The Spirit of Democracy in Venezuela

By Stephen Lendman
Created Dec 8 2006 - 9:15am

"Today we gave another lesson in dignity to the imperialists, it is another
defeat for the empire of Mr. Danger....another defeat for the devil. We will
never be a colony of the US again....Long live the socialist
revolution....Destiny has been written....Socialism is human. Socialism is
love."

This is how Hugo Chavez Frias characterized his smashing electoral victory
on December 3 when he appeared on the balcony of the Palacio de Miraflores
(the official presidential palace residence) and addressed a huge gathering
of his followers below that evening telling them of his victory for the
people and that he now has an even stronger mandate to pursue his Bolivarian
Project to do more for them ahead than he's already accomplished so far
which is considerable.

He told his loyal, cheering supporters his impressive landslide electoral
victory is one more blow to George Bush, and it follows on the others won by
populist candidates in the region in the past six weeks by Inacio Lula da
Silva in Brazil on October 29, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua on November 7, and
Rafael Correa in Equador on November 26. Chavez will serve for another six
year term that will run until December, 2012.

Earlier in the day, Hugo Chavez showed he's indeed a man of the people by
casting his own vote the same way ordinary people do. Unlike George Bush who
goes everywhere in an entourage of limousine, helicopter, or Air Force One
luxury accompanied by a phalanx of security needed to protect him from the
people he was elected to serve, Chavez drove himself in his aging
red-colored Volkswagon to his assigned polling station accompanied by his
young grandson in the back seat, voted, and then left the same unaccompanied
way he came. That's how a man of the people does it - no bells, whistles or
extravagant trappings of power that's a hallmark of how things are done to
excess in the US calling itself a model democracy but one only for the few
with wealth and power and that behaves like a rogue state that's only a
model for despots and tyrants.

In Venezuela under Hugo Chavez there's real participatory democracy for all
the people. After it played out in a fair and open electoral process, Chavez
greeted his supporters in an atmosphere of jubilant celebration once
National Electoral Council (CNE) president Lucena Tibisay announced at 10:30
PM election night that with about 78%% of the vote tallied, Chavez received
61.4%% (5,936,000 votes) to right wing opposition candidate Manuel Rosales
38%% (3,715,000 votes).

The early figures were then updated showing Chavez increased his advantage
to 62.89%% (7,161,637 votes), handily defeating Rosales by about 26 points
(at 36.85%%) - an impressive nearly two to one thrashing. It was also
announced that voter turnout was about 75%% or the highest percentage in
Venezuela's history making this election an historic event and a clear
mandate for Hugo Chavez.

Once the first results were announced on election night, it was clear to Mr.
Rosales he'd lost and he was forced to concede defeat. He added, however, he
would continue opposing the policies of the Chavez government "struggling
for the people of Venezuela (and announcing) we are beginning the struggle
for the construction of a new time for Venezuela....and I won't stop there,
from today on I will be in the streets (staying) in the struggle, in the
fight." He didn't say what he has in mind is returning the country to its
ugly past serving the interests of wealth and power and ignoring the needs
of ordinary people, all his pious rhetoric aside. He's sure to get lots of
encouragement and help from Washington as its unbending agenda going forward
is to do precisely that. Short of an armed invasion, however, it may be
harder than ever to do that as Hugo Chavez came out ahead in all 23 of
Venezuela's states including in Rosales' home state of Zulia that went for
Chavez with a 50.57%% majority, an embarrassment he also neglected to mention
in his concession statement cum bravado. A dozen other candidates
participated in the election as well, but had nothing to brag about, getting
in total less than half of one percent of the vote total.

From the US capitol, State Department spokeswoman Janelle Hironimus added
her government's response without a touch of irony from an administration
that's already tried and failed three times to oust Hugo Chavez: The US
government recognizes the right of the Venezuelan people "to elect the
government of their choice and the path they want for their country." US
Undersecretary of State for Latin America Thomas Shannon added: "We do not
want a relationship of confrontation (with Venezuela). We've always looked
for ways to deepen the dialogue with....President Chavez (and we hope) he
will show a greater interest."

