I hope at this moment that there is no need to point out that we a facing an emergency that has paralysed the world, overwhelming even developed health care systems, compromising national budgets and generating widespread fear due to the uncertainty about Covid-19.
In the Venezuelan case, Nicolas Maduro and his government have responded. I do not intend to comment on the health aspects of that response here(that is, in terms of its effectiveness and of prevention, preparation, containment and treatment), but will focus exclusively on its political dimension.
The first thing to point out is that in the face of COVID-19, with the exception of the quarantine and the request for funding from the IMF, the government is not taking any extraordinary measures, that is, decisions that it has not implemented before.
The government does not seem to understand the seriousness of the situation. It is not calling on all sectors of society to respond to the disease, through a national government. Instead it is repeating the same behaviour that was evident before the pandemic: its capacity for military action, its territorial control through the FAES and the "collectives", repression of public dissent, an imbalance between the attention given to Caracas and the rest of the regions, the lack of information and the enforcement of a narrative spread through hegemonic communication channels. – all these are the same. All under leadership linked to the PSUV.
An example of the prioritization of political considerations over technical ones has been the absence of Health Minister Carlos Alvarado from the official spokesperson's office. This omission is not accidental. It is part of a governance model that has underestimated knowledge, prioritizing instead political loyalty and military obedience. However, common sense and the importance of a crisis such as this one should mean bringing together, the greatest amount of expertise we can from across all sectors of society.
Following on from the above, it is possible that the Quarantine -again, leaving aside its health value – is really the ideal model of domination for Chavism once it gained power, the high point of its strategy to separate people from each other and neutralize their capacity to act autonomously. .
The loss of public spaces, where people meet and become citizens and enjoy time together, and the fact that they are all isolated in the private space of the home is the culmination of a process of oppression based on stopping people from acting collectively.
This is why the response to Coronavirus is the continuation of the Chavista state's war against society by other means. And that is also why the government does not ask its people to support a concerted response to the epidemic. The declaration of a quarantine under a democracy, however imperfect it may be, is not the same as under a dictatorial government that uses everything in its power to stay in office.
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