Voters in Venezuela reject Chavez’s destructive antics

Opinion: October 2, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Miami Herald: The people of Venezuela sent Hugo Chavez an unequivocal message on Sunday: They want their democracy back.

Leading up to a momentous legislative election, Venezuela’s president did everything in his power to stack the deck in his favor, from outrageous gerrymandering to seizing near-total control of the media. Yet even so, the opposition dealt Chavez and his Bolivarian movement a powerful blow by winning about half the popular vote, which resulted in capturing one-third of the seats in the National Assembly.

Chavez may well respond by trying to undercut the powers of the assembly, but this would only send another signal that he will not be restrained by the popular will. That’s how it works in Chavez’s Venezuela.

Still, the increased number of opposition votes in the assembly will make it harder, if not impossible, to enact Chavez-mandated changes every time the leader of spaceship Venezuela declares, Make It So. A newly empowered and confident minority will continue to benefit from Chavez’s declining popularity and increasingly despotic behavior.

Electorate’s frustration

The lesson of this election is that the opposition has recovered from its misguided attempts to discredit the electoral system by boycotting elections, as they did in 2005. They now can rely on the increasing frustration of the electorate to confront Chavez.

This will require courage because Chavez has a record of persecuting political opponents, but democracy advocates should take heart from the electoral results because time is on their side. The longer Chavez stays in office, the more inept his governance and the more unpopular he becomes.