Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez has
won, yet again, the presidential elections on Sunday October 7, with a
comfortable margin of 54.84% against the 44.55% of his opponent Henrique
Capriles. This is another victory for the Bolivarian revolution which
should be used in order to carry out the revolution to the end.
Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez has
won, yet again, the presidential elections on Sunday October 7, with a
comfortable margin of 54.84% against the 44.55% of his opponent Henrique
Capriles. This is another victory for the Bolivarian revolution which
should be used in order to carry out the revolution to the end.
With
over 95% of all votes counted, Chavez received 7,860,982 votes, and the
candidate of the oligarchy and imperialism 6,386,155 votes. The turnout
was an amazing 81%, beating even the previous record of the 2006
presidential elections which saw a 74% turn out. This showed the
extremely polarised nature of this campaign, in which both camps
mobilised all of their supporters.
One of the main features of the election day was precisely the
massive level of participation. The Bolivarian campaign had made an
appeal for people to wake up early in order to vote, so as to achieve
such a clear result which would pre-empt any attempts of the reactionary
opposition to cry fraud.
A comrade from Venezuela reported how some started to queue outside polling stations even the night before. At 3 am the chavista wake
up call could be heard in working class and poor neighbourhoods in
Caracas and throughout the country. By the time polling stations opened
at 6 am, there were already long queues of people waiting to cast their
vote, and the situation continued during the day.
At 6 pm, polling stations were supposed to close, but Venezuelan
election rules say that as long as there are people waiting to exercise
their democratic right to vote, polling stations should remain open.
This was the case yesterday, with some polling stations remaining open
until 8.30, two and half hours after the established time.
By then it was already clear that the counterrevolutionary opposition
was becoming nervous. Capriles asked for all polling stations to be
shut by 6.01 pm. The reason was clear: in the upper class areas of
Caracas the polling stations were deserted, while in the working class
and poor areas hundreds were still queuing up to vote.
There was a report, for instance, of a polling station in Antímano,
Caracas (which voted 75% for Chavez), where 75% had already voted, but
there were still 800 people waiting in the queue. In general the turn
out in the more working class areas where Chavez got his biggest vote,
was between 3 and 5% higher than in the upper middle class and upper
class areas where Capriles won.
Even before the official closing time of the election, the opposition
was already preparing a campaign of dirty tricks. Rumours were
deliberately spread about so-called “exit polls” which gave Capriles an
advantage over Chavez’s, in some cases of even 10 percentage points.
These were aimed at creating the impression that Capriles was winning
and thus make any official results showing a Chavez victory doubtful.
Scandalously the Spanish right wing newspaper ABC published a huge
headline on their website announcing: “First exit poll shows Capriles
victory”.
This was the continuation of a continued barrage of propaganda in the
last few months which we have analysed elsewhere. On election day
itself, the “liberal” El País in Spain, one of the most vociferous in
its support for Capriles, published an editorial under the title of
“More than a vote – Venezuelans are choosing between two antagonistic
social models.”
It then described the election as a plebiscite over “the continuation
of the president’s autocratic regime … a model of government based on
personal charisma and the perversion of democracy”. In its Monday
edition (printed before the results were announced), it continued in the
same vein: “two opposite political projects are confronted: the
hegemony of populist caudillismo or the recovery of liberal democracy. The most trustworthy opinion polls show a technical draw.”
The Venezuelan presidential election was indeed the choice between
two models. Although the campaign of Chavez started on a very soft line
“Chavez is the heart of Venezuela”, it then became more radical and was
filled with a clear class content. In the last few weeks Chavez
concentrated in denouncing a document written by a number of economic
advisors to the Capriles campaign revealing their real plan. The
document was basically a massive austerity package, including cuts in
social spending, attacks on pensions and labour rights, etc.
Chavez correctly warned that the implementation of such a plan would
lead to civil war (as happened in 1989 when Carlos Andres Perez
implemented an IMF package of cuts). In his huge closing rally, which
attracted probably over two million people, he explained how “in 1989 in
the streets of Caracas the world revolution started, which has now
reached the streets of Greece, Spain, Portugal and the rest of the
world”·
The capitalist media twisted this and reported it as Chavez
threatening a civil war if he lost the election. But the masses
understood clearly what was at stake. The recent wave of protests in
Greece, Portugal, but above all Spain also played a role in mobilising
the Bolivarian masses of workers, peasants and the poor. They knew that,
beyond the rhetoric of a “youthful centre-left” candidate, Capriles
represented the same brutal attacks on the masses as Rajoy in Spain. The
effect was multiplied because in Venezuela there have been important
real achievements of the revolution which have raised the living
standards of the majority, their access to health care, education and
now also housing.
