Populism against the people?
The word populism originates from the latin word “populus" which means people. Some scholars may argue that this political phenomenon gained importance and power in Latin America between 1929 and 1939. With the economic crisis, economies in Latin America that were highly dependent on exportation, started to sink. In this context, governments in need of votes and power initiated a process to control social and political tensions among their people. Policies that favoured middle and lower classes started to take over and leaders such as Getulio Vargas in Brazil and Juan Domingos Perón in Argentina became more popular and influential.
Populism in Latin America still plays a huge role in the Continent’s politics. However, its popularity has been sinking mostly due to changes in political orientation in two of the most important countries of the MERCOSUL : Brazil and Argentina. Another factor worth analysing is the political and economic crisis in Venezuela.
Everything started with Hugo Chavez’s election in 1998. At the time, he had accomplished 56,20% of the popular vote, becoming then, the 65th president of the Republic of Venezuela in a scenario where 80% of the people were victims of poverty.
His Bolivarian charismatic government was inspired in basic democratic concepts with diverse kinds of social programs in order to end poverty and increase living standards- and quality. By doing so, Chavez conquered what every politician aims: the trust of his people and unburied a common enemy under his leadership : George Bush and the United States.
In 2006, he announced a new phase towards socialism with an extra institutional character. With the support of Argentinian, Brazilian, Chinese and a few other governments, Chavez was on his honey moon phase. On top of that, Venezuela’s oil price was relatively high.
Then, the negative effects of populism started taking over. Everything became clearer when the country started to limit the freedom of expression on December 2010 and started to use media vehicles to benefit itself. In addition to that, two years later, Venezuela left the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. In this way, Venezuela’s path to socialism became a non end path to authoritarianism.
Today the government is led by Chavez successor, Nicolas Maduro, who was elected with 50% of the popular votes. The country faces the worst economic crisis in its history (75% victims of poverty), has the highest inflation rate in the world, experiences the worst scarceness of basic needs, such as energy, food and medicines, etc.
It may be argued that Venezuela is the best example of the failure of populism. A society that has been living in a blind left- wing sided authoritarian government and is now left in pieces. Chavez tried to hide himself behind the retrograde ideology of the class struggle and it is arguable that he succeeded. Venezuela found itself in a polarised society (upper/middle classes as the villains and the lower classes as the eternal heroes). Gladly though, the scenario has been changing in the past few months with the rise of the opposition and the chance of a referendum.
From this angle, it is questionable if the so called populism can be entitled to its latin origin in the case study of Venezuela. A government that was supposed to bring hope and prosperity to its people ended up being a political fiasco. The number of violence keeps growing non stop. According to unofficial data, more than 40 people were already killed by the police in public demonstrations against Maduro’s government and Caracas was elected as the world’s homicide capital in 2015. In this scenario of political instability and complete chaos, we must ask ourselves where the actual thin line between populism and people lies.