Will Nicolas Maduro Replace Hugo Chavez in Venezuela?
Venezuela Prepares for a Succession
Source: Stratfor Global Intelligence http://www.stratfor.com/
The political uncertainty surrounding the health of Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez has nearly ended and the country has begun its
preparations for succession. Speaking to the public late Dec. 8, Chavez
announced that his cancer had returned and for the first time asked the
country to stand behind a potential successor, newly appointed Vice
President and former Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro, in the event that
Chavez is forced to leave office. According to the country’s
constitution, if Chavez vacated his seat, the country would need to
hold snap elections within 30 days. This is the first time since
February that Chavez has openly admitted that his health is
deteriorating, which indicates that he will almost certainly not
complete his term in office.
Analysis
Chavez demonstrated with his electoral win in the Oct. 7 election
that, despite a crumbling infrastructure and paralyzed private sector,
he maintains a very strong support base. However, the question remains
whether there is a Bolivarian leader able to fill Chavez’s shoes.
Throughout his presidency, Chavez has made a point of ensuring that
strong potential rivals were undermined and that his inner circle of
loyalists worked for him alone. That policy strengthened Chavez as a
leader but undermined potential successors. Over the course of the past
year and a half, during which time the president has been ill,
speculation has abounded, with Maduro appearing as the most likable and
likely candidate to succeed the ailing Chavez.
In the wake of the election, Maduro has been working in
conjunction with the head of the National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello,
to run the country. If Chavez officially steps down, they will have to
work together even more closely despite ideological and personal
differences. Cabello has stronger ties to the military and a more
pragmatic stance on economic policy, while Maduro, although not
dogmatic, is more ideologically close to Cuba and to the socialism
associated with Chavez’s Bolivarian Revolution. He is more credible as
an ideological successor to Chavez and has a great deal more public
appeal than Cabello, whose past is stained with scandals.
Nevertheless, Maduro is not a strong politician and derives his
credibility from Chavez. Without Chavez in place to balance competing
interests among the inner circle politicians, Maduro will need Cabello
as an ally.
Even if Chavez is deathly ill now, he may wait to officially step
down until after the Jan. 10 inauguration. According to the Venezuelan Constitution,
if the president-elect is incapacitated during the period between the
election and the inauguration, the head of the National Assembly takes
power and calls for snap elections within 30 days. However, if the
president is incapacitated after the inauguration or in the first four
years of the term, the vice president takes power and presides over
snap elections. This means that if Chavez died or stepped down ahead of
the inauguration, Cabello, not Chavez’s designated successor, would
take over.
Although Chavez’s health was not a topic in the media in the lead-up
to the October election, its rapid deterioration since that time makes
it very likely that he was delaying treatment to give the appearance of
a recovery. Assuming that Chavez either chooses to step down or passes
away, his electoral win over a briefly united opposition has made
Maduro a stronger candidate than he would have been against former
Miranda Gov. Henrique Capriles Radonski in October. By holding out
through the election, Chavez has proved that the opposition in
Venezuela remains less popular than himself. His successor inherits
that win against a demoralized opposition.
The Venezuelan opposition is an amalgam of previously competitive
groups that Chavez defeated in 1999. He then assumed the presidency and
changed the rules of politics in Venezuela. Though united under the
“Table of Unity” that was formed ahead of this year’s
election, the opposition is notoriously fractious and internally
contentious. Its uniting behind Capriles was no easy task. This means
the opposition will approach a possible second shot at the presidency
from a weaker position after Capriles’ loss, and it will be challenging
for it to unite at all. Though he made a relatively strong showing in
October with the support of the united opposition, Capriles may be too
weak to unite the opposition this time around. Although polls in
Venezuela are unreliable, there appears to be some doubt about whether
Capriles can win re-election as Miranda governor on Dec. 16 against
former Vice President Elias Jaua.
No matter who the opposition puts up against Chavez’s successor,
it will likely be unity or lack thereof from the ruling party that will
determine the outcome of the election. This is Chavez’s first official
designation of a successor after more than a year of speculation, and whether
his United Socialist Party of Venezuela can unite behind Maduro will be
a test of the strength of the institutions that he built during more
than a decade of holding power.
