The fierce morning heat was a memory. The afternoon haze had come and gone. It was the cool of dusk, with shadows stretching as the sun dipped below the Andes. And Hugo Chávez was still talking. The clock showed it was just after 7pm. The Venezuelan president had started at 11am, more than eight hours earlier - a new record. He looked into the camera and grinned: "The first time in history."
Welcome to Aló Presidente!, a television chatshow like no other. Sunday's edition, No 295, was the longest yet, a marathon of politics and showmanship, and for many proof that Venezuela has become a country governed largely through television. There are cabinet meetings, national assembly debates and committee hearings in the offices of state in central Caracas, but the most emphatic exercise of power resides in the weekly show hosted by the president. This is where Mr Chávez engages with the masses, announces policies, muses on his political philosophy, and signals the next step in his self-described socialist revolution.
"Chávez governs from Aló Presidente. It is on this show that ministers find out if they have been fired or hired; it is here where mayors and governors are reprimanded for anything they have done wrong," said Arturo Serrano, a political scientist at the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello in Caracas.
Last Sunday's show, broadcast live on state television and on the internet (
www.alopresidente.gob.ve) underlined how the machinery of government fits around the broadcast. In keeping with the practice of a new location each week, Mr Chávez hosted it from a petrochemical plant in El Tablazo, on the shore of Lake Maracaibo.
He started it wearing a helmet and goggles to inspect machinery. The counry's vast oil and gas reserves would be used to build up its industry and challenge US hegemony, he said, before settling behind his desk.
Among the phalanxes of red T-shirts arrayed in front of him were governors, mayors and ministers. Advisers hovered just off camera with the maps, reports, statistics and phone numbers which the president, wearing an earpiece, would occasionally request.
As he spoke, the information ministry in Caracas packaged segments of quotes into government press releases emailed every few minutes. By the Guardian's count there were 19, including one celebrating the eight-hour record. It detailed the other programmes which came close to that benchmark.
The former paratrooper, a schoolteachers' son who lectured at a military academy, was typically ebullient and fluent. Seldom referring to notes, he ranged over energy policy, constitutional reform, low-cost housing, European integration and Colombian peace talks. He engaged with officials and supporters from the audience and from other locations via a satellite feed. As the hours passed and attention spans risked wandering, Mr Chávez leavened things by breaking into song and cracking jokes. People perked up when he railed against the "degeneration" of parents who give daughters breast implants for their 15th birthday, a common practice in Venezuela.
This time there were no special guests such as Fidel Castro, Maradona or Danny Glover, though the president mentioned that he would soon be visited by the actor and director Kevin Spacey.
"Aló Presidente is like Franklin Roosevelt's 'fireside chats' with a Latin-American twist," said Michael Shifter, of the Inter-American Dialogue thinktank. "It's the way Chávez communicates with his supporters and strengthens his bond with them. It has little to do with making decisions or governing. For Chávez's constituency, the programme is great theatre and reinforces the sense that their president cares about them."
During a recent episode, broadcast from a beach, a group of village women stood in the ocean for seven hours cheering and blowing kisses to their bachelor president. He waved back and flirted.
First elected in 1998, Mr Chávez remains hugely popular, thanks to spending oil revenues on the poor. He is expected to win a constitutional referendum later this year on abolishing presidential term limits. In one recent show he spoke of ruling until 2027. "I'd be old, if I'm still alive."
For invited guests it is a privilege, and, as the hours wear on, an endurance test. "A completely different type of democracy is evolving in Venezuela and Aló Presidente symbolises it," said Colin Burgon, a Labour MP and chairman of Labour Friends of Venezuela, who recently attended. "I saw participative democracy in action, and for a tired old MP like me it was quite heartwarming. I found it riveting, thanks to his sheer charisma and personality. The fact he hopped from subject to subject stopped anyone becoming bored with it."
For politicians, diplomats and journalists it is compulsory viewing, though many grumble about lost Sundays. A British agency reporter recently quit in frustration. "I couldn't get out of the office, couldn't do anything except watch Chávez."
For Prof Serrano, a strong Chavez critic, the programme betrays an authoritarian streak. "A man who wants to be the puppeteer who controls everything needs TV to do it. And the impact in terms of governance is that he has become the one and only reference in terms of political leadership."
A lot of hot air
Few politicians can match Hugo Chávez's garrulousness. Fidel Castro managed 4 hours and 29 minutes at the UN in 1960 and his speeches in Havana tended to be even longer. Bill Clinton was considered long-winded for a state of the union address that lasted 89 minutes. The longest continuous British budget speech was by William Gladstone, in April 1853, lasting 4 hours and 45 minutes. The longest Commons speech by an ordinary MP was six hours, by Henry Brougham in 1828. Mr Chávez has yet to match US senator Wayne Morse of Oregon, who on April 24 and 25 1953 spoke on the tidelands oil bill for 22 hours and 26 minutes.
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April 20, 2009, 02:48:07 pm