Venezuela: an election lost is an army gained

Last month saw a tight photo finish in Venezuela’s parliamentary elections, with President Hugo Chávez’ PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela) gaining a 48% of votes cast to the rightwing opposition MUD (Democratic Unity Table) coalition’s 47%. Of course, the government had already pre-empted a bad result, and had pressurised the election’s overseers (the CNE) into re-drafting constituency boundaries in order to increasing the weight of votes in faithful chavista rural outposts. Consequently, despite their vote share, the MUD found themselves with a mere 65 seats – to oficialismo’s 98 – in the Asamblea Nacional.

However, the rightwing still considered themselves to be victorious, having breached the magic threshold of one-third of seats in the Asamblea, enabling them to block chavista proposals - which require a two-thirds majority in order to become law – for the first time since Chávez’ election in 1998. In reply to their triumphalism, Aristóbulo Istúriz – one of Chávez’ many sidekicks, who found himself addressing party members instead of the President himself – could only cryptically declare that the PSUV had “won by losing” (“ganado perdiendo”).

As for their part, the national and international media were almost united in applauding the result, with figures as diverse as Oliver Stone’s sidekick (and allround chavista cheerleader) Mark Weisbrot and The Economist both hailing the progress that has been made by Venezuelan democracy (after all, the opposition had boycotted the last elections in 2005). Another supposed sign of maturity in the Venezuelan political system to which many commentators pointed was the relatively high turnout on 26th September itself (“26S” in shorthand), with almost two-thirds of the registered electorate casting a vote, considerably more than in the previous elections in 2005 (which, of course, was affected by the abstention of the opposition), as well as the ballot which preceded them in 2000.

However, while a cursory glance at the statistics may seem to reinforce the view of Venezuelan politics as a two horse race, I suspect that disappointment is being felt on both sides of the divide. After all, millions and millions of Venezuelan bolívares and US dollars had been pumped into the circo electoral (electoral circus), including a fair proportion of the state’s coffers, creating a feverish – and highly partialised - level of political saturation on TV, the radio, newspapers and every building throughout the country from about June onwards. In the weeks leading up to the elections, the madness intensified, as the arterial roads of Venezuela’s cities were trawled from dawn till dusk by pickup trucks blasting out “salsa chavista” and “merengue escúalido”, accompanied by bikini-clad girls and escorted by goons on motorbikes.

And indeed, much like with an actual circus, the Venezuelan general public merely gawped at the overblown, shameless spectacle in front of them. In fact, while the exaggerated theatrics of Venezuelan politics have managed to compete with baseball and telenovelas for their attention (since the early days of chavismo, at least), most Venezuelans spent the week leading up to the elections stockpiling food and alcohol and organising gatherings for 26S, ‘just in case something happens’. Chávez himself added to the paranoia by claiming that the PSUV were going to “demolish” the opposition, and by claiming that he had heard rumours that they were planning to “guarimbear” (attempt to destabilise the rule of law). In the end though, election day saw Facebook mostly full of folk making last minute plans while lambasting the longheld custom of assigning a “día seco”, in which the sale and purchase of alcohol is prohibited. The mobilisations in response to the results were small – especially by PSUV standards – and mostly peaceful. Rather tellingly, the total number of voters who abstained (over 6 million people, at around 35.5% of the electorate) is larger than the number who voted for either the PSUV (5.44 million, or 31%) or the MUD (5.33 million, or 30.4%).

Of course, now that the charade of electoral democracy has passed without incident – at least for another year or so – attention turns back to real politics and their power structures, a point that was neatly exemplified by Chávez in his first “¡Alo, Presidente!” TV broadcast following the results. Grasping the nettle in a fashion that successive British PMs have failed to achieve vis a vis Afghanistan, he called for the “acceleration” of the evolution of the allegedly 150,000-strong, civilian Milicia Nacional Bolivariana, stating that “they must be armed...so that they can [start] patrolling and [offering] security to the population”; a commitment to extend and further deploy his henchmen, who can already be spotted on Caracas’ streets.

However, the worst was yet to come, with the implementation of the Law of Military Conscription, passed last October in the Asamblea and covered in El Libertario #58. The law establishes that all Venezuelans between the ages of 18-60 must register with the authorities in order to undergo military service of a hitherto unconfirmed nature. Those who fail to comply by the 21st October will be fined 780BsF (around £55, or 3 weeks’ minimum wage). There are also fines for those who fail to update their details, as well as employers who employ anyone who isn’t registered.

Of course, the role of military service – as an intensely hierarchical and highly structured school of subservience to authority figures - in reinforcing ideological assimilation and closing spaces of free thought and dissent is evident, and it is presumably for this reason (more than the somewhat thawed phony war with Colombia) that the law was passed. Moreover, in a country whose folk value carbohydrates, cold beer and luxury, and whose idea of a holiday is indulging in all three at the beach, the very suggestion of military conscription has not garnered much sympathy (hence the timing of its publication - a week after elections). A number of individuals and groups have publically criticised the law, not least because it contravenes the Constitución Bolivariana (designed – of course - by the very same regime, not 11 years earlier) on several counts. Talk is afoot of a campaign of refusal to register, which is surely already happening de facto within Venezuela’s over-populated barrios, independently of any outside agitation.

On the other hand, Venezuela also suffered an estimated 19,000 homicides in 2009, plus literally countless kidnappings and armed robberies, and offering target practice and free access to weapons to the populace appears almost suicidal on the part of the ruling class. Whether national service will act as a disciplinarian chloroform for the discontent that is effectively universal outside of the country’s small elite, or provide further means with which illustrating it (be it collectively, or - as has been the case thus far - individually), remains to be seen. What can be sure is that it will further desensitise a generation who have learnt to expect violence in their homes and communities.