López vs. Chávez

López vs. Chávez

 “We must not allow the practices of an anti-democratic State that abuses the powers of government to violate the human rights of Venezuelans.

Leopoldo Lopez

By: Erreh Svaia

In Venezuela, a young member of the army, Hugo Chávez, was not satisfied with the way politics were going on, he believed that politicians were corrupt and that they weren't doing justice to low classes, he saw inequality rise up in his country, so he began a popular movement first, and then founded a political party, Chávez became good at mobilizing the masses and led a coup d stat which didn't work as he wishes and landed him in jail for two years, those two years and Venezuela’s citizen growing disaffection towards government, made Chávez a major figure to look for, almost a martyr, and that gave him popular approbation enough to become a major figure in politics once he got freed, quickly becoming a powerful candidate that won the presidency with an astonishing percentage of votes, yes, Chávez was brave and patient, and used democracy to his favor, people put Chávez in power with the hope that things could change and with the idea that things couldn't go worst.

Leopoldo López got involved in politics at a young age, a Harvard graduate, he founded popular movements and became part of a political party that led him to occupy certain positions within the government.

Hugo Chávez rode public approval in a relentless way, he took Venezuela into the path of Socialism of the 21 Century declaring himself a Marxist and aligning himself with the governments of Fidel Castro in Cuba and Evo Morales in Bolivia, with Chávez, Venezuela politics walked the path from democracy, towards authorities, Chávez got sick, and named Nicolas Maduro as his successor, and Maduro continued the path towards a dictatorship, just as Chávez, Maduro was backed by the Venezuelan army, but while Chávez was a member of the army and commanded the military forces, nowadays, Maduro, a civilian, seems more like a puppet of an army dictatorship were things are going bad for the people as a terrible shortage of goods are beginning to plant the same seeds of disaffection Chávez once saw in the way Venezuela was led by its government, same seeds López perceived a couple of years ago and that took him to lead major social protest against Maduro regime, López became a major figure and one that really looked to have the capacity of becoming the head of a revolution against the government, who in a completely authoritarian way took Lopez and jailed him in 2014 accusing him of terrorism.

The thing that Maduro, and the army lead government might be ignoring is that they are creating a martyr like figure out of López, and one that is gaining more and more popularity as days pass, making him a definite contender for Venezuela politics as dissatisfactions grows and people start realizing that the Bolivarian Revolution started by Hugo Chávez has become a very degenerate version of what it originally set to be, every day López spends in jail, his martyr like figure grows, making him a juggernaut soon to be freed and the definite symbolical figure of disaffection in Venezuela.

Today’s Venezuela democracy is an ornate thing, the official political party rules with iron fist, creates satellite political parties in order to create confusion within the voter, on the other side, Venezuela government seems to be creating turbulence within the country in order to give Venezuela an apparently unstable image, which might lead to a coup d etat propitiated by the government itself, a trick that seems to be conceived in order to stop the elections about to take place in December, the scenario looks grey to dissident parties, as elections are in doubt and major protest figures are either being watched closely by the government or already put in jail, like López, the thing here is that Maduro, apparently in charge, is like a caged figure, and his figure, crushed between people disaffection and the army pressure is about to come down.

It’s about time in Venezuela or democracy to let people mend the way, to let people show again that although democracy may not be perfect and it can lead us towards ugly situations like the one actually in Venezuela, it also gives hope that things can be fixed, and that magic solutions, no matter how fantastical they can look, are dangerous and can be manipulated in the wrong hands in order to create authoritarian and repressive regimes.