[Marxism] Venezuela: A Former Guerrilla Reinvents Himself as a Candidate

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

When Teodoro Petkoff announced his candidacy, Venezuelan Vice
President Jose Vicente Rangel welcomed it, saying it could contribute
to a useful political dialogue in the country. The New York Times
omits mention of this fact. With the threats by some opposition
elements to boycott the election, Petkoff's participation can help
draw people into the process and further legitimize it. The Wall
Street Journal and others have been campaigning against the
democratic credentials of Bolivarian Venezuela, so Petkoff's
participation does offer that positive possibility. The New York
Times, at odds with the Bush administration lately on a number of
issues, is presentingthis candidacy very favorably, something rather
unusual toward someone from one described as politically left.

>From what we can read in this profile, however, Petkoff's one
specific PROPOSAL is one to distribute coupons, which the NY Times
likens to food stamps in the United States, to the entire population.
This is a demagogic idea which would, if adopted, mean a change in
orientation from the public use, regulation and distribution of the
country's oil wealth for social programs to hustling by individuals,
like playing the stock market. Another thing it looks like is that
Bush prescription medicine proposal which isn't going over very well
with the elderly, despite millions being spent by the different
insurance companies to promote their own so-called prescription
medicine benefit plans. These are just anti-social scams. The idea is
clearly to appeal to people to think and act as individuals, rather
than as members of a society, a social movement, or, dare we mention
the word, a social class...

It rather reminds me of the coupons which are given out in the United
States to parents so their children can attend private and parochial
schools. They're a step toward the privitization of education, just
as these proposed "oil stamps" would be a substantial step toward the
privatization of Venezuala's greatest public resource, its petroleum
wealth. One does wonder if they have campaign finance disclosure laws
in Venezuela and so, who is funding the campaign advertizing of this
"man of the left".

Walter Lippmann, CubaNews
http://www.walterlippmann.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews 
==============================================
 
July 1, 2006
The Saturday Profile
A Former Guerrilla Reinvents Himself as a Candidate 
By SIMON ROMERO


CARACAS, Venezuela - More than seven years into the government of the
leftist president Hugo Chávez, people here barely raise an eyebrow to
having former Marxist guerrillas in positions of power. One is
foreign minister, another is the chief executive of the government's
aluminum producer and yet another was one of Mr. Chávez's first
representatives to OPEC.

Now, one of the country's most eminent ex-guerrillas, Teodoro Petkoff
Malec, is seeking to oust Mr. Chávez in this year's presidential
election. Mr. Petkoff is basing his bid on what he calls impeccable
leftist credentials and a promise to end the polarization of
Venezuelan society between Mr. Chávez's supporters and opponents.

With Mr. Chávez far ahead in the polls, Mr. Petkoff's campaign as an
independent appears quixotic. But it is no more surprising than a
political career that has spanned half a century and included not
only armed struggle against the government and spectacular prison
escapes but also a rebirth as a congressman and, later, as a planning
minister who created an austerity program that won backing from the
International Monetary Fund.

His most recent incarnation as aspirant to the presidency comes after
several years as editor of Tal Cual, a newspaper sharply critical of
Mr. Chávez's administration and the opposition's tactics. He still
describes himself as "a man of the left," though he broke with
Movement Toward Socialism, a party he helped build over nearly three
decades, over its declaration of support for Mr. Chávez in 1998.

Assessing Mr. Chávez's rise through the Venezuelan Army and his role
in a coup attempt in 1992, Mr. Petkoff was an early critic of what he
said were Mr. Chávez's authoritarian tendencies.

Since becoming president, Mr. Chávez has steadily tightened his hold
on power. He emerged more powerful than ever after his ouster in a
brief coup in 2002 that soured many in Venezuela on a fractured
opposition, which critics say has unwittingly done much to strengthen
his hand.

With several months to go before the December election, Mr. Chávez
seems to be benefiting from surging oil revenues, which have financed
broadly popular social welfare programs. His approval rating stands
at 57 percent, according to a recent poll by Alfredo Keller y
Asociados.

That has not dampened Mr. Petkoff's enthusiasm. Though campaigning
does not formally start until August, he has already filled the
airwaves with advertisements championing his commitment to reduce
fear, whether of political retribution or random violence.

Mr. Petkoff has also criticized signs of the government's increasing
militarism, including the purchase of 100,000 machine guns from
Russia and images of Mr. Chávez test-firing the weapons, as a
distraction from democratic leftist principles.

