Freedom Socialist • Vol. 29, No. 1 • February-March 2008

VENEZUELA
Why voters rejected Chávez's overhaul of the constitution

Washing laundry by hand in a poor neighborhood of Caracas. Lavando ropa a mano en un barrio pobre. Credit: Leslie Mazoch / AP

Hugo Chávez, the populist president of Venezuela, had an exceptionally busy year in 2007. He nationalized oil and utility companies; launched the new United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and signed up 5.7 million members in six weeks; closed a rightwing TV station; and called for popular passage of a broad set of 69 constitutional reforms.

Speaking before a large rally in Caracas in August, Chávez told the crowd, "We are going to pulverize the opposition to the referendum." He had good reason to think so. After almost a decade in office, he had never lost a vote of the Venezuelan people.

But instead of scoring a lopsided win on Dec. 2, the measure failed by a margin of less than 1 percent. Turnout was low. "Pro" voters numbered 3 million fewer than had voted for Chávez in 2006; they did not even equal the number of people who had signed up for his new party. Abstention, not a rightwing surge at the polls, killed the referendum.

Most U.S. leftists supported the amendments uncritically and worried about the possibility of a coup instigated by the CIA. In Venezuela, however, Trotskyist trade unionists and other socialists debated the proposals and the direction of Chávez's movement for a "21st-century socialism." They divided over voting "Sí" (Yes) or "No" or turning in a blank ballot (to register an objection but set themselves apart from rightwing voters).

James Petras, a prolific pundit on Latin America, says Venezuelan Trotskyists who did not back the changes are "ultra-left sectarians" with links to U.S. imperialism via rightwing student groups. Alan Woods of the International Marxist Tendency agrees. Gloria La Riva of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, a Stalinist group, calls these Venezuelan radicals "strikebreakers."

So what happened in the referendum? Was it counterrevolutionary to advocate a vote against it, or were there valid reasons to oppose it? Was Chávez moving too slowly, or too fast?

Constitutional make-over. Touted by left supporters as the next big step in bringing socialism to Venezuela, the 69 amendments were in fact a mix of progressive reforms, guarantees of capitalist property rights, and measures to strengthen the power of the president.

The referendum would have reduced the voting age to 16 and the legal work week to 36 hours; guaranteed social security to the poverty-stricken self-employed; granted free higher education; given decision-making power about public spending to neighborhood councils; and prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexuality. (A feminist proposal to decriminalize abortion was rejected.)

At the same time, it would have protected foreign investment, international patents, and private ownership of intellectual property and means of production. It also would have extended the presidential term of office from six to seven years while allowing the president to serve unlimited terms, consolidate power over the military, and declare a state of emergency and suspend democratic rights.

Voters had only one month to discuss these reforms. And the initiatives appeared on the ballots in two big sets, each of which had to be voted up or down as a whole.

Class polarization key to outcome. Arrayed against the referendum were the usual cast of nefarious anti-Chávez characters. These included Venezuela's Catholic Church hierarchy, ruling oligarchy, and reactionary private media, plus U.S. imperialism. U.S. attempts to destabilize Chávez's administration have included $216,000 provided since 2003 by a secret branch of the Agency for International Development to student groups. A leaked CIA memo disclosed an additional $8 million recently given to the opposition, as well as plans for a coup if the referendum passed.

Defectors from the Chavista movement were also among those opposing the referendum. They included the former Minister of Defense General Raúl Baduel and the social-democratic party Podemos.

While these combined forces created a climate of fear and confusion about what the changes meant, they were not the determining factor in the proposal's defeat. Instead, the main cause was the slow pace of change for the Venezuelan majority.

Venezuela has Latin America's third-fastest-growing economy, fueled by high oil prices. Upper-class Venezuelans are getting very rich. But inflation stands at 20 percent, basic goods are in short supply, the government refuses to sign contracts with public employees and is hostile to workers' control, and Chávez publicly opposes a labor movement independent of the state. Investments by international capital in strategic economic sectors are mushrooming and state corruption is widespread. All of this is generating growing workingclass skepticism about Chávez's promises of basic social change.

Thus far, women have been among the president's strongest supporters at the grass-roots level. In 2007, however, they experienced firsthand the severe limitations of a mixed economy (a fundamentally capitalist economy with some nationalized industries), as agribusiness and distribution companies sabotaged state price controls by refusing to deliver food. This produced shortages of milk, beef, sugar, chicken, cooking oil, and black beans, plus hours-long queues in food lines, which drastically impacted women's daily lives.

Although analysts are ignoring it as a factor, women's frustration with Chávez must have played a big role in the election result. Related to this is the way in which PSUV bureaucrats sabotaged their own pro-reform campaign by not involving the grass roots in decision-making - which also must have affected women voters deeply.

Trotskyist objections to Chávez's course. The struggle for workers' control of the productive forces of society is not a simple process. It is complicated and contradictory, and socialists do not always agree on the way forward. Slander and accusations that people who disagree with you are agents of imperialism, however, are destructive to the search for answers. And this is the kind of criticism used against Venezuelan Trotskyists who opposed the constitutional overhaul.

Not all Trotskyists called for a "No" vote. But those who took this position, including Socialist Workers' Unity (UST), the Venezuelan section of the International Workers League, did so because the referendum would have deepened the capitalist nature of the constitution and increased the executive powers of a president whose administration already acts in an authoritarian way.

Orlando Chirino, a national coordinator of the National Workers' Union, urged workers to leave their ballots blank. He is now calling for an international tribunal made up of outstanding figures in social struggles to investigate the charge made by James Petras that Chirino and other Trotskyists collaborated with rightwing students trained by the U.S. The UST endorses this call, as does the Freedom Socialist Party.

Chávez opts to hear the wrong message. The election result emboldened the Venezuelan ruling class and caused Chávez to adopt a conciliatory posture. He granted amnesty to 60 people, among them plotters of the failed coup in 2002 and saboteurs in the oil industry. He also lifted some price controls and promised to fight crime.

And, in early January, he replaced several members of his Cabinet, including the vice president - switching his second-in-command with someone seen as less radical and more sympathetic to business.

In comments on TV, Chávez covered his moves backward by blaming the Venezuelan people, saying that the referendum showed that the country isn't ready to adopt socialism and changes need to come more slowly - the opposite of people's real message. It turns out that the Venezuelan Trotskyists were right in their criticisms of their president.

Clearly the Venezuelan revolution is at a crossroads. As UST writes, "They [the Venezuelan bourgeoisie] have changed everything in order that everything may remain unchanged. The toiling masses have perceived the truth and have spoken. Now it is up to the revolutionaries to understand the message and to act."


Este articulo en español.