Neither US official tried explaining that their post-election good faith
rhetoric is belied by their government's actions since the Bush
administration came to power in 2001 trying every underhanded trick it could
cook up to undermine and oust Hugo Chavez and is still engaging in
subversion. It would be quite a change in the Bush White House if it ever
practiced what it always disingenuously preaches fooling no one, especially
Hugo Chavez and his government.

The same kind of post-election forked tongue comments came from US
Ambassador William Brownfield who congratulated Venezuelans on a smooth and
peaceful election and indicated Washington's willingness to have a less
confrontational relationship with Chavez saying: "We recognize that and
we're ready, willing and eager to explore and see if we can make progress on
bilateral issues." Hugo Chavez understands full well the kind of
relationship the ambassador means and responded to the overture: "They want
dialogue but on the condition that you accept their positions. If the
government of the United States wants dialogue, Venezuela will always have
its door open. But I doubt the US government is sincere....we are a free
country. We were once a North American colony, and we will not be one ever
again."

Chavez was being polite but firm as he knows the US is never sincere in its
dealings with other countries and is determined to remove him from office.
Also, its relations with all Global South countries are uncompromisingly
ones on an "our way or the highway" basis. For Hugo Chavez, that's no way,
and it's hard to imagine relations between the two countries will change
going forward, at least under a Bush administration. Chavez explained
further saying: "How are we going to have good relations with a government
that has financed conspiratorial activities here?"

It's also a government establishing closer ties with the military in Latin
American countries (circumventing ruling governments if necessary) to
counter the influence and spread of populist leftist governments like Hugo
Chavez in Venezuela. Former US Southern Command General Bantz Craddock
explained the real sentiment of the Bush administration toward the region
when he said: "The challenges facing Latin America and the Caribbean today
are significant to our national security. We ignore them at our peril." He
wasn't referring to the need to be more conciliatory to populist leftist
leaders like those in Venezuela, Bolivia or Ecuador (in January) or Fidel
Castro in Cuba (the US has tried and failed many dozens or even hundreds of
times to kill) who have notions of governance much different than those in
Washington.

For the moment at least, the cheering crowd outside the Miraflores on
election night had other thoughts on their mind, but like their president
demand nothing less than a relationship based on equality and respect with
their dominant northern neighbor. They gathered in the late evening pouring
rain dressed in their signature red T-shirts and caps, waving Venezuela
flags and shouting "Uh, ah, Chavez no se va" - "Uh, ah, Chavez will not go."
It continued all night in the celebratory streets of Caracas echoing
Chavez's words repeating "Libertad (liberty) and telling the crowd this was
a victory for them, for socialism and for the Bolivarian Revolution he now
wants to advance to the next stage.

Venezuela Under Chavez - How Real Democratic Elections Are Run

The polls opened at 7AM on Sunday, December 3, but hours earlier people were
already queueing up in their eagerness to participate in Venezuela's
democratic electoral process. Most of them, as we know, were there to
support Hugo Chavez Frias as their president and won't allow anyone else to
have the job as long as he wants it. The lines were long at many of the
stations, but observers noted voting across the country ran smoothly with
only minor problems that were no obstacle to the electoral process. About
1400 observers were on hand to witness the day's events including 10
representatives from the Carter Center in the US, 130 from the European
Union (EU), 60 from the Organization of American States (OAS) and 10 from
the Mercosur Common Market of the South countries.

At day's end, OAS team leader Juan Enrique Fisher congratulated Venezuelan
officials for a "transparent and well-run election....We congratulate the
Venezuelan people for their spirit of citizenship, President Chavez for his
popular mandate and candidate Rosales for his civic spirit and for
fortifying democracy." He described the voting as "massive and peaceful" and
added scattered reports of voting equipment malfunctions were minor and more
attributable to voter unfamiliarity with the machines than to
irregularities. Spanish parliamentarian Willy Meyer, one of seven members
from the European Parliament, noted the process was smooth-running and
turnout was "massive, well-arranged and happy..." European Union leader
Antonio Garcia Velasquez said Venezuelan electoral officials gave them
"complete liberty and with all requirements so that the job (of observing)
can be fulfilled in conformity with our stipulations." The NGO Electoral Eye
noted in an afternoon statement that 99%% of the voting centers were
operating "completely normally."

