2023-10-08 14:27:44
The primaries are going to be defined in Venezuela. There is only one option.
The government is going to do everything necessary to make them appear illegitimate, cheated, etc. The government is very concerned regarding these primaries. We’ll see. I think there will be. I think they should happen. And if they happen, all the polls say that María Corina Machado, who has been fighting for this issue for decades, wins by a long margin. It is an important moment and, if the government intervenes in a brutal way, repressing, distorting and cheating the votes in the primaries, there will be a before and following. It is going to be a very important moment, a very important point of change.
What result would suit the government in a scenario with 13 candidates? Is there a top candidate?
There is no doubt that the government must have penetrated the opposition. There must be leaders of the Venezuelan opposition who call themselves opposition but who are really very close to the government for multiple reasons. There are many candidates, but most are microscopic. The polls, for what they’re worth, give María Corina Machado a margin that no one else has. She leads the main movement, the street’s appetite for something new. The government cannot afford to lose power. It’s going to be all the tricks necessary to stay. But the situation is already unsustainable.
Chávez and Maduro are an authoritarianism crossed by criminality. There are levels of corruption.
It is very important that voters understand that Venezuela is a failed state. But its essence is that it is occupied by a foreign power, which is Cuba. The Cubans control the Venezuelan State, remove and replace officials, and loot the country for dozens of years. There is transactional corruption, which is bribery. Then there is the kleptocratic system or kleptocracy, which is when the head of state and those close to him get their hands on the country’s treasury. And finally there is what we are experiencing now, which includes kleptocracy and transactional corruption, but which is also a mafia state. A criminalized State where organized crime is not outside the government trying to bribe it. Organized crime is the State. There is a criminalization of the State. And there is a globalization of the criminalized State.
Latin America lives in the past. You talk regarding political necrophilia.
It happens all over the world. But in Latin America what I have called political necrophilia appears in a notable way. Necrophilia is a disease or perversion suffered by human beings, particularly men. An attraction and unstoppable bond with corpses. And I think there is a political version of this that is an attraction, a magnetism towards bad ideas that have been tried over and over once more in one country and another, at different times and with different names, but that in the end always end up in the same: more corruption, more inequality, more poverty and more stagnation. The struggle in Latin America is to eradicate the old ideas that have detained us, stopped us.
The myth of the past and the utopia of the future, said Álvaro Vargas Llosa.
There is a very good phrase: “There is nothing new, except what we have forgotten.” There is this propensity for repetition that governments and leaders have, going back over the same thing knowing it never works. And, well, they are successful with voters. So Latin America has a very serious problem with leaders, but also with their followers.
Ironically, the academic elite of the first world now criticizes the colony, deconstructing modernity.
Yes. The world has changed in an unexpected way. But the dissection of the previous theories will not last long. What is coming is unprecedented. Climate change is going to shake societies in a very profound way, it is going to make many organizations and companies inoperative. And the past is not going to help us understand it or manage it. The same goes for artificial intelligence. This is not just another software or just another information technology. This is a drastic and profound change.
He spoke of necrophilia and the government has just used the 50 years of the Pinochet coup. And the Constitution goes from left to right without achieving consensus.
But it must be recognized that Chileans were the first to see the importance of alliances in government. The Concertación was that: rival groups that hated each other and that laid down their weapons and agreed on some fundamental points regarding the future of Chile. And they did it. Chile has had several decades of growth and economic and social progress. Now comes the second part. Social integration, the fight once morest inequality and the management of an economy that is increasingly competitive. I believe that Chileans can do it once more; They can prove once more that they do know how to work together despite having to deal with opponents they don’t get along with. Chile has a lot to teach us and the first thing it has to teach us is that it is capable of once once more making a national agreement, a Concertación. The message to Chileans, Peruvians and other countries in the region is that, in the 21st century, only countries that achieve a government of alliances, agreements and pacts will be able to progress. The others are going to stay stagnant or fall. They are going to have to make the necessary concessions to reach a middle point, which will allow the country to move forward. The Peruvians have not achieved that, clearly. A great national plan is needed that allows Peru to move forward and get it out of this constant political instability.
How do you see Dina Boluarte’s government following the departure of Pedro Castillo?
I see Peru with great sadness. I have many friends there and I know Peru well. Peru might be so much better than what it is. There are so many barriers to doing things the right way. This rotation of presidents… I believe that Peru deserves a better destiny and has what it has, but it will not achieve a better destiny until those who hate each other make alliances.
And yet, something worse was avoided with Castillo, although we are not in the ideal situation.
