Populism in Venezuela: the rise of Chavismo

In the 1990s Venezuela experienced the rise of a new anti-party movement built around the figure of Hugo Cha´vez and dedicated to the fundamental transformation of society, a movement that most Venezuelans call Chavismo. If we define populism in strictly political terms—as the presence of what some scholars call a charismatic mode of linkage between voters and politicians, and a democratic discourse that relies on the idea of a popular will and a struggle between 'the people' and 'the elite'—then Chavismo is clearly a populist phenomenon. Chavismo relies on charismatic linkages between voters and politicians, a relationship largely unmediated by any institutionalised party. It also bases itself on a powerful, Manichaean discourse of 'the people versus the elite' that naturally encourages an 'anything goes' attitude among Cha´vez's supporters. In this paper I demonstrate these points through a descriptive account, based on interviews performed in Caracas during autumn 1999, May 2000 and February 2003, as well as on published texts available in Venezuela. I also use this account to support an analytical claim that these populist qualities undermine Chavismo's democratic goals.