Wall Street Journal: Student Power
At the tender age of 23 years, Yon Goicoechea is arguably President Hugo Chávez’s worst nightmare.
Mr. Goicoechea is the retiring secretary general of the university students’ movement in Venezuela. Under his leadership, hundreds of thousands of young people have come together to confront the strongman’s unchecked power. It is the first time in a decade of Chávez rule that a countervailing force, legitimate in the eyes of society, has successfully managed to challenge the president’s authority.
The students’ first master stroke came in the spring of last year, when they launched protests against the government’s decision to strip a television station of its license. The license was not restored but the group was energized. In June it began six months of demonstrations — one with as many as 200,000 people — to build opposition to a referendum on a constitutional rewrite that would have given Mr. Chávez dictatorial powers. When Mr. Chávez was defeated in the referendum, many observers attributed it to those marches and to student oversight at the polls, which reduced voter fraud.
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