Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez — who’s been in power for the last 13 years — is campaigning for re-election for the third time. His rival in the Oct. 7 election is Henrique Capriles Radonski — whose Mesa Unida por la Democracia (MUD) is a last-minute alliance of the opposition parties.

But there’s something very unusual this time around. The failing health of the 57-year-old Chávez, who suffers from an undisclosed form of cancer, has raised numerous questions about the future of Cuba’s privileged relationship with Venezuela.

On May 30, veteran newsman Dan Rather, quoting “a highly respected source close to Chávez,” reported that the president has me-tastatic rhabdomyosarcoma, that his prognosis is “dire” and that Chávez is not expected to live more than two months at most.

In Miami, Roger Noriega and other conservatives are likewise betting on Chávez’s imminent death, with Noriega claiming to have “first-hand intelligence information” from Castro’s inner circle concerning all the details of the Venezuelan president’s illness.

Just like John Negroponte — director of national intelligence from 2005 to 2007  — and others who predicted Fidel Castro’s imminent demise years ago, the death of Chávez be-comes important not only because of its implications for Venezuela, but because they hope it will bring the much-anticipated collapse of the Cuban government.

SHIFTER: IMPACT WOULD BE ‘ENORMOUS’

Some experts outside Miami area are also betting on this apocalyptic scenario when discussing a Cuba without Chávez, a return to the “Special Period” and the like.
Girish Gupta of the Christian Science Monitor suggests that “a potential loss of chavismo would have an equally big impact on Cuba.”

A more serious analysis by Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, predicts that “Cuba would be more adversely affected than any other country. The impact on the Cuban economy would be enormous. The Cuban leadership, aware of such an unhappy prospect, is trying to undertake economic reforms in part to offset such a blow.”

That a loss of Venezuelan aid will have an impact on Cuba is obvious, but it’s considerably more complex and less exaggerated than some analyses would have one believe.

This is partly why Jane’s Intelligence Review says the impact goes both ways — and that it cannot be overlooked that Cuba is the most influential external variable in the Venezuelan context. Many other sources and experts tend to agree with this approach.

“Alternative estimates suggest that at present, as much as 30% of Cuba’s total revenues could be attributed to non-tourism service exports to Venezuela, or roughly 45% of Cuba’s total growth during the period 2004-08,” notes IMF economist Rafael Romeu.

These numbers, he says, “have created a complex vulnerability” in particular concerning oil supplies, characterized as “one of the most important vulnerabilities for Cuba in 2012 and onward.”

So far, the most likely scenarios discussed in major media can be summarized in the following order:

1. Chávez dies or is too sick to stand for re-election, in which case his Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV) would have to come up with another candidate.
 

The three most likely possibilities are current Vice President Elías Jaua, 43, a sociologist and former student leader; former military man Diosdado Cabello, 49, closely related to Chávez since the 1992 uprising and now chairman of the National Assembly, and Nicolás Maduro, 49, a working-class leader who is now foreign minister.

2. Chavismo without Chávez will be defeated on Oct. 7 by MUD and Capriles.

3. Chávez is able to stand for re-election and wins — but steps down or dies shortly afterward and Jaua or whoever the vice-president might be at that time takes over and serves out the six-year term.

BILATERAL TIES WON’T DISAPPEAR THAT FAST

What would a Capriles victory mean for Cuba? Writes Michael Penfold of Foreign Affairs: “He understands that competing directly against Chávez’s popular social agenda is an unwinnable fight,” and that “he has vowed to maintain programs for the poor put in place by Chávez” (Los Angeles Times).

The linkages between such programs and Cuba are vital in terms of manpower and advisors, and cannot be ended that quickly.

A win by Capriles, who turns 40 in July, would indeed be a major political setback for Raúl as well as for all other center-left leaders ranging from Argentina’s Fernández to Ecuador’s Correa and Nicaragua’s Ortega.

On the other hand, Capriles may try to rid Venezuela of Cuban military assistance — but this would depend greatly on the willingness of Venezuela’s current military leadership, which might not be a realistic goal under present circumstances.

Capriles will definitely review Venezuela’s oil contracts with Cuba with a few toward cancelling its “concessional terms,” but it’s hard to imagine that PDVSA will stop selling oil to Cuba and other Caribbean nations under the preferential Petrocaribe agreement. That would create an enormous regional mess.

After all, if Capriles is to keep social programs based on Cuba’s cooperation, he’ll have to keep paying Cuba with oil. International agencies say Cuban doctors and medical services are the cheapest in the world.

“Experts say a split between the two countries wouldn’t necessarily happen immediately, playing out more as a gradual untangling than an abrupt break,” suggests Nick Miroff of Inter-American Security Watch.

“Pulling thousands of doctors and other Cuban social workers out of Venezuela’s toughest neighborhoods too fast might be tricky, unleashing a wave of anger and unrest.”

CUBA BETTER OFF TODAY THAN IN THE 1990s

There are two other reasons why a Capriles victory won’t trigger the economic catastrophe predicted by some experts.

First, Cuba’s economic standing today (exports, GDP, oil and gas production) are much better than in the early ‘90s when the collapse of the Soviet bloc shook the foundations of Cuba’s centralized economy to the core.

Secondly, as Shifter has pointed out, the range and scope of reforms in Cuba are creating an entirely different setting in which Cuba is less vulnerable to the contingencies that Capriles might create.

Cuba’s leadership is not so blind as to not ponder such contingencies and vulnerabilities, which is why the nation is moving faster to create Special Economic Zones and new legislation aimed at luring foreign investment.

In the end, will Capriles win? Most likely, he will not.

Even though he repeatedly portrays himself as the new Lula and says he’s inspired by Lula’s economic success in Brazil — and even though he criticizes U.S. policy toward Latin America and in particular toward Cuba — the fact is that he represents the wealthy upper class of Venezuelan society.

In particular, he is associated with the new brand of “mantuanos” (a term referring to the old creole aristocracy) which was linked to COPEI, one of the two major parties that ransacked Venezuela’s economy for 40 years.

In addition, the loose coalition of parties representing the MUD is an alliance of traditional enemies among themselves, incapable of creating an effective front against Chávez and his movement for the last 13 years.

Then what’s the most likely scenario?

Chávez will run for president, he’ll win the election, and then he’ll complete the arrangements for his succession in case he becomes incapacitated or dies before finishing his fourth term in 2019.

And this outcome will be, as suggested by many experts, a direct result of his social agenda, credentials, popular persona, political determination and courage — not to mention the considerable financial resources and backing of the armed forces and Venezuela’s minister of defense.

Bottom line: In the event Chávez dies during his term, whoever takes over will continue to uphold and foster Venezuela’s privileged alliance with Cuba.