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Social Movements & Civic Participation
So what does the defeat of the constitutional reforms proposed by President Hugo Chavez mean for Venezuelan democracy?
In this capital of 4.8 million tucked into the mountains 20 miles from the Caribbean, the question of democracy has been debated since last Sunday [Dec. 2] when the “no” vote defeated 69 constitutional amendments by 0.6 percent margin in a low turnout election.
“Democracy is more than voting. Democracy means the people have power,” said Edgar Antonio Marcano Brizuela, the chairman of the communication department at the Bolivarian University in Caracas. “[Democracy] means the people have the right to have jobs and equal education. It includes the right of the people to the riches of the country. It does not include the right of one small group of [property] owners to the riches that belong to the people.”
Chavez created a system of Universidades Bolivarianas four years ago with open admissions policies to bring college education to working class neighborhoods and regions where the “masses” of poor people live, said Marcano.
According to official figures from the National Electoral Council, the coalition of conservative parties won in the three states with the most votes. However, the “yes” vote won in 15 of 24 states, including 10 states where the red-clad supporters of Chavez won by more than 55 percent. In such a close election, the drop in the number of Chavez supporters who did not vote was the deciding factor. Only 8.8 million people voted compared to 11 million in the last major election.
On election day, half the ballots were counted by hand and half were tallied by electronic machines to guarantee the validity of the vote totals. The results closely matched each other. Neither side is charging vote rigging.
On Thursday in his televised analysis, Chavez said that his acceptance of the narrow opposition victory ought to prove to the privately owned media in the United States and Europe that his regime is democratic. Major U.S. media have consistently vilified him as a would-be dictator.
To portray Chavez as a would-be dictator ignores a series of facts. Chavez won nine electoral victories in a row by representing the working class and "by organizing poor people to vote," said Javier Birdeau, a sociology professor a few blocks away in the Universidad Central de Venezuela. UCV is considered to be one of the most “elite” universities and the center of student demonstrations supporting the “no” vote.
Birdeau counts the three parliamentary victories for Chavez partisans and the three elections for mayors and governors in the total. Chavez himself was elected by a 56 percent majority in 1999. He defeated a recall referendum by 58 percent. He won a second 6-year term by 65 percent in 2006.
Venezuela has a history of democratic elections and peaceful transitions at least since 1958, whereas almost all other Latin American countries endured U.S.-supported military dictatorships since World War II.
One charge against many of the social changes that Chavez introduced is that they are inefficient and irrational give-away programs. The charge ignores the class basis of his political program.
Indeed, all politics are class politics in Venezuela. The country is using its windfall oil profits to speed up industrial growth. For instance, in providing mass transportation, gasoline at the pump is 10 cents a gallon; a one-way subway ride costs 18 cents; and bus fare is 24 cents.
U.S. media repeatedly portray Chavez as a partisan and partner of Fidel Castro of Cuba. The portrayal under-estimates a larger trend and his actual appeal. Venezuela is one of at least six Latin American countries that now have democratically elected leftist presidents. The popularly elected presidents of Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina and Nicaragua oppose free-trade pacts that give private multi-national corporations an advantage in competing with smaller industrial firms in a single country.
Under Chavez's leadership, the presidents have intensified negotiations toward regional economic integration in opposition to U.S.-style globalization. They oppose neo-liberal policies that have meant privatizing government-run firms and allowing foreign buyouts of locally owned companies in key infrastructure sectors.
Presidents in the emerging alliances are all proposing a model of development called state-led industrialization where government-owned companies take a leading role. Their model of a “third way” to industrialize follows a period of more than 40 years when Latin American governments supported U.S. foreign investment and trades policies.
Alexander Chacon, a leader in the hemisphere-wide student movement called Puente Sur [Southern Bridge], pointed out that since President Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress in the 1960s, the U.S. government has been a champion of neo-liberalism policies. Chacon, who is studying law at the Universidad Bolivariana, saw the defeat of the constitutional amendments as part of a longer and on-going struggle to enlist popular support.
A hand-painted sign outside read, “To trip is allowed. To continue the struggle is mandatory.”
Student pamphlets in the one-room Puente Sur office described the hemisphere-wide changes in popular allegiances as a reaction to the failure to produce a more prosperous life for the majority of people in the region.
© Copyright World Internet News 2006-07
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