Chavez set for win as campaign pushes socialist transformation

The following is an article I wrote for Australian socialist publication Green Left Weekly:

Venezuela: Chavez set for win as campaign pushes socialist transformation

Saturday, August 18, 2012
By Owen Richards

It is just six weeks until Venezuela’s October 7 presidential election pits incumbent Chavez and his pro-revolution Great Patriotic Pole (GPP) electoral alliance against his main rival Henrique Capriles.“It would be easier for 100 camels to pass through the eye of a needle than for [the capitalist class] to win the election”, said Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez speaking at the Caracas Municipal Theatre on August 15.

Capriles heads the right-wing opposition bloc, the Democratic Unity Forum (MUD).

Chavez’s campaign has reached fever pitch in recent weeks with the president touring the country and holding huge election rallies nearly every day. Both candidates officially launched their campaigns in early July.

Chavez’s energetic oratory has boosted the hopes of his supporters his statement in the first week of his campaign, that he was “totally free” of cancer, is true.

Polls over the past year have consistently shown that Chavez is set to overwhelmingly win the election. The most recent poll, for example, conducted by the Century 21 Social Investigations Group (GIS XXI), has Chavez at 56% of the vote against Capriles’s 30%. This is an even bigger margin than the vote Chavez received in the 2006 presidential poll.

Behind the raw figures lies an even greater strengthening of the revolutionary socialist project headed by Chavez. The opposition is riddled with political contradictions and is united simply by a virulent hatred of Chavez, but support for Chavez has increased qualitatively with a growing support for the deepening of the socialist project.

The GIS XXI survey found that, of Chavez 56% support base, 40% is “hard” support with 16% “soft”. Of Capriles’s 29%, 20% is considered “hard” and 9% “soft”.

Jesse Chacon, GIS XXI president, said: “If you ask Venezuelans today if they believe in socialism, more than 50% say yes.”

This sustained and “hardening” support for Chavez and the revolution he leads is driven by social and political gains for the poor majority. The continued broadening of people's power and growing socialisation of the productive apparatus at the behest of the poor has earned this support.

As a result, a recent UN-commissioned study found Venezuela to be the happiest nation in South America.

The presidential elections in Venezuela have the appearance of capitalist elections everywhere — a contest of two personalities for the spoils of power. But the context makes these elections something different.

Chavez's campaign — of which the largest force int he GPP is the millions-strong United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) — has turned the election campaign into a full-scale revolutionary mobilidation.

At every one of the many cities and towns where Chavez has held rallies, he has used the opportunity to do more than solicit votes. He has conducted hours-long speeches and discussions, addressing local issues and unveiled new infrastructure works.

But most importantly, he has explained and argued for his his 40-page platform, the “Proposal of the Homeland’s Candidate Comandante Hugo Chavez for Bolivarian Socialist Management”. It is a program for socialist political and economic transition.

Capriles’ campaign has, in marked contrast to that of Chavez, focused on petty personality politics, juvenile stunts and even criminal fraud.

Perhaps most infamously, Capriles posted on his Twitter page a document supposedly issued by the Chavez government to prohibit the military barracks from watching a Capriles’ speech on private television. The document was quickly revealed to be a clumsy forgery.

Another recent rallying point for the opposition has been Capriles’s refusal to remove his Venezuelan flag baseball cap. He was asked to remove by the National Electoral Commission (CNE) as it is a violation of electoral campaigning regulations to use national symbols in electoral campaigning.

Chavez was also issued with warnings over similar breaches, with which he has complied.

Capriless campaign has followed a contradictory line in relation to the CNE. Some of his campaign staff have labelled the electoral body a “tool” of the Chavez government that is not to be trusted. Others have affirmed its independence and fairness.

Capriles’ dire electoral outlook has compelled him to mimic several aspects of Chavez’s campaign.

Not only has he been ridiculed for copying some of Chavez’s signature mannerisms and style, he has also been forced by popular will to support some key sections of Chavez’s program.

These include features of the revolution such as it social “missions” — the government-funded organisations that supply free education, medical care and a whole host of other services to the Venezuelan population.

Capriles claims he will maintain the missions. However, his own past practice as former governor of Miranda state belie this position, as he tried to shut down the healthcare mission in the state and drive out the Cuban doctors stationed there to offer free medical attention to poor Venezuelan citizens.

Capriles also pledged to reverse the Chavez government’s socialisation of Venezuela’s giant oil company PDVSA — the company that funds the social missions.

