VENEZUELA: Chavez Lashes Out at Leftist Dissidents

By Humberto Márquez Reprint | | Print |

Humberto Márquez

CARACAS, Oct 17 2008 (IPS) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez lashed out at the Communist Party (PCV) and other small left-wing groups that have backed him for 10 years, calling them “liars” and “disloyal counterrevolutionaries” for backing candidates in the coming regional and municipal elections who are not from his party.

“The underlying question is that they do not recognise my leadership, so I won’t recognise them either,” Chávez said at a recent United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) rally. “I will personally make sure that they are swept off the Venezuelan political map.”

He also berated the Patria Para Todos (Fatherland for All – PPT) party, whose leaders have roots in the labour movement, and remnants of old socialist parties, like Gente Emergente (Emerging People), the Movimiento Electoral del Pueblo (People’s Electoral Movement) and the Partido Joven (Young Party), which hold a combined total of 10 seats in the 167-member single chamber parliament, where Chávez’s PSUV has more than 140 seats.

(The opposition boycotted the last legislative elections, in 2005).

On Nov. 23, Venezuelans will elect 22 out of 23 state governors and 328 out of 335 mayors. In several regions, the PPT, PCV and other parties that back Chávez but did not merge with the PSUV have presented alternative candidates, who either have a real chance of winning or could divide the pro-Chávez vote and thus make it possible for an opposition candidate to win.

The divisions began to emerge in early 2007, when the president called on all of his followers to join together in a single party, the PSUV, founded on the basis of the Fifth Republic Movement (MVR), which initially brought Chávez to power in 1998

A number of leaders of allied parties joined the PSUV. But the social democratic Podemos party went over to the opposition, while the PCV and other groups, although still Chávez allies, did not merge with his united socialist party but maintained their own structures, and presented candidates this year who are competing with the PSUV candidates in several regions.

But they continue to back Chávez’s call for “21st century socialism,” which he expresses in speeches laced with references to independence hero Simón Bolívar (1783-1830) as well as traditional slogans of the Latin American left.

PCV secretary-general Oscar Figuera told IPS that Chávez’s criticism was “unjustified and unwarranted.” “We communists cannot be called counterrevolutionaries, because what we are seeking is to strengthen the revolution on the electoral, social, political, cultural and ideological planes.”

In addition, “in the electoral terrain, of the 22 PSUV candidates for governor, the PCV supports 17. In the remaining cases, we back the leaders who we believe are best suited to carry forward and deepen the revolution.”

“We have been part of this process since we became the first party (besides the MVR) to support Chávez’s candidacy in 1997, and since 1931 we have formed part of the revolutionary forces of the American continent. These criticisms are unjustified,” said Figuera.

José Albornoz, secretary-general of the PPT, had even harsher words. “When the president tried to demonise us and talked about wiping out the PPT, it reminded us of Joseph Stalin.”

The PPT “did not buy its revolutionary credentials at the corner drug store; they date back before Chávez (from a faction of the workers’ group Causa Radical, founded in 1971), and we aren’t in the revolution for a share of power, but because this process belongs to all of us,” he said.

“We also can’t understand why we are counterrevolutionary when we support Lenny Manuitt (of the PPT) in (the central state of) Guárico, but in other states we are good revolutionaries because we back the PSUV candidate,” said Albornoz.

Daniel García, head of Gente Emergente, complained about “offensive and inconsiderate” verbal attacks by Chávez after his party and others aligned themselves with dissident candidate for governor Julio César Reyes in the president’s home state of Barinas, in Venezuela’s southwestern plains region.

Although the elections are not national, but regional and municipal, Chávez has described them as “the most important in our history,” because he believes that a strong showing by pro-government candidates will give a boost to the changes he is seeking for at least the next decade.

PSUV leaders like Caracas Mayor Freddy Bernal have announced that the constitutional reform that was narrowly voted down in a late 2007 referendum, which among other things would allow the president to run for election indefinitely, would be presented again after the elections.

Chávez has stated that if the opposition manages to win as many as 10 states, including the most populous ones, in the north, “next year they will come for me.” He was referring to a renewed effort by the opposition to remove him from office, and a newly strengthened offensive against his social policies.

In April 2002, the opposition overthrew the president for two days, before he was restored to power by loyal troops and a massive outpouring of popular support. And in 2004, he survived a recall referendum organised by the opposition, garnering 59 percent of the vote.

Opinion polls indicate that the opposition – which won just two governorships in 2004 – could gain as many as six states on Nov. 23, although pollsters say the number could grow, from here to the elections.

The presentation of several pro-Chávez candidates favours the opposition, although the same holds true in areas where the various opposition forces have failed to unite behind a single candidate.

Several states that have been Chavista strongholds could also fall into the hands of leaders who have broken off with the PSUV because they were not selected as the party’s candidates.

That includes Barinas, where the president’s brother, Adán Chávez, a long-time Marxist activist, hopes to succeed the current governor: their father, Hugo de los Reyes Chávez.

The president, who has been campaigning around the country for his supporters, has called the dissidents “traitors” and “sell-outs” and threatened to withhold central government funds from local governments that “conspire” against his administration’s policies.

According to political commentator Nelson Bocaranda, the president has become more hostile towards dissidents since opinion polls have shown that not only a few opposition candidates stand a chance against the PSUV, but that several former allies do as well.

Oscar Schémel with the Hinterlaces polling firm told IPS that “up to now, the president has been right when he argued that the small parties allied with him had no weight electorally, but if the margin between candidates is very narrow, one or two percentage points can mean triumph or defeat.”

Lawmaker Luis Tascón, spokesman for a group of four legislators who distanced themselves from the PSUV early this year after complaining that the party had been taken over by the right, told IPS that “after November, the Venezuelan political map will be multi-coloured, and Chávez will have to think about how to negotiate with his adversaries.”