Venezuela: After Betancourt

In the past five years, Venezuela’sstrong-willed President Romulo Betancourt has held his volatile nationtogether mainly through the force of his bulldog personality. ButBetancourt is constitutionally barred from succeeding himself when histerm ends next December. What then? Last week Betancourt’sAcción Democrática, the country’s biggest party, nominated a candidateto carry on. He is Rául Leoni, 57, the party president, an old crony ofBetancourt’s and, like him, a onetime revolutionary turned democraticreformer.

From their looks, the two might be brothers. Both are bald and portly;in their rabble-rousing university days, they shared each other’sclothes, spent time in the same jail, were both packed off to exile bythe ruling dictatorships. In the early 1940s Leoni helped Betancourtfound A.D. He personally organized its labor wing and was rewarded withthe labor ministry (Betancourt was provisional President) in the juntathat ruled from 1945 until it was overthrown in 1948. When DictatorMarcos Pérez Jiménez was toppled in 1958 and Betancourt becamePresident, Leoni took over A.D.’s leadership, strengthening the laborand peasant ties that form the basis of the party’s strength.

Leoni promises to carry on Betancourt’s social and economic reforms, buthe has little of Betancourt’s magnetism. Dour, shrewd and sardonic,with little personal charm, he is more of a backroom politician than astump-thumping vote getter. For that reason, many Venezuelans had hopedfor a continuation of the joint front between A.D. and the SocialChristian COPEI party led by Rafael Caldera, 47, an able and personableCaracas lawyer. A.D.’s insistence on Leoni, whom COPEI regards a partyhack, diminishes the chance of a united democratic ticket against theleft at election time. Even so, Leoni goes into the campaign a clearfavorite to win.

Coolly recognizing his own unpopularity with COPEI and Caldera, Leoniargues that even if they won’t help put him in office, they will bebound to support him afterward, and he knows he will need their helpand votes if he is to govern effectively. The next regime, says Leoni,should be a coalition even if the party has to go it alone in theelection.