Unlike 1989, the government this time has a healthy level of reserves. Its off-budget funds may give it scope to run a counter-cyclical fiscal policy for a while. The government has set up a special public-relations committee, in a bid to avoid the presentational fiasco that contributed to Mr Pérez's undoing. All this may or may not be enough for Mr Chávez to win the referendum, and perhaps for the government to get through 2009 without a radical change of course. But if he genuinely believes, as he declared this week, that his "socialist project will emerge strengthened" from the world recession, he will soon enough be disabused.
© The Economist Newspaper Limited 2008
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