Five More Years

Pudgy, nearsighted General Marcos Perez Jimenez, 43, already one of the world's senior dictators, last week began another five years as President of Venezuela--barring, of course, assassination or a coup by his military juniors. He won the term in a plebiscite that gave voters a choice of him or nothing. So cynically rigged was the election that two hours after the polls closed, Interior Minister Laureano Vallenilla Lanz summoned foreign newsmen to hear the results. Just as a small television receiver in the corner of his office beamed the opening of the first ballot box, the minister, his .38-cal. revolver prominently displayed on his desk, said that the citizens had voted for Perez Jimenez in overwhelming numbers.

A week earlier the Senate and Chamber of Deputies had elected all state legislators and city councilmen, and the state legislatures, not to be outdone, had simultaneously elected a new Senate. A few legislators discovered that they had been chosen without their own knowledge.

Records Every Year. Such rituals make the sum of the attention Perez Jimenez thinks democracy needs in a country where the army is all-powerful, the ground is gushing oil, and people are getting rich from a boom that is now a decade old. In that time the capital city of Caracas has more than tripled in size to 1,100,000; the nation's population has swelled to 6,133,900. Farm hands are flocking to the cities; immigrants from Spain and Italy are pouring in. A primitive land ten years ago, Venezuela today shops for the delicacies of the world. Through the broad, temperate mountain valley that houses Caracas, Jaguars, Ferraris, Thunderbirds, Cadillacs crowd the six-lane autopistas.

Since 1950, gross national product has almost doubled to $5.9 billion. Oil production has nearly doubled to 2,700,000 bbl. a day, and with new wells coming in at record rates, oilmen foresee that it may rise another 85% by 1966. Oil now accounts for about $2 billion in exports, or about 95% of the yearly total. Iron-ore production, mostly by the United States Steel Corp. mines at Cerro Bolivar, increased by a third in 1957 to about 15 million tons. Irrigation projects and rapid farm mechanization have boosted agriculture until Venezuela now produces 85% of its own food. New investments and a protectionist policy for inefficient industry have boosted production of everything from paint and cement to soap and tires.

Public Works. Government is the country's biggest business, and the Treasury takes in so much money that it actually has a problem spending it. In the last fiscal year, expenditures came to a record $1.1 billion, but income (60% from oil) reached a record $1.6 billion. To get rid of it all, the government depends on lavish public works totaling 57% of the budget. Grafters do their bit to balance the books by taking from 10% to 30% on contracts.

Among the more practical projects are the country's first petrochemical plant at Moron ($75 million) and an industrial complex of a steel mill and a 300,000 kw. hydroelectric plant being hacked out of the desolate countryside near ore-rich Cerro Bolivar. Also built or building are railroads, schools and housing. But many projects are notably frivolous. Item: a $30-million cable-car sightseeing system, with oxygen-equipped cars, to the top of 15,380-ft. Mount Espejo.

While the money flows for such frills, much of the country and many of the people remain in a primitive state. In the backlands farm hands still live in conucos, clearings just big enough for subsistence gardens, or work for as little as a dollar a day. A U.S. economist estimates that 90% of the labor force makes $3 a day or less. Shantytowns grow up on the outskirts of expanding Caracas as fast as the government tears them down. The government's 15-story apartment projects, graceless and crowded, are turning into slums.

The regime has also neglected education. New school construction fails to keep up with the population growth, and the proportion of the budget that goes for education, 5.4%, is among the lowest in Latin America. Perez Jimenez built a huge, modernistic university in Caracas, but he closes it at any sign of student antigovernment protest; students enter and leave the steel-fenced campus through gates manned by Seguridad Nacional agents. Primary schoolteachers in Caracas get only $96 a month. About half the citizens still cannot read or write.

Churchly Ire. The contrast between foolish frills and neglected needs has brought increasing rebukes from the Roman Catholic Church. A pastoral letter by Archbishop Rafael Arias and articles in his diocesan magazine have chided the government for "maldistribution of wealth," suppression of labor unions, seeming unconcern with unemployment, neglect of education and flagrant use of torture against political opponents.

But the church is only the country's conscience, not the political power that it is in Argentina and Colombia, where it played a key role in toppling dictators. Since the days of Dictator Antonio Guzman Blanco (1870-88), who was a Mason, an anticlerical tradition has been strong, e.g., convents are still illegal. As for other sources of rebellion, Perez Jimenez has crushed them ruthlessly or bought them off. The only opposition party leader still in the country, Rafael Caldera, head of the right-wing Copei Party, has been in jail for four months. Many onetime oppositionists, getting rich as lawyers, architects or businessmen, are now studiously neutral. Perhaps most important is the lack of any democratic tradition. Liberator Simon Bolivar called Venezuela the "barracks" of Latin America, and Perez Jimenez watches his own barracks as the ever-present danger point. He alternately pampers his officers with liberal pay, including a share of the graft, and cracks their knuckles, e.g., he recently jailed the longtime chief of the National Guard. Such shrewdness, ceaseless vigilance and fantastic income bid fair to keep him in power another five years.

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