The fact that Capriles had to hide his real program and present
himself as a Lula-type social democrat, is an indication of how far to
the left the whole of Venezuelan public opinion has shifted over the
last 14 years of the Bolivarian revolution. His only chance was to fool
the people into believing that he was a supporter of the social programs
of the revolution. But the people were not fooled.
Despite all the criticism which there is amongst the Bolivarian rank
and file against the bureaucrats and careerists which are so dominant in
the upper echelons of the movement and in governorships and local
municipalities, the masses were mobilised, once again, by the threat of
the counter-revolution getting the upper hand.
Chavez won in 21 out of 23 states in the country according to the CNE
figures. There seems to be a dispute over who won in Miranda, where
Capriles was the governor. The latest official figures, with 98.3% of
the votes counted give Chavez a very narrow lead of only 743 votes out
of 1.5 million, which would mean 49.76% for Chavez against 49.71% for
Capriles. If this were to be confirmed, it would mean that the
Bolivarian revolution would recover important states which it lost in
the National Assembly elections, like Zulia, Carabobo and Anzoategui.
The opposition would only manage to keep the two Andean states of
Táchira and Mérida.
Chavez received over half a million votes more than he got in 2006
and nearly 1.5 million more than the PSUV got in the national assembly
elections of 2010, but it should also be noted that the opposition
increased its vote by 2 million since 2006.
As the official results were being announced by the National
Electoral Council, there was a doubt over what the opposition would do.
All along they had had a “plan B” ready. If the results were close they
would cry fraud, use the so-called “exit polls” to sow mistrust in the
results and come out on the streets to attempt to create chaos and
violence, to give the impression that Chavez had only won by sly means.
The Bolivarian masses were mobilised, waiting in streets and squares,
ready to respond to any provocations. But in the end the size of the
defeat was so big that the opposition realised they had no chance but to
recognise the defeat. Capriles’ acceptance of the election results does
not represent a demonstration of his democratic credentials. On the
contrary, what he understood is that to launch into an adventure at this
time could have had the opposite effect. It would further radicalise
the Bolivarian revolution and putting the power and privileges of the
ruling class in mortal danger.
The most intelligent sections of the ruling class understood all
along that they could not win this election against Chavez. They now
want to capitalise on the 6 million votes they got (their highest result
ever) and play the long game of hoping for Chavez’s illness to prevent
him from finishing his term of office.
They are also setting their eyes on the regional elections in
December. They know full well that there is no-one else in the
Bolivarian leadership who commands the same level of support and
authority amongst the masses and that while they mobilised to defend
Chavez and the revolution, it will not be so easy to do so in defence of
“Bolivarian” regional governors or candidates which in many cases are
seen as corrupt, careerist and alien to the genuine spirit of the
revolution.
This is an outstanding victory which reveals the fine class instinct
and highly developed political level of the Venezuelan masses. The
victory itself fills them with a sense of enthusiasm, of having defeated
the reactionary oligarchy once again. No doubt, the “Bolivarian”
bureaucracy” and the reformists will now say that the country is split
down the middle”, that the president “must rule for all Venezuelans,”
and will try to turn this election victory into a defeat.
The masses, as in 2006, voted decisively for socialism. In fact, one
of the central planks of Chavez’s program is precisely the idea that the
revolution must be completed. In his election victory speech from the
“people’s balcony” of Miraflores Palace, he said it clearly: “Venezuela
will continue its march toward the democratic socialism of the 21st
century.”
The deep current of dissatisfaction against the bureaucracy and the
reformists within the Bolivarian movement, which has been kept under
check during the campaign for fear of rocking the boat, will now
certainly come onto the surface. This current is represented by
movements like the National Movement for Workers’ Control and Workers’
Councils, the Bolivar Zamora Current (around the National Ezequiel
Zamora Peasant Front), the Socialist Guayana Plan and others.
For now, the main danger has been defeated by the masses, but a
revolution cannot remain indefinitely at the crossroads. Chavez has made
some inroads into the rights of private property, but the Venezuelan
economy and state apparatus remain fundamentally capitalist and are
still dominated by the 100 families of the oligarchy, inextricably
linked to foreign imperialism.
The only way to guarantee the conquests of the revolution on a
permanent basis is to expropriate the key points of the economy under
workers’ control, so that the country’s vast resources can be used,
under a democratic plan of production to satisfy the needs of the
majority. Such a move would signify the abolition of capitalism. It
would immediately face the wrath of the ruling class in Caracas,
Washington and Madrid, but would count on the sympathy of millions of
workers and peasants in Latin America and also in Europe which are
suffering the consequences of the crisis of the system.
The capitalist media is right on one thing: in Venezuela what is at
stake is the struggle between two opposite social systems – on the one
hand capitalism (which has proven its bankruptcy in the eyes of
millions), on the other socialism, that is, the common ownership and
democratic planning of the means of production.
It is time to move forward!
Socialism or barbarism!
Long live the Venezuelan revolution!
Long live the socialist Revolution!
