In the same line, Scott Mainwaring and Timothy Scully assert that Venezuelan parties "encapsulate" major social organizations - including unions, students groups, and neighborhood associations. Those parties have survived so long due to the fact that they captured long-term loyalties of these social groups, facilitating thus encapsulation and exclusion of other political competitors. The authors claim that parties have been the central actors in Venezuelan democracy since its inception in 1958. Furthermore, top leaders of Acción Democrática and COPEI have long controlled the process of candidate election, and were the key actors in political campaigns (Mainwaring & Scully, 1995: 12-13).
But in the late eighties a consensus emerged among Venezuelan political leaders that those parties were too strong, too disciplined, and too centralized. Economic problems, and corruption charges attached to the two-party system ended up in the famous 1989 Caracazo, followed by the 1992 coup attempts. Encapsulation of social classes by oligarchic groups (or as they are called in Venezuela Cogollos) engendered political violence, and therefore military intervention as a poder moderador.
VENEZUELAN PARTY SYSTEM
The Venezuelan party system complies with the four necessary conditions of an institutionalized party system mentioned by Mainwaring and Scully. Namely, inter-party competition (electoral volatility), linkages to society, perceived legitimacy of parties and elections, and party organization. Moreover, parties are so disciplined and centralized as to control the process of candidate selection. They also have had, since their beginnings in the late 30's and 40's, strong linkages to society (Mainwaring and Scully, 1995: 17).
Before 1940, there were no significant parties in Venezuela. The twenty-seven year (1908-1935) dictatorship of Juan Vicente Gómez strangled every attempt to organize political parties, and especially political opposition to the regime. However, there existed what Michael Coppedge calls "embryonic organizations," and certain political order was taking form. Mainly students and intellectuals who later became the leaders of the country's major political parties, Acción Democrática and COPEI, led these organizations. The movement that saw the roots for the formation of future political parties was the "Generation of '28," La Generación del '28." Almost all the political leaders we will see in the Venezuelan political scene since 1940 were members of this organization (Velásquez, 1979: 34).
AD's initial organization began in the early 30's with the publication of the "Barranquilla Plan," which for the first time proposed the fight against the military caudillismo that controlled the management of public affairs since the country's independence (Velásquez, 1979: 34). But it was not until 1941, under the regime of Isaias Medina Angarita, that the party found legalization and formal organization (Velásquez, 1979). From this point onward Acción Democrática, joined with junior military officers, embarked on a struggle for power that ended up in the seize from power of Medina Angarita in 1945. The Adecos established a Revolutionary Junta that expanded political liberties, such as suffrage for men and women, literate and illiterate, propertied or not, etc (Coppedge, 1998, 192). This way, working in an organizational vacuum and form a position of power, the party began to establish its own hegemony in the national political realm (Coppedge, 193).
For COPEI, a conservative and catholic mentality political party, institutionalization came in 1946, under the AD government. It institutionalized as the major political opposition to the adeco government, occupying much of the remaining political space before it was filled up by other parties, achieving hence the so important second place in the new democratic political system (Coppedge, 193). Both parties became very pragmatic, and also the largest parties by far sharing 80-90% of the vote until 1989. Their hegemony found legitimacy in an establishment that the two parties jointly established over political life, which was reaffirmed by the "1958 Pact of Punto Fijo," and that lead to charges of partidocracia.
From the beginning AD was vertically integrated, with powerful links binding block and neighborhood to regional and national structures. Hence, the party encapsulated emerging social interests, giving groups like labor, students, professionals, or peasants a place in the party organizational scheme (Komblith and Levine, 1995: 41). The best example of AD's concentration of power was the 1948 military coup. The party concentrated so much power under Gallegos presidency - leaving other emerging parties at the edge of decision-making - that it encouraged military intervention in politics . AD had too much confidence in its vast electoral majorities and its alliance with the military (Komblith et al, 1995: 43). AD and COPEI have much in common, they both are multiclass parties, and have managed to build a durable popular base. COPEI, as well as AD, has also organized around a central party leadership (pp. 47).
Regarding party competition, Komblith and Levine mention four critical issue areas: 1) fragmentation was overcome, and a system dominated by two-party competition emerged (there has been a substantial growth in the number of candidates and parties seeking office across the years); 2) this competition has a particular character (the two parties combined have never had less than half of the total vote); 3) changes in the structure of each party's vote (the two parties joint domination reached 90% of the presidential vote by the late 80's); 4) the particular relation between the votes and representation in Congress (the number of parties gaining at least one deputy increased from four to eleven by the late 80's, but there continued to exist a long-term trend of controlled fragmentation and domination by AD and COPEI) (Komblith, 1995: 49-51).
Top leaders have long controlled candidate selection, fixing the place for each candidate in the party's slate. Due to the fact that legislative seats are allocated by proportional representation, location on the list is critical to election. Even though Venezuela uses a kind of proportional representation that makes it easier for minor parties to gain some seats through a national quotient, minority parties have relied on "additional seats" for their representation; while AD and COPEI have drawn seats from direct election (pp. 55). Nevertheless, the 1979 Electoral Reforms achieved to uncouple local from national elections, and made it easier for small parties to target resources and campaign efforts. This reform allowed parties such as MAS (Movimiento al Socialismo), URD (Unión Republicana Democrática), and MIR (Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria), to have access to legislative voting, and even to state governors' elections (Komblith, 57).
Since electoral rules in Venezuela greatly affect the number of major parties, the likelihood of majority governments, and the strength of party leadership, it is extremely important to analyze them here. The president was elected for a five-year term (in the new 1999 Constitution it changed to a six-year term) by plurality in direct popular elections, without any intervening role by an electoral college. President elections occurred simultaneously with congressional elections (this also changed in the new constitution, congressional elections occur every five years), and thus exerted a strong pull toward a two-party system, even though proportional representation was used in congressional elections (Crisp, 1997: 168).
Generally, parties are embedded in the electoral system in such a way that the personalistic appeal of individual candidates play no role in voters' choices. For example, voters made only two choices in national elections, a "color-coded card" representing each party with the party's name and a portrait of the candidate it supported, and a "small card" used to elect a party to congress. The parties were responsible for preparing closed list of candidates prior to the elections, so voters could only choose among parties, not among candidates (politicians' names). This selection mechanism obviously ensured a key role for party elites. The names on the ballot were the result of the party's closed primaries (secret vote by party members, but in Venezuela this meant secret vote by party leaders). The party elite was also responsible for the order in which candidates appeared on the list, which encouraged officials' obedience to top leadership. As a result of these rules, legislators have never had incentives to accommodate to a local constituency, but rather they had always been loyal to the elites who gave them access to Congress posts (Crisp, 169).
Deputies and Senators were both elected by proportional representation - before it was changed to unicameral system in 1999. Each state elected two senators, and the party that received the highest vote total got at least one of those seats. Crisp points out that the D'Hont system discouraged significant fragmentation, and single-party dominance, because of the difficulty of getting both seats (pp. 169).
Members of the congress are extremely disciplined by internal party regulations. Since votes are pooled within each state for candidates on a closed list, national-level party elites have strict control over who represents the label in congress. Consequently, members of congress defend party lines more than, or rather than, citizens' interests/demands. More importantly, anyone who voted against the party line in congress was expulsed from the organization (Crisp, 1997: 172). This electoral system created thus a perfect party discipline until the late eighties, when economic crisis emerged.
