http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/2925VENEZUELANS WILL vote December 2 on constitutional reforms proposed by President Hugo Chávez and his supporters, capping weeks of sometimes-violent protests by right-wing opposition forces, a defection by a top Chávez political ally, and mass mobilizations by Chávez supporters.
LEE SUSTAR, recently returned from Venezuela, looks at the aims of Chávez’s proposals, the response of the opposition and the shape of Venezuelan politics today.
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FOR THE U.S. mainstream media, Venezuela’s vote on constitutional reforms December 2 is simply the latest power grab in authoritarian President Hugo Chávez’s bid to crush dissent, make himself president for life and impose a state-controlled economy.
The view from the streets of the Caracas barrio of 23 de Enero, however, is very different.
A densely populated, impoverished neighborhood seldom visited by U.S. reporters, it is famous for its role in mobilizing in January 1958 to overthrow a Venezuelan military dictator on the date that gave the barrio its name.
These days, it is home to an active local branch, or battalion, of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV, according to its Spanish initials). On a rainy mid-November evening, activists gathered to distribute copies of the proposed reform by going door to door.
What else to read
Lee Sustar’s article “Where is Venezuela going?” in the July-August 2007 issue of the International Socialist Review is an extensive and in-depth look at Hugo Chávez and the meaning of 21st century socialism.
The best source in English for current news and analysis of Venezuela is the Venezuelanalysis.com Web site. Readers of Spanish should visit Aporrea.org, the widely read, frequently updated and most important Web site of the Venezuelan left.
Changing Venezuela: The History and Policies of the Chávez Government, a book by Gregory Wilpert, editor of the Venezuelanalysis.com Web site, looks at politics and policy in the debate over socialism. Another very useful book is Venezuelan Politics in the Chávez Era: Class, Polarization and Conflict, edited by Daniel Hellinger and Steve Ellner.
Of the 30 or so people who turned out--all but four of them women--just two had prior political experience in Chávez’s original political party, the Fifth Republic Movement (MVR). Only one--Rosaida Hernández--is an experienced politico, having served as a functionary of the Fifth Republic Movement and won election to Caracas’ municipal council.
More typical was Iraima Díaz, a neighborhood resident in her 30s who had long supported Chávez and benefited from his government’s social programs, but hadn’t been politically active. “I got involved to solve the problems of my community,” she said.
Another activist, Lúz Estella, a social worker whose father lives in the area, also became active recently, fed up with the opposition media and wanting to get involved.
Now Díaz and Estella find themselves members of Chávez’s own PSUV battalion--the president often turns up at the weekly Saturday meetings held at the military museum in the neighborhood.
The facility also serves as a place for enrollment in government “missions”--national social welfare programs initiated by Chávez in 2003, which evolved from offering free medical care to literacy and education programs, subsidized grocery stores and a great deal more, thanks to revenues from oil exports and some of the fastest economic growth rates in the world.
Despite its well-known member and proximity to local missions, the 23 de Enero PSUV battalion faces a challenges common to its counterparts across the country--how to mobilize the 5.7 million people who have registered for the party since it was formed earlier this year through a merger of parties of Chávez’s governing coalition.
Nevertheless, as the group, singing campaign songs, made its way through the narrow streets on steep hillsides of the barrio, people came to their windows to take copies of the reform and discuss it briefly--an elderly man alone in his small apartment; a young woman of African descent breastfeeding an infant; the proprietor of a tiny store situated in what was once a living room, with a window facing the street; a group of young men in their 20s gathered outside a small restaurant.
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THE IMPACT of Chávez’s reforms is visible on the streets of 23 de Enero and other barrios--people are better fed and better dressed.
As is often the case in Venezuela, the political direction in the barrios is the opposite Caracas’ well-off neighborhoods and the suburbs, where the upper middle class and the wealthy live in luxurious gated communities and drive Hummers and Land Rovers.
As opposition to Chávez’s reforms sharpened--first with protests by largely middle-class college students; then the defection of a longtime Chávez ally, former army chief of staff and defense minister Raúl Baduel--the mass of Chávez supporters began to mobilize.
Nevertheless, the opposition, tainted by the coup of 2002 and the subsequent lockout of oil workers by industry bosses, has been able to refresh its image.
Key to this was the student mobilization last summer over the government’s refusal to renew the broadcast license of the privately owned, opposition-controlled RCTV channel.
Wrongly portrayed in the Western media as a “closure” of a media outlet, the decision was made as the result of RCTV’s active role in supporting the coup. Nevertheless, the government’s refusal to renew the channel’s broadcast license gave Venezuela’s right the opportunity to claim the mantle of “democracy,” a theme it has continued in protests aimed at forcing a delay in the vote for constitutional reform.
Significantly, the student protests took shape as a national social movement, led mainly by middle class and wealthy students who predominate at Venezuela’s elite universities, such as the UCV in Caracas.
While portraying themselves as nonviolent in the face of allegedly armed Chavista students--two students were wounded on the UCV campus November 7--the opposition student protests have often turned violent. The U.S. media focused on the supposed gunplay of Chavista students, but it was the right-wing protesters who besieged pro-Chávez students in UCV’s law and social work schools, physically destroying both.
Still, the student protesters have carried the day politically on campus, with the opposition winning a reported 91 percent of votes in student government elections soon afterward.
The opposition got another boost when it was joined by Baduel, the former general and defense minister.
A key figure in preventing the 2002 military attempt to oust Chávez, Baduel has used the word “coup” to describe the impact of Chávez’s proposed constitutional changes.
While Baduel’s impact on the reform vote is probably limited, his turn may point to something more serious--concern among senior military brass over a constitutional reform that would reorganize and centralize the armed forces and give the president authority to promote all officers, not just top generals.
Already, Chávez has dropped a call to convert the reserves into “Bolivarian Popular Militias” to support the regular armed forces, presenting it in the constitutional reforms instead as a “National Bolivarian Militia.”
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IN ANY case, the retooled opposition presents a new challenge for activists of the “Bolivarian revolution”--named for the 19th century anti-colonial leader.
In the past, Chávez could mobilize his base among the poor on clear-cut issues--protesting the right-wing coup attempt of April 2002, voting to keep him in office in the recall election of 2004, re-electing him as president a year ago.
The constitutional reforms, however, are more complicated and controversial within the Chávez camp itself.
At issue is the balance between the creation of communal councils to enhance what Chávez calls “popular power,” and measures that would strengthen the powers of the presidency and the central state in several respects.
These include the removal of presidential term limits and lengthening the term from six to seven years; the ability to appoint an unrestricted number of secondary vice presidents; the authority to determine boundaries of proposed “communal cities” of municipalities and states; and control over the use of foreign currency reserves with no constitutional limits.
The right to recall the president still exists, but the number of signatures required to trigger a vote would increase from 20 percent to 30 percent of eligible voters.
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