Pro-Chávez parties sweep Venezuela vote
By
Berta Joubert-Ceci
Published Dec 8, 2005 3:52 AM
Once again, an election in Venezuela has
confirmed deep popular support for the policies of President Hugo Chávez
and his Bolivarian Revolution, which has channeled revenues from the
country’s oil wealth into extensive programs to provide education,
housing, health care, jobs and land to the poor.
On Dec. 4, parties
supporting Chávez won a clean sweep in parliamentary elections. These
were the first elections held since Chávez publicly announced that the
Venezuelan Revolution was taking a path toward socialist construction.
The
opposition, which represents the oligarchy that traditionally collaborated with
U.S. imperialism and its giant oil companies, has suffered defeat after defeat
at the polls since Chávez was first elected president in 1998. This time
it tried a new tactic: boycotting the election and then claiming the government
lacked support, pointing to the low turnout as proof.
Four days before
election day, Acción Democrática pulled out of the contest. AD is
the main opposition party that shared political power for decades with the
social democratic COPEI, allowing the capitalist class to marginalize and
exploit the Venezuelan masses. Four other opposition parties, which together
with AD represented 10 percent of the candidates, then dropped out. The number
of candidates running shrank from 5,500 to around 5,000.
On election day,
BBC News reported long lines of voters in poor neighborhoods, but nearly empty
polls in more affluent areas.
New automated voting machines were used in
the election, allowing the votes to be tallied that night. They showed that
about 25 percent of the electorate had voted. The numbers remained the same
after the final tally.
This was seized upon by the bourgeoisie that still
controls much of Venezuela’s media and by much of the international
capitalist press as proof of “the end of democracy in Venezuela,”
because there would no longer be a significant opposition in the National
Assembly. This was the spin put on by the Organization of American States, which
together with the European Union sent observers to the election.
The
opposition had shot itself in the foot and was blaming the Venezuelan government
for it.
What they did not say is that the 25 percent voter participation
was actually an increase for an election when there was no presidential race.
Nonpresidential elections in Venezuela have always had a much lower voter
turn out. Jesse Chacón, minister of the Interior and Justice, said that
in 1998, a year when the presidential and legislative elections were held
separately, 11.24 percent of the electorate voted for representatives to the
National Assembly. At that time, the AD came out ahead. Two years later, in July
2000, the Movement of the Fifth Republic (MVR), President Chávez’s
party, won its first legislative majority. Turnout that time had risen to 17
percent.
Chacón added that “any number above 11.24 percent
and 17 percent makes the National Assembly an institution much more legitimate
than the ones of 1998 and of 2000.”
After receiving reports from
hundreds of its observers, the EU declared the election to be “fair and
transparent.” Even a statement by the OAS showed the capricious nature of
the opposition’s decision to boycott: “In spite of the important
guarantees offered by the National Electoral Council (CNE), to the petitions of
a significant sector of the opposition, they decided not to
participate.”
“Among these guarantees,” continued the
OAS statement, “it is noteworthy to mention the elimination of the
fingerprint taking and the majority of electronic voting books, an increase of
the audit at closure time, the increase of space in the media for election
propaganda, and the presence of witnesses and international observers in every
phase of the electoral process.”
These changes had been made in
response to criticism from the opposition.
The electronic voting machines
used were like those now being introduced in the United States—with this
exception: voters also filled out paper ballots in case a recount was
needed.
Nevertheless, a deliberate campaign continues to destabilize the
election process and declare the new National Assembly an
“undemocratic” and “illegitimate” body, and the whole
Venezuelan Revolution a “farce.” This is the message that the
bourgeois press, dominated by U.S. news agencies, has circulated throughout the
world.
This comes after the failed coup of 2002, the oil sabotage of
2002-03, the “gua rimbas” (violent road and street blockages), and
the presidential referendum of August 2004—all sponsored by the Venezuelan
oligarchy and U.S. imperialism.
Washington openly
hostile
Washington’s hostility to the Bolivarian Revolution is
now well known. It backed the Venezuelan opposition by funneling funds through
the CIA-sponsored National Endowment for Democracy and USAID, particularly to
the newly set up group Sumate. Corina Machado, Sumate’s executive
director, was invited to the White House to meet with President Bush this past
summer. Machado was quite active during the elections, calling on people to
abstain from voting and instead go to church. Her organization has alleged
widespread irregularities, despite contrary reports from international
observers.
Sumate seems to have gained U.S. favor once it was clear that
the old opposition parties, AD and COPEI, were losing credibility even among
their constituents. Their votes in recent elections, including the last regional
elections in October 2004, had been dwindling. It was predicted that this time
the numbers would be even smaller. Pulling out of the elections was a way to
avoid that.
The sentiment of the U.S. ruling class in favor of abstaining
was made clear both before and after the elections. Steve Johnson from the
Heritage Foundation said that “there is no transparency in the Venezuelan
electoral process. To participate will only legitimize the triumph of Hugo
Chávez. Not participating at least will generate doubts about his victory
and will provoke international scrutiny.”
U.S. Assistant Secretary
for the Western Hemisphere Tom Shannon said after the election that
“Venezuela is a step closer to totalitarianism” and that
“Democracy is at risk.”
Cuba’s Prensa Latina observed
that the decision by AD to withdraw from the election, which “leaves AD as
a great loser, follows denunciations by Vice President José Vicente
Rangel and National Assembly president Nicolás Maduro, regarding
pressures from the U.S. Embassy in favor of
abstentionism.”
Beaten at polls, rightists are planting
bombs
In the buildup to these elections, a bomb exploded on Dec. 2
behind the attorney general’s office, injuring the daughter of one of the
department’s workers. The Bolivarian government considers this one of
several phases of a plan to destabilize the elections.
The last phase was
the most severe. In Guarico state, a big cache of weapons and more than 48
pounds of C-4 explosive were confiscated, but not before two explosions had
happened. One was meant to damage an oil pipeline carrying crude oil to the most
important refinery in Venezuela, the Paraguaná. The other was against a
natural gas pipeline.
Fortunately, the explosions did not perforate the
pipes. Had that happened, said Interior and Justice Minister Chacón, the
explosion would have been felt at least six miles away. He said that,
“thanks to the personnel who were on alert, the fire was controlled in
less than two hours.”
The new National Assembly will be sworn in in
January. It is a “red assembly,” as many Venezuelans say, of several
parties that support Chávez and the revolution.
Gustavo Borges, a
community organizer from the 23 de Enero neighborhood in Caracas, told an
interviewer on New York’s WBAI-FM Morning Show the day after the election
that “The fact that Commander Chávez has more power is the result
of the people who are united behind him.... The future of the Venezuelan people
under a revolutionary, Bolivarian and socialist government is to take the people
out of the social exclusion and 80 percent poverty in which we live.”
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
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