Voting took place using 33,000 ballot tables at 11,118 polling stations
throughout the country, and each candidate in the election was allowed to
have observers present at all of them if they wished. All registered
Venezuelans, of course, could vote including the 57,667 eligible ones
located in other countries. Voting took place on Sunday to make it as easy
as possible for people to participate, and while polling stations were
scheduled to close at 4PM Caracas time, most stayed open as long as there
were people in line who hadn't yet voted.

Venezuela's Electoral Process Prior to the Election of Hugo Chavez

Before Hugo Chavez was first elected the country's president in December,
1998, less than half of all eligible Venezuelans were registered to vote and
thus were unable to participate in choosing their elected officials who
might help them raise their standard of living including the great majority
of impoverished people in the country most in need of positive change. For
decades previously, two parties in the country, Democratic Action (AD) and
Social Christian Party (COPEI), dominated the political process through a
power-sharing arrangement that served the interests of Venezuela's wealthy
elite and its "sifrino" middle class ignoring the needs and rights of the
great majority of poor and effectively disenfranchised. It finally boiled
over in the streets in the late 1980s and 1990s that led to the governing
coalition bringing Hugo Chavez to power in 1998 that changed everything -
just the way Chavez promised he's do it if elected.

Along with his political and social revolution, Chavez promised to address
the problem of electoral fraud and exclusion that had to be overcome for any
true democracy to exist. At the outset of his first term in office, the
National Assembly strengthened earlier reforms and initiated new ones
focusing on voter access and rights, security and eliminating the kinds of
fraudulent practices that characterized Venezuelan elections in the past.

A major and successful initiative was later established in 2003 known as
Mision Itentidad (Mission Identity) that aimed to implement Article 56 of
the Bolivarian Constitution stating: "All persons have the right to be
registered free of charge with the Civil Registry Office after birth, and to
obtain public documents constituting evidence of the biological identity, in
accordance with law." The Mission constituted a combined mass citizenship
and voter registration drive that's given millions of ordinary Venezuelans
national ID cards granting them the full rights of citizenship they never
before had. It also resulted in over five million Venezuelans being able to
register and vote in elections for the first time ever up to the middle of
2006 - including qualified immigrants and indigenous people who never before
had any rights. In 2000, before this initiative was begun, 11 million
Venezuelans were registered to vote. By September, 2006, the number had
grown to over 16 million in a country of 27 million people.

How the Electoral Process Is Administered

The electoral process is administered by the National Electoral Council
(CNE). It's an independent body, separate from the Executive, Legislative
and Judicial branches of government or any private corporate interests. It's
comprised of 11 members of the National Assembly and 10 representatives of
civil society, none of whom are appointed by the President.

Elections are now conducted in Venezuela using Smartmatic touchscreen
electronic voting machines with verifiable paper ballot receipts that voters
can check to assure they confirm the vote they cast and then are saved by
the CNE to have as a permanent record of vote totals that can be used in
case a recount is needed. They also require voters to leave an electronic
thumbprint to assure no one votes more than once.

The machines work as intended leading the Carter Center to comment, based on
their observations of their use: "The automated machines worked well and the
voting results do reflect the will of the people." Further independent
studies verified the same thing including ones carried out by vote-process
experts at the University of California Berkeley, Johns Hopkins, Stanford
and elsewhere. Great care was taken in their design to eliminate any
possibility of tampering. It involves using a special technology splitting
the security codes into four parts that has been endorsed in numerous voting
security reports because it makes the machines used in Venezuela the most
advanced system in the world according to the European Union Election
Observation Mission in the country.

How Elections Are Now Run in the US

Contrast this exercise of real participatory democracy with the way things
are done in the US, especially since the fraud-laden election bringing the
Bush administration to power. A growing number of investigations have since
revealed how corrupted the electoral process has become, especially in
national elections, where a systematic effort has been made to
disenfranchise portions of those segments of eligible voters likely to
oppose Republican candidates or selected Democrats representing elitist
interests. Many techniques are used to do it starting with the privatization
of the electoral process that gives large electronic voting machine
companies total unregulated control over it.

