Venezuela is going through the most critical and turbulent electoral campaign of the twenty elections that have taken place since the victory of Chavez in 1998. In a context of political, economic and social tension, both chavsimo and the right-wing have grasped that this is a key moment for the future of the country and for the whole American hemisphere.

Caracas.- On December 6, elections will be celebrated that will define the composition of the Venezuelan National Assembly, made up of 167 representatives.  In the past 17 years, the Caribbean country has become accustomed to democracy as never before in its history. On average, they have held an election every ten months. No country in the world can show this record of participation in the institutions of representative liberal democracy.  Nevertheless, outside of the country – in particular in Europe, the US, and part of Latin America – Venezuela is regarded by many politicians, NGOs and the media as a dictatorship. How can one understand this paradox?

For this it is necessary, at least briefly, to situate the parliamentary elections of December 6 in their historical context.

A society in movement

After the economic and social debacle suffered by this oil-exporting country at the end of the twentieth century, the political regime, based on the bipartisan rule of the Acción Democrática (AD) and COPEI parties, imploded.

On February 27 and 28 1989, the people poured into the streets of Caracas to reject a package of neoliberal adjustment measures proposed by the IMF and announced by the president, Carlos Andrés Pérez (AD). This episode is called the Caracazo.

The response of the state was brutal repression. To prevent new protests, for several days the Army engaged in random shooting in popular-class neighbourhoods. At least three thousand people were killed. This was the deciding factor in the total delegitimization of the political system that reached broad sectors of the armed forces. The soldiers and younger officers in charge of troops, were no longer willing to guarantee the capitalist order at the cost of shooting at close range against their own families, neighbours, friends and compatriots.

The economic and social crisis deepened and three years later, on February 4, 1992, over a thousand soldiers and young officers, supported by some militant leftists, rebelled, demanding a profound political change. The insurrection failed militarily but was converted into a transcendental success when Lieutenant Hugo Chávez Frias, before television cameras, recognized the defeat, called on his comrades to lay down their arms, and personally assumed responsibility for the uprising.

Chávez was imprisoned, but in the whole country, people identified with the demands of the movement. Many Venezuelans felt that, for the first time, someone had assumed responsibility for what he had done.  This was the beginning of a popular movement that changed the history of Venezuela and of Latin America.

What democracy are we talking about?

In December 1998, Chávez won the presidency with a proposal to change the Constitution, and with the explicit objective of restoring power to the people.  Once elected, he convened a referendum – the first in Venezuelan history – and 82% of the population indicated that they wanted a new juridical order. After the constituent process, the text was approved in a second referendum, with 71% of the votes.

The new Constitution assumed the concept of participative and centralized democracy, putting forward the need to go beyond representative delegative liberal democracy. It established that power resides untransferably with the people and recognized the right of social organization, stimulating people’s participation from the grassroots. In addition, it institutionalized the figure of the referendum and incorporated the revokable character of all elected posts.

The mechanisms of direct democracy did not end there. In 2006, the law of Communal Councils was approved, that promoted the organization of urban and rural communities; and in 2010 the "laws of people’s power" were approved, that promoted the communes, linking various common councils in a territory with a common history and identity.

In all these years, there were several elections, almost all won by Chavism, which was consolidated as a force of the masses with a profound historic project, retrieving sovereignty over its principal resources – in particular, petroleum – and re-assuming the integrationist ideas of Simón Bolívar, the great Liberator of the beginnings of the nineteenth century.

Meanwhile the opposition was united around the strategic objective of recovering the power lost by the historically privileged sectors. In this crusade were all the parties from the centre to the ultra-right, with the support of business groups, transnational companies, private media, governments of the US and Spain, who financed and organized a network of NGOs, whose principal task was to install at an international level the notion that in Venezuela there is no democracy and human rights are violated along with freedom of expression.

With this discourse they attempted to legitimize the coup d'état of 2002 – that was overthrown when the people hit the streets and a loyal sector of the military opposed the violation of the Constitution – and then, repeatedly, attempted to generate street actions of extreme violence.

2013-2015, an era of assault on the Revolution

After the death of Hugo Chávez, a new era began in the country, characterized by a political and media offensive against the government of Nicolás Maduro. The preferred formula: an economic boycott, in a strategy copied from the coup that overthrew the government of Salvador Allende in Chile in the 1970s, when the CIA and the US State Department, under the command of Richard Nixon, proposed to "freeze the economy".

The mechanism employed was the hoarding of products for resale at higher prices in the informal market or sending them to Colombia as contraband. The objective is to wear down the bases of Chavism and increase the chances of overthrowing the government by election or insurrection.

In 2013 and especially in 2014, this was combined with violent protests by young people from the upper classes and paramilitary formations that left more than 60 people assassinated. In addition, there were selective assassinations of Chavist leaders, among them the youngest representative of the National Assembly, Robert Serra, aged 27.

In this picture, we must also mention the errors of the revolution, such as the persistence of high levels of bureaucracy and corruption in areas that are in charge of essential controls, for example, on the border.

Thus we come to December 6, with an open scenario that will impact decisively on the immediate future. The campaign reflects this tone, with a cross-fire of declarations that are increasingly vehement; debates on international observation, a war of opinion polls and even violent actions tied to political figures.

Unasur has sent a delegation of 50 technicians for electoral accompaniment, but the opposition – in line with the desire of the US – claims that it should be the OAS that undertakes this function.

With respect to the polls, the opposition has claimed a lead of 10 per cent, although this does not necessarily reflect the number of seats in the Assembly.  Not only because – as is well-known – the polls reflect particular interests, but because in this election there are 114 local elections. Hence it is always possible that a greater quantity of voters would not lead to a majority of legislators.

The recent assassination of opposition leader Manuel Díaz, after an event that took place in the Guárico Stadium, and the failed attempt against the Chavist candidate Orlando Zembrano, in Apure, contributed to a charged climate, forming a stormy river that forecasts new episodes of violence, as has happened in other similar moments. After the presidential election of 2013, the defeated candidate, Henrique Capriles, refused to recognize the results, calling for "unloading the spunk", and ultra-right groups assassinated 11 persons identified with Chavism.

If the right reaches a majority in the National Assembly, we cannot exclude a parliamentary coup such as occurred in Paraguay in 2012, in combination with all the other factors in play.  In this scheme, the integrationist gains of recent years might suffer a decisive blow, considering the pro-North American bloc in the region.

If Chavism achieves a majority of representatives, the people’s movement will strive for a democratic radicalization of the revolution.  Today, more than 1300 communes are organized in the whole country, adding up to a wide and diverse social movement with a strong presence among women, young people, workers and small farmers. This social force constitutes the greatest hope for the continuity and deepening of structural change, that would include advances in strategic areas of the economy – in particular in foreign trade – the building of self-government and a renewed effort for continental unity, which has been the principal obstacle to the plans of the US for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Therefore, in these elections there is much more at play than a renewal of the Parliament.

(Translated for ALAI by Jordan Bishop)

Source: ALBA Movimientos, December 2, 2015