The Prospect of Growing Discontent

Just as the oil price puffed up Mr Chávez over the past few years, now it is diminishing him. His ambition to sponsor a continental movement of radical leftists is being crimped as the money runs short. Even if he wins the referendum, he will face growing discontent at home as the economy moves into recession and inflation rises. His way of governing is plebiscitarian: almost every year in the past decade Venezuelans have been asked to vote in ballots that the president has turned into a referendum on himself, and whose outcome he has then taken as a blank cheque. Without the oil windfall, a majority of Venezuelans are likely to withdraw their consent. If and when that happens, the risk will be that Mr Chávez resorts to bullying to stay in power. Left-of-centre governments elsewhere in Latin America, which have been overenthusiastic in embracing him, must try to ensure that doesn't happen.