Of course, because Peru is a bit like Italy at other times. The less government there was, the better it was. The political crisis that occurred around Castillo and his deliberately bad ways of operating were certainly handled very well.
How to sell a national alliance? Historically in Peru pacts are not seen as acts of maturity, but as betrayals, unnatural unions or ‘repartijas’. And people ask for new and depoliticized faces that end in authoritarian options.
A national pact is needed. But they are not a few politicians with businessmen and someone from the church. That’s the past and people know it doesn’t work. The problem is not only how to sell to the public, but how to produce a product that the public can engage with. It has to be something more. It has to be a national movement in which there are politicians but also the private sector, churches, intellectuals, universities, students, the Armed Forces… The entire society. It has to be a national social movement. They cannot be elite groups.
In ‘The Revenge of the Powerful’ he talks regarding the three Ps: populism, post-truth and polarization. A dangerous Molotov cocktail.
And it is fashionable everywhere. Every time they invite me to a country, they tell me regarding this book, which had great international success. All countries believe that they are exceptional and unique in terms of those three Ps. But it is a global phenomenon, even though it has very specific local manifestations. Populism is making promises that will be broken, contributing to anti-politics. You have the demonization of the past and the denunciation of those who have built institutions. And you have the old idea of ’divide and conquer’. Polarization prevents people from working together. And now it has been amplified with social media. Populism and polarization have always existed, but now with globalization it has become a very powerful and negative cocktail.
He said that Javier Milei’s promises are some suicidal and others irrelevant because they are impossible.
Yes. Milei is basically the manifestation of a people fed up with politics. In the book ‘The Revenge of the Powerful’ he dedicated a chapter to antipolitics. He is believing that everything that has to do with politics is bad, disastrous, corrupt, negative, etc. And he looks at the government’s corruption, ineptitude and lack of ability to function properly, to provide basic public goods. So Milei is just a big cry of despair. The mantra of this anti-politics is ‘let them all go away!’ But it is not easy for everyone to leave, because many things have to be rebuilt. Argentina has been wrong for decades. Every time he has made a choice he has made a mistake. I hope the future brings you fewer mistakes. But the future will never be one of a shouty leader. The future belongs to a leader who knows how to bring together efforts, initiatives and hopes among his followers.
Bukele also defines the region. It’s a risk?
It’s very attractive, isn’t it? If you live in one of these Latin American countries where going out on the street was risking your neck, like Venezuela or Mexico… Mexico has a terrible situation with organized crime. In Colombia… In Brazil there are also entire favelas in which the Police do not enter. Not to mention what you experience in Peru with drug traffickers inserted in governments. The criminalization of society is a big issue in Latin America.
Some names of Latin American politicians and their opinion regarding them. What does the president of Mexico, AMLO, inspire in you?
Last.
¿Petro?
Lost opportunity.
Daniel Ortega?
Dictator, tyrant, torturer.
Alberto Fernandez?
Mediocre.
¿Lula?
President of corruption or president of the salvation of the Amazon.
Diaz-Canel?
Castro.
¿Maduro?
Puppet.
In Boluarte?
Doing what he can in very adverse circumstances.
Pedro Castillo?
I think Peruvians have already said everything regarding him.
To play Zaori. I know that a month in Latin America is an eternity. What will happen in a year? Many elections are coming. Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico… Will there be significant line changes?
I think the pendulum is going to swing once more. We’re going to see a comeback. Basically, Latin American voters are going to elect those who have not been in power. And so the pendulum goes from one side to the other. It is a reality in which ideology no longer has to do with making decisions, but only serves to give speeches. We have seen presidents who present themselves as left-wing who do right-wing things, like Ricardo Lagos or Michelle Bachelet in Chile, for example. Or presidents who call themselves right-wing and end up doing left-wing things. Saying that someone is left or right no longer helps us know what kind of initiatives a president is going to take. He is good at giving speeches and igniting audiences at rallies and street protests. But it does not help to make decisions that help the people.
What are you writing, besides your column?
I’m writing a fiction book. I wrote a novel called ‘Two Spies in Caracas’, which was very successful. And so now I’m writing another novel that doesn’t necessarily have to do with Latin America. It is a novel that has to do with oligarchs and what happens with the intersection of money, power and politics. And, well, I’m also writing a nonfiction book that has to do with countries that have bad leaders, but just as bad or worse followers. Followers who do not pay attention, are not informed and are capable of voting for anything. What makes these followers so vulnerable and manipulated by demagogues?
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