Margarita Windisch, Caracas
Once again, Venezuelans are gearing up for elections. On December 4, the people will go to the polls to elect 167 representatives of the National Assembly (AN) for a five-year term. Since the election of President Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias in 1998, the previously excluded poor population are taking a keen interest in making their voices heard in elections.
At train stations, street corners and plazas across the country, workers for the CNE (National Election Council) have set up mock polling stations with high-tech voting machines to answer questions and teach people the voting process.
With the exception of some parties, such as the Tupamaros (a revolutionary organisation based in the neighbourhoods that also supports the Bolivarian revolution), the pro-Chavez forces are grouped into the Block of Change, an electoral alliance aiming to reach a two-thirds majority in the AN. Currently, this pro-Chavez coalition has 85 out of 167 positions in the assembly. Some of the parties making up the coalition are Chavez's own party, the MVR (Movement for the Fifth Republic), the PPT (Fatherland for All), Podemos (We Can), the PCV (Communist Party of Venezuela), the UPV (Venezuelan Popular Union) and various indigenous parties.
One of the key election slogans is "10 million votes for Chavez", referring to the presidential elections in December 2006.
Green Left Weekly talked to a range of activists about the elections and the key challenges for the government. Nixon Zamora, an MVR campaigner from the poor barrio (neighbourhood) San Augustin explained: "In order to move forward and implement some important laws, such as on social security and the national police force, we need to reach a two-thirds majority in the AN. The opposition still has 72 seats, which is totally unrepresentative of their current level of support in Venezuela.
"According to the latest opinion polls, Chavez's popularity rating now sits at around 72%, an increase of 4%, which we noticed since his strong intervention at the latest Summit of the Americas in Argentina. The majority of the population is very proud of our president and strongly supports the Bolivarian revolution. However it is not all smooth sailing.
"Chavez won more than six million votes at the recall referendum [in August 2004] and now our aim is to increase this support to 10 million votes for the presidential election in 2006. The AN election is a very important step towards this, it is an indicator of the support for the revolutionary process."
The PPT's national secretary of organisation Rafael Uzcategui, confident of the victory of pro-Chavez forces, said: "All unity projects are challenging and as a political party we have to make sacrifices if we really see unity as our key objective.
"The Bolivarian revolution is very unique in that it came onto the scene through an electoral process. This poses some very real and concrete challenges. We are still very much in the process of constructing a participatory democracy, experimenting with new mechanisms to overcome and transcend bourgeois forms of democracy that we have inherited and still have to use. The major force of the Bolivarian process has most certainly been its plurality and diversity."
According to Uzcategui, "To create a truly new society, we can't have only one identity. A society with only one form of thought is anathema to socialism and our socialism of the 21st century must not repeat the same mistakes made in 20th century socialism. Our main task is to help advance the politics of the masses, in their suburbs, their communities — popular power."
Miguel Angel Laffe, an organiser with the National Institute of Youth (INJ) and independent activist, agreed. He explained that Chavez's election in 1998 not only drew in the large marginalised masses, but a considerable section of the social movements, which consciously abstained from previous elections but now play a very important role in the electoral process.
However Laffe also pointed out the contradictions still inherent in building socialism in Venezuela. He explained that the population exhibits a certain level of caution towards the main Chavista parties, including the MVR. "People want to see action and not only hear nice words from our elected officials."
According to Laffe, "the active participation of movement activists in the election process who do not identify with a specific party line, but help give credibility to the official parties is also a very necessary step forward toward a more participatory politics, a politics that is determined from the base and reflects the real needs and aspirations of the masses".
Laffe pointed out that "the elections are important to defeat our enemies. It is a vote on the revolutionary process, but the process itself will be determined on the ground. We still have a long way to go. Questions of bureaucratism, nepotism and opportunism within the revolution are very real and not unusual in an underdeveloped country. The positive side is that we are very conscious of this fact and working hard to minimise and eliminate these excesses as quickly as possible."
According to Uzcategui, "the main actor of a socialist transformation has to be the population, the youth especially — women and men. The electoral process is only one form of participation. Real transformation of society doesn't happen on the polling booth. We give priority to municipal power and life in suburbs — that's where people are, with their organisations, their demands — for us, socialism is born in the heart of the suburbs."
Uzcategui also told GLW that in 2006 the PPT will have its first congress debating specific programmatic and ideological questions. "The debate on constructing socialism in the 21st century is a global one. President Chavez already declared the year 2007 as the year of ideological debate. I am confident that the next two years will produce some very important successes, especially in producing a more ongoing and united revolutionary voice of the Venezuelan people."
From Green Left Weekly, November 30, 2005.
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