A retraction on Hugo Chavez
Last week I had some nice words for Hugo Chavez, because he had recogized that he had lost his constitutional referendum and yet respected the outcome. According to Jorge Casta?eda’s Newsweek essay, however, Chavez didn’t exactly make this decision on his own volition: [B]y midweek enough information had emerged to conclude that Ch?vez did, in ...
Last week I had some nice words for Hugo Chavez, because he had recogized that he had lost his constitutional referendum and yet respected the outcome. According to Jorge Casta?eda's Newsweek essay, however, Chavez didn't exactly make this decision on his own volition: [B]y midweek enough information had emerged to conclude that Ch?vez did, in fact, try to overturn the results. As reported in El Nacional, and confirmed to me by an intelligence source, the Venezuelan military high command virtually threatened him with a coup d'?tat if he insisted on doing so. Finally, after a late-night phone call from Ra?l Isa?as Baduel, a budding opposition leader and former Ch?vez comrade in arms, the president conceded?but with one condition: he demanded his margin of defeat be reduced to a bare minimum in official tallies, so he could save face and appear as a magnanimous democrat in the eyes of the world. So after this purportedly narrow loss Ch?vez did not even request a recount, and nearly every Latin American colleague of Ch?vez's congratulated him for his "democratic" behavior.
Last week I had some nice words for Hugo Chavez, because he had recogized that he had lost his constitutional referendum and yet respected the outcome. According to Jorge Casta?eda’s Newsweek essay, however, Chavez didn’t exactly make this decision on his own volition:
[B]y midweek enough information had emerged to conclude that Ch?vez did, in fact, try to overturn the results. As reported in El Nacional, and confirmed to me by an intelligence source, the Venezuelan military high command virtually threatened him with a coup d’?tat if he insisted on doing so. Finally, after a late-night phone call from Ra?l Isa?as Baduel, a budding opposition leader and former Ch?vez comrade in arms, the president conceded?but with one condition: he demanded his margin of defeat be reduced to a bare minimum in official tallies, so he could save face and appear as a magnanimous democrat in the eyes of the world. So after this purportedly narrow loss Ch?vez did not even request a recount, and nearly every Latin American colleague of Ch?vez’s congratulated him for his “democratic” behavior.
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner
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