In the 2004 national election, more than 80%% of the US vote was cast and
counted on these machines owned, programmed and operated by three large
corporations, most of which have no verifiable paper ballot receipts making
it impossible to have a recount as any done, if needed, will only verify the
first result being challenged. The process now is secretive and unreliable
run by private corporate interests with everything to gain if candidates
they support win, and based on what's now known, that's exactly what's
happened. As long as this system prevails, the US electoral process is
fraudulent on its face making a sham of the notion of the kind of free, fair
and open elections that are a hallmark of the way things are run under Hugo
Chavez.

It's what one observer, commenting on US elections, calls the "ultimate
crime" as the very bedrock of democracy depends on the right of the
electorate to exercise its will at the polls without it being subverted by
private or other interests. Its importance is what Tom Paine said about it
at the nation's founding: "The right of voting for representatives is the
primary right by which all other rights are protected. To take away this
right (as has happened in the US) is to reduce a man to slavery."

Subversion with electronic voting machine manipulation is only part of the
problem as investigations have also uncovered much more revealing a
systematic perversion of the democratic process. In the 2000 and 2004
national elections in the US, millions of votes cast were never counted that
included "spoiled ballots," rejected absentee ballots and others lost or
deliberately ignored in the count. In addition, there's been massive voter
roll purging, for a variety of reasons, that added up to one common
denominator - eligible voters disenfranchised were likely to vote for the
"wrong" candidates so they were denied the right to vote at all. In
Venezuela under Hugo Chavez today, every eligible voter can register and is
encouraged to vote without fear their vote cast will disappear, go to
another candidate or they will be purged from the voter roles. That's how a
true democracy is supposed to work, and in Venezuela today it does. In the
US it doesn't, and it shows in the results. It also shows in that half or
more of eligible voters here never bother showing up on election day
believing, with justification, their votes don't count.

Another major difference between the two countries is in Venezuela the
people are informed well enough to understand what the candidates stand for,
how their government serves them, and they're willing to actively engage to
keep their hard-won democratic rights and social benefits they won't give up
without a fight. In contrast, in the US, the public is lulled into believing
in an illusion of democracy and the rights of the people guaranteed under
one that don't exist anymore, if they ever did. Because of their apathy,
they're not in the streets like the people of Venezuela, their comrades in
Mexico, who aren't as fortunate, or the anti-Bush/Olmert masses comprising
up to half the population of Lebanon in the streets of Beirut demanding real
democracy, justice and an end to Western domination. Instead, they're home
or out shopping because they fail to understand unless they go there in
large enough numbers for the rights they don't, in fact, have, they'll never
get them.

Chavez's Goal to Build A Socialist Society in the 21st Century

Chavez first announced to the world his hope to build a socialist society in
the 21st century in Venezuela at the January 30, 2005 Fifth World Social
Forum. He wants a humanistic one based on solidarity, not the bureaucratic
kind that doomed the Soviet Union and Eastern European states where
governments were top - down with no participation of the people who ended up
ill-served. Later on, Chavez elaborated saying "We have assumed the
commitment to direct the Bolivarian Revolution towards socialism....a new
socialism....a socialism of the 21st century....based in solidarity,
fraternity, love, justice, liberty and equality" beyond the free-market
model based on exploitation of working people for the interests of capital.

The Chavez government has pursued these goals incrementally since it came to
power in February, 1999 following Hugo Chavez's election in December, 1998.
He promised Venezuelans his vision of a Bolivarian Revolution to free them
from what 19th century liberator Simon Bolivar called the imperial curse
that always "plague(d) Latin America with misery in the name of liberty."
His Movement for the Fifth Republic Party (MVR) got a peoples' mandate for
change at its outset to draft a new constitution that transformed Venezuela
from an oligarchy serving wealth and power alone to a model humanist
democratic state serving everyone based on solidarity and the principles of
political, economic and social justice.

