The opposition parties, including the two which used to alternate in power in Venezuela, found themselves bound for defeat, and withdrew to try to make the elections appear illegitimate. There is nothing but their own withdrawal to support this contention.
AP and Bloomberg reported turnout at 25% but Vheadline.com calls this the opposition number and real turnout is probably higher, but still around a third of the voting-age population. The BBC was one of the few outlets to suggest the obvious point that all those who did not vote didn't support the opposition, but didn't see a need to vote since Chavez's Fifth Republic Movement party was guaranteed to win, with the opposition parties pulling their support for their own candidates.
Most in the United States, especially the poor, have been voting at dismally low levels, especially for congressional elections like this, for decades, and no demand for the overthrow of the government and foreign assistance to do so ever gained currency in any media. Not even Soviet, that I'm aware of.
Charlie Hardy told us to watch these elections. He also said that the opposition could have won a few seats in certain areas, with concentrations of the wealthier or where they had good candidates. By boycotting the elections, the elites the opposition parties represent have chosen an anti-democracy path. The will not make their points in a minority in congress and try to win over voters in later elections. They are laying the groundwork for a violent attack on Venezuela's duly elected, popular government. I don't think they would do this without a wink and a nod, to say nothing of millions of dollars, from the Bush regime.
For now, the U.S. press generally acknowledged the legitimacy of the elections, but highlighted the opposition boycott (though noting the opposition was behind in the polls). They also used phrasing such as 'tightened his grip on power' that they would never use to describe, say, the Bush regime's takeover of all three branches of government. The media, too, is laying the groundwork for the 'international community' to work to take down the Bolivarian Republic.
But this is a victory for the movement Hugo Chavez has led, another fair election won overwhelmingly. And because this is a time of victory, and the attack by the rich has not begun in earnest, I want to take the opportunity to push the Venezuelan government to do even more than be more legitimate than probably any government on teh planet. Because we need more than the winner-take-all, elected-representative democracy version of legitimacy.
Saying Venezuela got as good turnout as the United States or the European Union in these parliamentary elections simply isn't good enough, from the vantage point of someone who looks to Latin America for new models of authentic democracy, and who wants the people of Venezuela to be able to fully capitalize on a government that, for a change, is truly theirs.
People in Venezuela do not seem to have formed a close relationship with their elected members to Congress, though things could hardly be worse than the United States where many do not know their Congress-person's name, and most elections are effectively uncontested. But uncontested elections are simply bad for democracy. Democracy activists in the United States have been promoting proportional representation as more democratic, and there are other ideas to get millions more power over the decisions that affect them. I urge Chavez and the party he leads to use their significantly increased power not just to improve the lot of Venezuelans, but to increasingly democratize power itself.
[Sorry no links, written during work hours.]
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Must-read analysis of Venezuela election
Submitted December 7, 2005 - 1:32 pm by Dan FederAlso, an interesting interpretation of the turnout numbers appears in Jeff Axel’s Oil Wars blog: