From the Editors of VenEconomy

There are many people in Venezuela who maintain that a dictatorship has not been established, for now. They argue that, despite a host of authoritarian actions, some oases of freedom and democracy still survive. However, it would seem that the goal of the Chávez administration is to do away with those oases.

The vote, still perceived by the majority as the route to take in order to restore democracy, is in danger, although many believe that, if the opposition stays united, if election witnesses are guaranteed, and if the electoral process is carefully monitored, solving this impasse via the democratic route is possible.

But the fact is that this democratic window is also being closed. The National Assembly is debating a new electoral system that would eliminate, in one fell swoop, the proportional representation that permits plural, democratic coexistence. If this bill is passed, the path of the vote for guaranteeing alternation in power would be irremediably blocked, and with it, a peaceful means for solving the crisis of governance the country is going through.

Added to this, in order to achieve its goal, the government has been using fear as a means of coercion and to get a majority of Venezuelans who do not agree with Hugo Chávez’s political project to toe the line.

Day by day, the government perfects its methods for generating fear in the collective subconscious. What is worse, to spread that fear it uses the media it monopolizes and also, with increasing frequency, the threatening voice of the President himself that fills the Venezuelan population with terror via his daily, venomous speeches given in nationwide networked broadcasts.

They terrorize small, medium, and big businessmen with televised confiscations involving groups of government supporters backed by the State’s military forces.

They terrorize trade unions and workers with repression that is out of all proportion, persecution, and even the selective execution of some of their leaders.

They are attempting to counter the enthusiasm of the student movement using teargas (the good staff recommended by the President) and an illegal system of keeping police files open on those who are detained, with the result that hundreds of students are required to report periodically to the authorities.

With the threat of putting them in prison or of running the risk of having to go into exile, the leadership of the political parties is being immobilized.

Meanwhile, the man in the street is kept in a permanent state of anxiety thanks to the uncontrolled crime wave fostered by the police themselves and by violent gangs sympathetic to the government.

Besides, in order to achieve its goal of establishing a dictatorship, it is necessary to do away with the freedom of expression, and, unfortunately, on this front, the government is making enormous strides.

The most irrefutable example is the harassment to which Globovisión has been subjected, with the application of all kinds of sanctions to cow it; and now, not only with the threat of an imminent closure, but also with a series of raids on and charges brought against the television station’s owners on the basis of invalid accusations for alleged offenses, multimillionaire fines on unjustified grounds, and planned violence.

This persecution of Globovisión is being used by the government to demonstrate to the rest of the media that the regime will stop at nothing to carry out any type of arbitrary, immoral measure to silence the voice of dissidence and the voice of protest. It has even made it clear that it will not hesitate to resort to using the police and the parapolice to silence the media. If it manages to achieve its objective, this would be the last nail in democracy’s coffin.

The other side of this coin is that the fear that the voice of freedom inspires in all tyrannies is sending a chill of fear up the government’s spine.