The 4 December National Assembly elections saw President Chavez’s party, the Movement for the Fifth Republic (MVR), win 114 of the 167 seats. Previously it held 89 seats. This remarkable victory means that for the next five years the MVR has slightly more than the two-thirds majority needed to make constitutional amendments and key appointments. It has never been in this position before. In addition its allies For Social Democracy took 15 seats, the PPT (Fatherland for All) 11, MEP (The People’s Electoral Movement) 11, the Communist Party 8, and the Venezuelan People’s Union 8 seats. ALVARO MICHAELS reports.
The enfeebled opposition parties boycotted the elections at the last moment in the hope of painting the government as an undemocratic mono-party, and to disguise their own hopeless position. 556 of the 5,500 candidates thus withdrew. This delayed the opening of many voting centres as staff in upper-middle class neighbourhoods did not show up. The final turnout was reduced to 25% (3.67 million votes), compared to 56% in 2000. Bad weather and the expected government success undoubtedly reduced the turnout.
Despite observers from the Organisation of American States and EU giving the election a clean bill of health, the US State Department said that the results showed a ‘broad lack of confidence in the impartiality and transparency’ of the process. Yet 22% of registered voters supported the MVR. In the 1998 parliamentary elections the utterly corrupt Democratic Action won with votes from only 11.24% of those registered, and was congratulated by Washington. So much for Washington’s stinking hypocrisy! As real economic democracy grows in Venezuela, US imperialism can only become more desperate – and more violent. Before the election an attempt was made to sabotage an oil pipeline. After the election, on 22 January, a shoebox bomb was found at a Caracas metro station whilst a frustrated opposition demonstration of 120,000 took place. Anti-Chavez terrorists continue to train openly in Florida.
Victory for the MVR
Political and military power is clearly in the hands of a revolutionary national movement, whilst much of the economy, including the media, lies in the hands of its opponents. This is a condition of dual power. Venezuela remains incorporated economically into the global imperialist system. The challenge for the government is to transform the economic process, displace the reactionary profit motive and replace it with a transparent, regulated economy, expressing the values of the majority.
The driving energy of the Venezuelan revolution is that of the poor who constantly demand solutions to the harsh conditions – poverty, illiteracy, education, poor health – previously imposed upon them. Occupation of buildings in central Caracas by the poor, displaced by mudslides at the turn of this year, show both their combativity and the urgency of the housing situation. Mayor Barreto, supported by the president of the Supreme Court, issued a decree to permit occupation of 13 buildings saying, ‘It cannot be that one person has 6, 8, 10, 15 buildings…while there are tens of thousands of citizens who have no property.’ Popular legislation for the expropriation of abandoned property is in preparation and 92 buildings are now targetted in Caracas.
Criticism by the Comptroller General, the Attorney General and the Ombudsman of Mayor Barreto’s statements show nervousness in sections of the government confronted with reactionary press attacks on squatters’ actions. Yet there is no realistic long-term alternative to extensive and systematic political and economic democracy. The new parliamentary position should allow quicker progress in transforming the country.
The process of building socialism
Bowing to imperialism’s demands Venezuela suffered a 35% decline in per capita income between 1970 and 1998. Venezuela has reversed this decline. From 1999-2001 poverty dropped from 49% to 39% of the population. Despite the managers’ 2002-03 oil strike, it has fallen further to 35%. Critical poverty, where basic needs can’t be met, has fallen from 18% to 10%. The growth rate in 2005 was well over 7% and unemployment dropped below 9%. The 2006 budget allocates 41% for social projects based on a conservative $26 per barrel of oil with a stable foreign exchange rate.
Ministries are now forced to work in new ways and new ministries have been created (see FRFI 181). Venezuela, with oil, has the resources to speed changes. It must manage this asset with great care. Instead of importing every item in exchange for oil, the government is intent on manufacturing products in Venezuela; increasing economic security and providing work for as many people as possible. Thus the government aims to promote about 50,000 cooperatives to generate employment. The Women’s Bank and the Economic and Social Development Bank provide micro-credit and cheap loans to small enterprises. They are not banks in the capitalist sense, but the means to create new self-confident producer units, working in accordance to local committees. Bolivarian Circles, with two million members, initially set up against counter-revolutionary coup attempts, and the independent electoral organisations (La Unidad de Batalla Electoral or UBE), established to fight the opposition during the 2004 recall referendum, now work in local social programmes. Local government is being redesigned on a new democratic basis. Part of this revolutionary redefinition of democracy is the funding of community organisations such as the ‘Organizaciones Comunitario Viviendo’ (Community Living Organisations), the most local level of community networks at the centre of the Bolivarian revolution’s decentralisation project.
President Chavez has said, ‘There can be no revolution without revolutionary ideology…Capitalism is a perverse model, a dictatorship that does not lead to real democracy…with socialism there is authentic democracy…capitalism will never solve the problem of unemployment.’
Workers’ co-management
Legislation before the National Assembly calls for worker co-management in any private firm receiving state subsidies. Chavez has invited all industries in Venezuela that are not functioning 100% to work with the government to increase production, and will provide the funding if workers are part of the management. Abandoned or unused industry is to be expropriated. More than 700 closed enterprises are being assessed for expropriation to establish co-management regimes. The owners and workers in 155 of these are now committed to co-management. The aim, Chavez said, is to move from a revolutionary democracy to socialism.
In October 2005 a National Gathering of Workers Towards the Recovery of Companies was held. Minister of Labour Maria Cristina Iglesias said that when workers occupy abandoned factories and try to restart production, their actions should be seen not ‘as a problem, but rather as a solution to a problem’. Workers must exchange experiences and draw political conclusions, link up and discuss how to support similar struggles. She also explained how this struggle of companies recovered by workers is linked to ‘what has always been our goal: that the workers run production and that the governments are also run by the workers’.
International relations
Venezuela’s government is working to transform its international relations to reduce its ties to the US. A new refinery is to be built in Brazil, opening in 2011, to process heavy crude oil from the Orinoco basin and Brazil’s offshore fields, for South American consumers. Other recent investment deals have been signed with Russian, Italian, French and Spanish companies.
Venezuela increased its oil shipments to the US by 1.2m barrels after Hurricane Katrina, to help meet the people’s needs. Venezuela’s US oil company, Citgo, provided medical, food and water assistance to thousands of people in Louisiana and Texas. It also provided 55,000 poor families with winter fuel at 40% discount. This has divided the US Administration and is creating support amongst US workers, exposing the class-ridden nature of US capitalism. In return, the US has tried to block Venezuelan purchases of military training aircraft from Brazil, and boats from Spain, which has rejected this obstruction, again setting European against US imperialism.
FRFI 189 February / March 2006