Where he has diverged from Chavez’s program, Capriles has attacked the revolution from a national-chauvinist point of view. He has condemned Chavez’s solidarity aid and preferential supply of oil to other countries, especially Cuba, and pledged to overturn the policy.

Faced with the prospect of yet another crushing defeat at the ballot box, the frustrated Venezuelan right wing has little room to move. Venezuela Analysis journalist Tamara Pearson said the MUD camp has fractured three ways regarding strategy.

Pearson said: “Some of the MUD support base has given up on the presidential elections and are turning their focus to the regional elections in December, some want to play democratic and by the rules, and others see more hope in creating disturbances and engaging in low tactics.”

[Owen Richards maintains the blog Venezuela: Translating the Revolution.]

Ten years after coup, Venezuela vigilant despite gains

An abridged version of this article was published in Green Left Weekly:

Ten years after coup, Venezuela vigilant despite gains

Sunday, April 22, 2012

By Owen Richards

“April 13, the great day of victory ten years ago, opened the way to the independence and unity of our Latin America and the Caribbean … We showed that a people united will never be defeated”, said Venezuela’s socialist president Hugo Chavez from the “People’s Balcony” of Miraflores Palace, during a commemoration of the April 13 revolution that toppled a short-lived business-military coup that aimed to crush the Chavez presidency.

March commemorating April 13 revolution.

The coup attempt was in response to Chavez’ pro-poor policies. Specifically, the capitalists were desperate to stop Chavez getting hold of the state oil company – and the largest corporation in Latin America – Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), and putting its revenues at the service of the poor. They kidnapped Chavez and held him hostage. However, mass uprising of the poor and working class, along with the bulk of the military defeated the coup attempt within 48 hours and restored Chavez to the presidency.

Since 2002, the revolution has been able to advance thanks largely to the new balance of forces the revolution brought about. However, the process still faces a number of serious threats. Coming up to the presidential elections of October 7, the next few months will be especially dangerous. During Chavez’s speech, he called for the revolutionary forces to “be alert in all these days and months to come”, and announced the creation of a “special anti-coup plan” that involves the formation of a “special civic-military command” to defend against any threat.

The threat of the opposition carrying out extra-parliamentary violence, sabotage or subterfuge continues to rise as the election date approaches and polls continue to show the extreme unlikelihood of the opposition presidential candidate, Henrique Capriles Radonski, defeating Chavez at the ballot box.

Carlos Sanchez of North American Opinion Research (NAOR) said “we see the victory of Hugo Chavez on October 7 as an irreversible tendency”. Sanchez was referring to the findings of recent NAOR research that found Chavez has 60% backing, while his United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) has 56% support of the electorate. Meanwhile, Chavez’s opponent Capriles Radonski has a rejection level of 57%.

On the electoral front, battle lines are beginning to be drawn, with the revolution’s social missions taking center stage. An election strategy document drawn up by the opposition reveals the opposition’s bind: “What is the dilemma we confront? In accord with surveys of popular opinion, if the people think we’re going to abandon the missions, we run the risk of losing a very important number of votes, but at the same time, if we try to remedy the former problem by championing the missions without an original, critical position toward them, many people will conclude that it’s best to stick with the missions’ original father (Chavez)”.

The massive popularity of the missions owes itself to their immense achievements. To date, for example, 1,482,543 people have achieved literacy via Mission Robinson; 1,400,000 people have had vision restored through Mission Miracle; and more than 745,000,000 people have accessed public health through the Within the Barrio mission.

Capriles Radonski’s opposition has begun labeling the missions as organizations of “political blackmail”, while on the other hand proposing to introduce a law that will “give a legal status to the missions”. This contradictory position is not likely to gain much traction with Venezuelan voters, as it is common knowledge that the opposition has long attacked the missions, and vehemently opposed president Chavez’s 2007 attempt to institutionalize them - just as they are now calling for five years later.

In the heightened political atmosphere of the looming elections, the revolutionary forces have continued to mobilize. The PSUV has continued its nation-wide door knocking campaign, meeting face to face with 1,750,120 Venezuelans. President Chavez tweeted on Thursday, “Let’s go, everyone united under the direction of the Command of the National Carabobo Campaign … Everyone together! To the streets!

[Owen Richards maintains the blog Venezuela: translating the revolution.]

