openDemocracy: Nicolás Maduro, the usurper

Between 2009 and 2012 we carried out a research on political leaders in Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Uruguay and Venezuela. We interviewed 285 leaders, including former Presidents, former Vice Presidents, acting Vice Presidents, mayors, deputies, senators, political party presidents, political journalists and trade union officials.[...]

The second type of leader is ambivalently democratic. He respects the rights of citizens, works cooperatively, but seeks to accumulate personal power. He is the type of leader who believes that in order to strengthen his position he needs to negotiate and make concessions.[...]

Unlike the democratic leader, the ambivalent one respects but does not strengthen democratic institutions. In fact, he can end up weakening democracy in his bid to increase personal power.

The weak usurper of power wavers between challenging and accepting the rule of law and State institutions. The historical context is crucial here, for it can allow, or block, the leader's capacity to increase his autonomy.[...]

His recurrent lies, the shortage of goods, administrative corruption, the profound deterioration of the economy, the rampant devaluation of the Bolivarian currency, political control, the empowerment of military sects, all come together in the usurpation of power and the establishment of a regime showing clearly totalitarian, militaristic and undemocratic tendencies.

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Vox: How democracies die, explained

Democracies, in this telling, don’t die so much as they decline. The rhetoric that underlies democracy, the self-identity that is adopted by a democratic people, all that is hard to dislodge. In 2011, long after Venezuela had tumbled into authoritarianism, a majority of Venezuelans said they lived in a vibrant, thriving democracy. The genius of modern tyrants has been in realizing you don’t need to dislodge democracy; you need to co-opt it, you need to make it your own.

Many government efforts to subvert democracy are “legal,” in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process. Newspapers still publish but are bought off or bullied into self-censorship. Citizens continue to criticize the government but often find themselves facing tax or other legal troubles. This sows public confusion. People do not immediately realize what is happening. Many continue to believe they are living under a democracy. [...]

That these norms are slipping into the mist is uncontroversial. By one count, there were 385 Senate filibusters between 2007 and 2012 — which is, Levitsky and Ziblatt note, equal to the number of filibusters in the seven decades between World War I and the end of the Reagan administration. The confirmation of circuit court appointments, which was over 90 percent in the 1980s, fell to about 50 percent during Barack Obama’s presidency. [...]

It’s these underlying trends, they argue, that are making it harder for Americans to tolerate each other, harder for partisans on both sides to accept each other. The parties have become more distant ideologically, racially, religiously. They look over the divide and see a coalition that doesn’t look like them or think like them, that doesn’t like them, that actively fears them — indeed, a recent Pew survey found that 49 percent of Republicans, and 55 percent of Democrats, say they are “afraid” of the other party. Keep that in mind as you read this paragraph:

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Al Jazeera: Will Brazil be the next Venezuela?

In fact, it is possible that Venezuela will become "the next Brazil". Recent developments suggest that the traditional Brazilian elites have regained their ground and are currently taking measures to entrench their rule. And as Nicolas Maduro's government faces instability, it is likely that in the future Venezuelans will wake up to a Brazilian-style oligarchy ruling their country.

In 1958, three major political parties in Venezuela signed a pact called "the Punto Fijo" to "preserve the country's new democratic regime and prevent single party hegemony". Yet the pact transformed Venezuela into an oligarchical paradise and ushered in a period of exclusionary politics in which the political system - and the president's office - was dominated by the elites from the leading political parties.

This plan did work well for almost three decades. Venezuela, which had had no fewer than 25 national constitutions up to 1961, suddenly became a "stable democracy" in the heart of troublesome Cold War South America. The developmental model adopted by its leaders, which was fuelled by the abundant money flowing from oil exports, transformed the Caribbean nation into a relatively successful rentier state. [...]

At the same time, the judicial system is nowhere near reigning in the pervasive corruption. Last week, the National Congress of Brazil absolved President Michel Temer of corruption charges and allowed him to continue his ill-supported mandate.

And Brazilians are stuck with Temer although an overwhelming majority of them want him out (just 5 percent approve of his government). The congress would simply not listen to the wishes of the public that elected it. This is "business as usual" for Brazil's powerful.

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