Venezuelan elections – setback for Chávez

Posted in PaulHampton's blog on ,

The bonapartist regime of Hugo Chávez suffered a setback in the Venezuelan elections on 26 September, winning a majority of parliamentary seats but not the two-thirds majority it desired. The ruling party, Chávez’s PSUV gained 98 of the 165 seats available in the national assembly – enough for a working majority but not the two-thirds necessary to make further constitutional changes.

The Patria para Todos (PPT, homeland for all) party gained two seats. The PPT was until recently part of the ruling party’s coalition – its general secretary was vice-president of the national assembly in the last session and it previously had 11 deputies. The right-wing, pro-US opposition bloc MUD won 65 seats. This was not the “victory” much of the international bourgeois press claimed – in fact the right-wing has fewer seats than it did before 2005 (it boycotted the assembly elections after that). However it does represent a resurgence of those forces most closely aligned with international capital.

This is clear from the vote count. The PSUV got 5.4m votes, while the right wing parties won 5.3m votes. Turnout was high at 66% of eligible voters. In the 2009 regional elections, the PSUV got 6.3m votes, compared to 5.2m for the right-wing parties. Therefore the vote for the opposition has grown slightly, while support for the PSUV has fallen significantly.

There were no genuine independent socialist candidates in the election. The LTS in Venezuela argued for abstention, given the bourgeois candidates on offer. Orlando Chirino, from the USI socialist group and leader of the C-CURA rank and file union group, stood as a candidate of the bourgeois PPT.

Much of the international left’s coverage of the election has been uncritical Chávez counselling. Alan Woods, leader of the dwindling International Marxist Tendency warned that the “revolution” was in danger. Woods bastardised Plekhanov, declaring that either the Bolivarian revolution will triumph as a socialist revolution, or it will not triumph at all. He quotes Danton: “De l’audace! De l’audace! Et encore de l’audace!” – inadvertently revealing the key flaw in his argument: how exactly does a bourgeois revolution (French or Venezuelan) grow over and become a permanent, social revolution? The problem for Woods and co is that the agency for socialism is not Hugo Chávez and his PSUV. Socialism can only be working class self-emancipation and that means the working class needs its own leadership, its own party, its own organisations to make the revolution. The problem is not that Chávez won’t do it (i.e. make a working class revolution); rather that he cannot do it, or lead it – because he’s not a working class revolutionary. Chávez is better understood a bourgeois Bonaparte, balancing between state capital and the subaltern classes.

Similarly, Mike Gonzalez wrote in Socialist Worker: “It would be a serious error, in my view, to concentrate now on a long campaign to re-elect Chávez in 2012. Instead it is a time to return to the grass roots of revolution and build again from there.” The problem with chavismo is not that it lacks a mass base – clearly the PSUV has wide support and roots among workers and the poor in Venezuela. The problem is the kind of politics they are tied to: the dead-end of chavismo. But instead of arguing for a break with these politics, Gonzalez prefers to surf the pro-Chávez wave and advise returning to base - whatever that means.

Around the world

This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.