Opposition’s little man 'the candidate of imperialism'

I wrote the following article for the current issue of Green Left Weekly newspaper:

Venezuela: Opposition’s little man 'the candidate of imperialism' 

By Owen Richards

The International Consulting Services poll revealed that if the presidential elections were held tomorrow in Venezuela, 58.2% would vote for Hugo Chavez. Image from VTV. 

“The confrontation here isn’t between Chavez and this little man, it’s the bourgeoisie against the people, the empire against the country”, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on February 16.

Chavez was referring to his newly-nominated presidential opponent, Henrique Capriles Radonski. He was pointing to the class battle that lies behind the looming presidential elections scheduled for October 7.

Radonski, a 39-year-old lawyer and governor of Miranda state, won the endorsement of the right-wing Democratic Unity Forum (MUD) bloc on February 12. He won with 62% of 1.8 million votes in a primary process marked by allegations of irregularities. 

Henrique Capriles Radonski

The MUD used the National Electoral Commission (CNE) to run its primaries despite for years claiming the CNE is a fraudulent, corrupt tool of the Chavez government. The MUD's publicised participation figures were revealed to be mathematically improbable.

The MUD’s electoral council also burned all the cast ballots almost immediately after the conclusion of the day’s voting, despite the fact that several candidates wished to appeal vote counts.

However irregular the process, the selection of Radonski to go head-to-head with Chavez for the presidential sash opens the election campaign proper. The selection of a candidate must come as some relief to the perennially-divided right-wing bloc. 

But who is Radonski, and what does he stand for? 

In the MUD he is considered a moderate with a view to turn Venezuela down the road to a Brazil-style social-democratic capitalism. He calls himself a “progressive” of neither the left nor the right. 

In deference to the overwhelming popular enthusiasm for the revolution’s social missions that have benefited millions of Venezuela's poor, he feigns support. But Radonski opposes their being funded through oil revenues.

His campaign slogan, “there is a way” mimics vacuous political slogans from capitalist elections everywhere -- it provides little indication of his actual political stance.

Contrary his moderate credentials, Radonski is infamous for his role in leading a violent siege of the Cuban embassy during the April 2002 US-backed military coup. During the coup, Chavez -- the elected president -- was kidnapped before being returned to the presidency by a mass uprising of workers and soldiers.

Radonski is from one of Venezuela’s wealthiest families.

In response to Radonski’s nomination as the opposition’s candidate, Chavez welcomed him to the electoral race. But Chavez challenged him to come up with more than a slogan, and to “confront me with ideas”. 

Chavez characterised Radonski as “the candidate of imperialism, of the bourgeoisie's pro-coup sector”. 

He also attacked Radonski’s claimed support for the social missions while opposing their state funding through the state-owned oil company, PDVSA. He said Radonski would return the company to “the capitalists, the transnationals”.

The National Assembly's first vice-president Aristobulo Isturiz said Radonski “is toying with a retrogression. This candidate is the past, because he wants to take us back to neoliberalism”.

Isturiz said such moves would put Venezuela in the same situation as the European nations of today. He said Venezuela’s “indignados” (the name for members of the Spanish anti-neoliberal mass movement) fought and defeated neoliberalism.

Early indications are that the pro-revolution forces organised under the Chavez-led Great Patriotic Pole electoral alliance will comfortably return Chavez to the presidency. 

A study carried out by the International Consulting Services (ICS) indicated that if a poll were held now, 58.2% of Venezuela’s population would vote for Hugo Chavez against 35.4% for Radonski. 

The ICS also found in a January study that 53% of Venezuelans support Chavez’s socialist vision for the nation, with only 21% saying they believed capitalism was the best system to develop Venezuela. 

The Group of Social Investigation XXI (GIS XXI) found Chavez to have a popularity rating of 61.2%.

As the presidential battle continues to heat up, Chavez's United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), the biggest force in the electoral alliance, stepped up its activity. 

Chavez has dubbed the campaign the Carabobo campaign. This refers to the 1821 Battle of Carabobo that was decisive in winning Venezuelan independence from Spain. 

A huge rally of PSUV grassroots “patrollers” was held on February 17 to bring together and organise PSUV members for the political battle ahead. 

A mass campaign of door-knocking has already begun. By February 16, PSUV patrollers had visited a total of 417,000 homes in a first phase of house-to-house deployment. More than just soliciting support for Chavez, the patrollers discuss socialism and encourage participation in the revolution’s programs.

[Owen Richards maintains the blog Venezuela: Translating the Revolution.]