Pro-Chávez parties sweep Venezuela vote

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.”