"We're suffering from the inefficiencies of a system manipulated by
the megalomania and delirium of one man," Mr. Petkoff, who is 74 but
looks a decade or so younger, said in an interview at his frenetic
campaign headquarters here in a run-down office building. "Chávez
thinks this country is his private ranch."

One of Mr. Petkoff's main proposals is to redistribute Venezuela's
oil wealth through government coupons similar to food stamps in the
United States, an attempt to challenge Mr. Chávez on the strength of
his anti-poverty programs, which have increased literacy and access
to basic foodstuffs among much of the country's poor.

"Petkoff understands that associating these coupons with the oil boom
is something that can reverberate among the poorest elements," said
Luis Pedro España, an economist who studies poverty issues at Andrés
Bello Catholic University in Caracas. "It's an electoral ploy, but if
managed well, it could go beyond a direct subsidy to a more
meaningful assistance policy."

Mr. Petkoff has been known for independent thinking in his trajectory
from the revolutionary fringe to the political establishment. He
distanced himself from Leninist dogmatism in the late 1960's with a
critique of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and he surprised
many leftists when as planning minister in the 1990's he supported
opening Venezuela's oil industry to foreign investment, along with
other reforms that pleased investors from the United States and
Europe.

These efforts included plans to sell state-controlled companies to
private investors and raise domestic gasoline prices, which remain
among the world's lowest.

Mr. Petkoff is perhaps best remembered, however, for his derring-do
as a leftist rebel in the 1960's under the nom de guerre Roberto.
Captured in 1963 and placed in San Carlos Prison in Caracas, he
convinced the guards that he was painfully ill with an ulcer.

A supporter then obtained capsules of fresh calf's blood for him,
which he swallowed and spit up, forcing his transfer to a military
hospital. From there he descended to freedom down seven stories on a
smuggled length of nylon rope, earning him iconic status within the
Latin American left.

In an essay written in 1983 during one of Mr. Petkoff's two previous
presidential campaigns, the Colombian Nobel laureate Gabriel García
Márquez described him as "capable at the same time of escaping from
prison like a cinematic hero, dancing like a youth until dawn to
fashionable music, or passing an entire evening, sometimes without
one drink, discussing literature."

Despite his leftist credentials, as the son of European immigrants
who arrived in Venezuela in the 1920's, Mr. Petkoff is still at risk
of being considered just another member of Venezuela's elite in a
country where Mr. Chávez uses his own mixed-race background,
referring at times to his African and Indian ancestries, to win
popular support. Some people insist on calling Mr. Petkoff a "catire"
(pronounced kah-TEE-reh), a term describing someone fair-skinned with
light hair. (His father was from Bulgaria and his mother of Polish
Jewish origin.)

Still, his biggest obstacle to gaining the presidency may not be the
color of his hair, now somewhat gray, but the stumbling efforts by a
fractious opposition to rally around a single candidate. Some parts
of the electorate even still favor sitting out the election, citing
fears over voting fraud, a policy that last year put the national
legislature firmly in the hands of Mr. Chávez and his supporters.

Two other potential candidates, Julio Borges of the First Justice
party and Manuel Rosales, governor of the oil-rich Zulia state,
recently met with Mr. Petkoff to discuss putting forth a single
opposition candidate, but details on how such a front could be
assembled remain vague.

Some polls have put support for any of the three potential candidates
in single percentage points in a race against Mr. Chávez, though more
than 30 percent of voters say they are still undecided or might not
vote. One survey conducted in May by the Venezuelan Institute for
Data Analysis and broadcast by state-owned radio put Mr. Chávez's
support at 66 percent compared with 34 percent for a consensus
opposition candidate, if one were to emerge.

[In a move that could further complicate the opposition's prospects,
Súmate, one of Venezuela's leading nongovernmental organizations,
said this week that it could not help organize primary elections to
pick a single candidate, citing time constraints for recruiting
volunteers and distributing electoral materials.]

In the interview, Mr. Petkoff acknowledged his candidacy was an
uphill struggle. When asked about his prospects, he relied on a
Venezuelan refrain, "Cada pulpero alaba su queso," which loosely
translates as, "Every grocer boasts about his cheese."

Boasting about his threadbare campaign's chances to thrust him into
the Venezuelan presidency, however, inevitably led him to reflect on
the conditions that made possible yet another rebirth.

"Venezuela has been a very generous country," Mr. Petkoff said,
referring to his successes in politics and intellectual life, despite
his guerrilla past. "I'd like it to remain that way."


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