He delivered in ways unimaginable in the US where essential
government-delivered services for the people are denounced as radical and
denied in a nation now dominated by a reactionary ideology and the notion
that only neoliberal market-based solutions are acceptable - even though
it's proved they don't work. Under this flawed model, government only works
for the privileged few that benefit under its law-of-the-jungle rules that
come at the expense of the great majority losing out the way it always
happens in a top-down society run by and for them. This is the state of
things today in the US, a nation where its founding principles have been
turned upside down and is now run by and for plutocrats with values
corrupted by false notions of fairness, equity and justice.

That was how Venezuela was governed before the age of Hugo Chavez. In the 28
years before he was first elected, the people suffered from deprivation,
neglect and indifference. Venezuelan inflation-adjusted per capita income
fell 35%% in those years, the worst decline in the region and one of the
worst in the world. Chavez halted the decline and turned it around as high
oil prices and a favorable economic climate lifted the nation's growth to
the highest level in the region following the crippling 2002-03 oil strike
and destabilizing effects of the short-lived coup deposing Hugo Chavez for
two days in April, 2002. Since that time, unemployment declined and the
crushing poverty level in the country fell from a high of around 62%% in 2003
to a level near 40%% today and falling.

Chavez, however, went much further by enshrining the principles of a
participatory democracy and its social revolution in the new 1999
Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. It mandates
revolutionary structural changes for political, economic and social justice
that include quality health care for all as a "fundamental social right
and....responsibility....of the state." It bans discrimination, guarantees
free expression Chavez's fiercest critics enjoy and use to the fullest
against him without recrimination, provides for housing assistance, an
improved social security pension system for seniors, assures support for the
rights of indigenous people, and requires quality education be made
available for all to the highest level that virtually eliminated
illiteracy - compared to the stated 20%% level here in the US according to
the Department of Education figures but which, in fact, is much higher and
increasing based on the best evidence of functional illiteracy among the
secondary student populations of the nation's inner cities.

That would now be unacceptable in Venezuela where Chavez post-election wants
to take his Revolution to the next level doing more than ever for his
people. Along with all of the above, the government additionally already
provides subsidized food for those in need, land reform, job training and
micro-credit. It's a country in which most of the productive capacity is
state or privately owned, but a great emphasis has been made to be
innovative and go in new directions, experimenting with the idea of
co-management with state-owned enterprises allowed to be jointly managed by
the workers in them. A major effort has also been made to expand the number
of cooperatives outside of state or private control, and since Chavez was
first elected the total number of them has grown from 800 to 100,000
employing 1.5 million people or 10%% of the adult population and rising.

Another of Chavez's top priorities since first taking office in 1999 has
been land reform. The country has long been run by rich oligarchs including
large land-owning ones that allowed 5%% of the largest landowners to control
75%% of the land and 75%% of the smallest ones to have only 6%% of it. Chavez
is trying to implement land reform legislation allowing underused land owned
by the latifundistas (the large rich landowners) to be redistributed to
landless campesinos who'll put it to productive use and improve their lives
in the process.

Chavez also wants to continue enhancing all the above-listed programs that
have improved the lives of his people including the many innovative social
Missions using the country's oil wealth to do it. His impressive electoral
victory gives him a greater mandate than ever to advance his Bolivarian
Project to the next level and his vision of socialism or social democracy in
the 21st century. It won't be a simple task as the power of the oligarchs
supported by the Bush administration, and what may succeed it, are powerful
obstacles in the way of social advance. So far he's achieved wonders for the
past eight years in the face of great odds, but much more needs to be done.
With the power of the Venezuelan people standing with him, not willing to
give up the great gains already gotten, Chavez is now looking ahead to
advance the country's social democracy well into the new century.

