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The Bolivarian Revolution led by Hugo Chávez did not promise a liberal democracy. Its purpose was to establish a majoritarian democracy that would have led to a participatory democracy. In a popular and anti-elitist turn, it was taking up what Laureano Vallenilla Lanz, a Venezuelan journalist and politician, described in his 1919 book Cesarismo Democrático. Facing what he considered a disabled populace, Vallenilla defended the country’s need for an ideal, charismatic caudillo who should concentrate power and guarantee order. Or, to put it from another angle, and in Antonio Gramsci's terms, in the face of the very severe instability derived from the 1989 Caracazo, Chávez appeared to many as the very expression of "progressive Caesarism."
Under Nicolás Maduro's administration, the uncertain aspiration for a majoritarian democracy led by a "good Caesar" turned into a "regressive Caesarism" and became an ochlocracy led by a "bad Caesar". According to Polybius (2nd century BC), an ochlocracy distorts democracy with its resort to demagoguery and illegality. In a more modern interpretation, what happens in an ochlocracy, rather than strengthening an organized people and the popular power, is that the masses are manipulated through different means as a tool and as the support base for the survival of the dominant group at the top of the government. As a result there is a setback in terms of some basic components of democracy - such as the protection of human rights - and authoritarian practices arise. In Venezuela, this has happened in the midst of an overwhelming economic crisis that is sweeping away the achievements that benefited the popular sectors, exacerbating social confrontation, and reinforcing an oil-based economy.
