by David Moglen

Created on: June 25, 2008

Hugo Chavez has been elected time and again, as has his party in Venezuela. These elections are certified by international observers, and the sore losers in the opposition have done things like boycott the election and then claim they were shafted it was their own choice to abandon the electoral process, just as it was their own choice to overthrow the government, install Pedro Carmona (however briefly), and flood the corporate media with staged propaganda. It is untenable for Westerners or anyone else to declare any elected politician we don't like a dictator.

Our elections in 2000 and 2004 would not come close to being as legitimate as those in Venezuela's recent history. Exit polls in U.S. elections did not match official results. Exit polls are recognized the world over as the gold standard as to whether an election is legitimate. Chavez wins elections with a wide margin, and the argument disputing his legitimacy is much weaker than that against our recent presidential elections.

When Chavez proposed a slate of reforms in a referendum, the very close vote was not the margin of victory he wanted, so he declared defeat before the results were finally in. Defeat. Is that what a dictator would do? No he did it because even if he was to win the close vote, he didn't want to enact the reforms unless a clear sizeable majority favored them. And that is the story throughout his career in democratic politics: a clear majority comprised of Venezuela's underclass elects Chavez and his party over and over again.

After eternal enforced inequality, for the first time the poor get medical care, education, and food far beyond their previous attainment. And that is the crux as to why we must constantly ask is Chavez a dictator. The bottom line is you can not help poor people. That is the ultimate and cardinal sin in the eyes of American politicians and media. That is why John Edwards was the media's bete noir and constant target. Chavez has sinned by helping the poor therefore he must be a dictator. Worse yet, he helps the poor in the U.S. with discounted heating oil throughout the Northeast during the winters. Worse still, he offered (rebuffed) support for Katrina victims.

If Chavez just stuck to the script of the proper American puppet of a U.S. client state, he would get the same treatment Carmona received after becoming a 48-hour dictator in the wake of the coup: enthusiastic public support from the top echelons of our federal government. But because he has committed the ultimate sin of helping the poor, we have to call him a dictator and nod vapidly as Pat Robertson calls for his assassination on a religious family values show, the 700 club.

The only credible argument that he is dictatorial is that in the referendum that failed (and whose failure he accepted quite un-dictatorially) contained provisions to remove presidential term limits. Anti-Chavez opponents will view this as de facto autocratic. The fact is people in a democracy CAN disagree about the validity of term limits. I think the argument for them is stronger than against, but it is the right of free people in a democracy to vote their belief on this and every other issue. Had they voted to overturn term limits, which they did not, the West should have accepted this outcome and ceased meddling in their sovereignty.

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