Hugo Chavez is now an empowered symbol and leader of a growing social
revolutionary populist movement slowly spreading in the region that needs to
be turned into an unstoppable juggernaut. It represents a hopeful and
promising alternative to generations of entrenched elitism backed by
military power along with oppressive US dominance and the poisonous effects
of the neoliberal Washington Consensus model savagely exploiting the Global
South for the interests of capital in the North. It's a way to be free from
the US-controlled IMF and World Bank debt-bondage demanding in return
punishing fiscal austerity, state-owned industry privatizations, social
neglect, the loss of organized labor rights in a system of market
deregulation benefitting the privileged alone at the expense of staggering
levels of poverty, deprivation and inequality for the majority. It's a way
to build a free society of, for and by the people unbeholden to wealth and
power. It's a way to reduce poverty and inequality and improve the lives of
ordinary people in ways never thought possible in the developing world until
Hugo Chavez had a vision and was able to implement it and begin its spread.

Chavez now has allies in Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Cuba,
Nicaragua, Uruguay and even Chile that still exists under the shadow of
Augusto Pinochet and his 17 year dictatorship that crushed the strongest
democracy in the region and from whose rule the country has yet to fully
recover, but hopefully has a chance under its new more enlightened leader.
They represent what author Tariq Ali refers to in the region as an "Axis of
Hope," and Chavez has now earned enough political capital to bring it closer
to fruition.

The momentum in Latin America is with Hugo Chavez and his allies if they can
seize it and take it to the next level. The chance for success has never
been better with the US more vulnerable than ever and staggering from its
loss of dominance in the Middle East and the forces arrayed against it there
showing they can stand up to the most powerful nation on earth and prevail.
It's a sign America is not all-powerful, is in decline politically and
economically and choosing an independent course is an alternative that can
work if enough nations unite and do it together.

The region's most dominant nations have already shown they can oppose
Washington and prevail. Following Argentina's IMF-imposed structurally
adjusted economic meltdown at the end of the 1990s, President Nestor
Kirchner got the financial markets in 2005 to accept his take-it-or-leave-it
offer of 30 cents on the dollar payment on the country's unrepayable
sovereign debt of around $130 billion and have to accept it in the form of
long-term, low-interest bonds.

Then, events at the November, 2005 Summit of the Americas in Mar del Playa,
Argentina sounded the death knell for the US-proposed Free Trade Agreement
of the Americas (FTAA) expansion of the disastrous NAFTA model because the
dominant Southern Common Market Mercosur countries in the region of Brazil,
Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Venezuela want no part of it signaling for
scholar Immanuel Wallerstein that "The Monroe Doctrine is dead. And there
are few mourners."

And yet another blow to US-promoted globalization came with the collapse of
the World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha (so-called "Development") Round
talks in July, 2006 because more developing countries now realize the
US/Western-one-way trade deals have been disastrous despite disingenuous
rosy promises of economic growth and prosperity that only delivered
increased poverty, deprivation and environmental destruction instead.

Before these agreements from hell were ever agreed to, average per capital
income growth in Latin America was 82%% from 1960 to 1980 (4%% per person, per
year). Once the notion of globalization took hold after 1980 based on the
Washington Consensus neoliberal model, the rate of income growth in the
region through 2000 fell to 9%% (less than half of 1%% per person, per year),
and since 2000 it dropped to 5%% - a stunning indictment of how so-called
"free-trade" US-style (that isn't "fair trade") is a formula for economic
ruin for those countries adopting it, and significant ones like Brazil,
Argentina, Venezuela, Bolivia and others in Latin America want no more of
it.

It remains to be seen going forward if this kind of momentum can continue,
gain strength with new allies working together for the common self-interest
of all to break free from the dominant US chokehold by asserting their
independence as Venezuela under Hugo Chavez has shown can be done and be
able to get away with it and benefit as a result.

Further success in Venezuela and elsewhere depends on breaking free from
what South African born and now activist and distinguished Bolivarian
Venezuelan Professor of philosophy and political science Franz Lee says must
be accomplished ahead: "(Getting) rid of all the five tentacles of
capitalist imperialism: exploitation, domination, discrimination,
militarization and alienation....in a class struggle against global
fascism." In Venezuela, the process has only just begun. Hugo Chavez has
taken up the challenge to move it ahead, but he'll need the support of other
enlightened leaders to boldly go with him where he's already gone and then
take it a lot further to achieve a peoples' victory over the forces that
have long held them down and denied them the equity and justice they
deserve.
_______

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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson