In Latin America, the Strongman Stirs in His Grave

          By LARRY ROHTER

                MIAMI -- All across Latin America, presidents and party leaders
                are looking over their shoulders. With his landslide victory in
          Venezuela's presidential election on Dec. 6, Hugo Chavez has revived an
          all-too-familiar specter that the region's ruling elite thought they had safely
          interred: that of the populist demagogue, the authoritarian man on
          horseback known as the caudillo.

          A cashiered army colonel, Chavez is to be sworn into office for a
          five-year term on Feb. 2, the eve of the anniversary of a bloody but failed
          military coup he led in 1992. Chavez, a 44-year-old former paratrooper,
          maintains that only a "social revolution" can be "the salvation of the
          country," and has vowed to convene a constitutional assembly that would
          rewrite Venezuela's charter and, in all likelihood, do away with the
          democratic two-party system that has prevailed for 40 years.

          "We're running scared; we have sweaty palms," said Gonzalo Sanchez de
          Lozada, a former president of Bolivia who went to Caracas as part of an
          international delegation of election observers. "Venezuela is something that
          will have a great impact."

          The emergence of Chavez resonates far beyond Venezuela's borders for
          reasons both symbolic and practical. Venezuela was the birthplace of
          Simon Bolivar, the father of South American independence, and Chavez
          has presented himself as Bolivar's heir and disciple -- despite his past
          disregard for the rule of law. In addition, the overthrow of the dictator
          Marcos Perez Jimenez in 1958 ushered in the modern cycle of civilian
          democratic rule in Latin America and made Venezuela a sort of political
          laboratory for the region.

          Particularly alarming to the political establishment is that Chavez achieved
          his victory by going outside the traditional party system and running as the
          independent candidate of a loose-knit coalition called the Patriotic Pole.
          Discredited by years of deeply entrenched corruption and partisan
          nepotism, both parties -- one slightly left of center, the other on the right
          -- united at the last moment behind Chavez's main opponent, only to find
          themselves made virtually irrelevant by the outcome.

          Chavez's triumph augurs "the total disintegration of the strongest party
          system in Latin America," according to Arturo Valenzuela, director of the
          Center for Latin American Studies at Georgetown University. "It really is
          an extraordinary lesson: that you cannot over a period of time run a
          political system with an explicit or even implicit pact to divide up the spoils
          and rule the country on the basis of patronage."

          In place of the parties -- which for all their flaws have demonstrated
          respect for democratic institutions -- Chavez seems inclined to govern on
          the basis of a mystical bond he claims to have established with
          Venezuela's 23 million people. He has also implied that his new "people's
          government" will not need a Congress or other institutions to interpret the
          popular will and has said he prefers direct consultation with voters to the
          give-and-take of building a legislative coalition through compromise and
          negotiation.

          "This trend towards government by referendum and plebiscite -- that's not
          democracy, and that's what worries me the most," said Eduardo
          Gamarra, director of the Latin American and Caribbean Center at Florida
          International University here. "People in power who are having difficulties
          and want to forget the niceties of presidential democracy will be very
          attracted by this model of closing down Congress."

          Since the gradual disappearance of military dictatorships in the early
          1980s, the basic assumption of Latin America's civilian politicians, as well
          as their patrons in Washington, has been that democracy works in tandem
          with open markets, privatization and free trade. But Chavez's resounding
          triumph in a country with the largest oil reserves outside the Middle East
          suggests a basic flaw in that thinking.

          "There is growing frustration, anger and anxiety throughout Latin America
          because of the unrealized promises from increasing involvement in the
          global economy," said Jennifer Schirmer, a Harvard University professor
          who is an expert on Central American military regimes. "If the upper
          classes and the elite have grown richer, most people, including the middle
          class, are experiencing economic loss, greater instability and an
          exponential growth in crime."

          In that context, she added, Chavez's emergence can be seen as "the first
          salvo in a class revolt" that may not always seek expression at the ballot
          box. Or as Luis Vicente Leon, head of the Venezuelan polling firm
          Datanalisis, put it, Chavez's followers "vote for him out of rage" -- a state
          of mind that exists in abundance from Guatemala to Brazil in nations
          whose governments have favored policies that generate wealth but do not
          distribute it equitably.

          By sending contradictory signals, Chavez has done little to calm concerns
          about his intentions. Following his triumph, he disavowed earlier
          statements that he would "fry the heads" of his opponents, described
          himself as "a man of peace," promised to respect the rights of foreign
          investors and pledged "a new democracy" free of corruption and
          patronage.

          Yet he has also invoked the spirit of Juan Peron of Argentina and other
          populist dictators of the past. "I am not the Peron of Venezuela, I am the
          Chavez of Venezuela," he has said. "But if Peron worried about social
          justice and equality, then I agree with him."

          Of course, Chavez could end up taking the same path as Carlos Menem,
          who was elected president of Argentina in 1989 as a Peronist but has
          governed as a textbook enthusiast of open markets. Then again, he may
          follow the course of Alberto Fujimori of Peru, who made good on threats
          to bypass the traditional political system and has transformed himself into
          a strongman.

          Either way, a wake-up call to the perils of cronyism and growing income
          disparity has clearly been delivered to the region's leaders. What remains
          to be seen is who, if anyone, will heed the sobering message.