004. Yet as things stand, Chavez would almost certainly again be returned triumphant, with fervent grass roots support pitted against an opposition which remains divided and discredited by its past. Can it find a coherent platform around which to unite, beyond hostility to the 'comandante'? It might not need to, for it might well be fighting him for a long while yet.
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