This alternative would dismantle the predominant and exclusive two-party system. According to President Chávez, this is the main cause of corruption of the Venezuelan political system. Through a Constituent Assembly, he proposed a popular electoral process to draft a new Constitution, name a new judiciary and put forth a new political project (Blanco, Habla 287). He often pointed out his intention to pressure for a restructuring of the political system through the formation of “popular assemblies” that in turn would conform to the National Constituent Assembly (178). According to Chávez, his goal was to achieve the Constituent either through pacific popular pressure, or through violent means (288). In fact, by 1996 Chávez’s plan was to produce a massive abstention for the Presidential elections of 1998 using an aggressive discrediting campaign against the traditional parties. By introducing his Bolivarian thesis, increasing popular support and achieving high levels of turnout abstention, he could articulate a request for a Constituent before the elections (297). Chávez’s objective was to capture and organize popular sectors, and prepare them politically and ideologically to displace the excluding political system in the state management (Francia 18). In his own words, “The strategy was to build popular assemblies across the country, and when most of the community get to actively participate, the old party leaders (AD and COPEI) will be forced to change or resign” (qtd in Francia 25).
Outcomes:
The achievement of a National Constituent before the 1998 Presidential elections may have had a high degree of success in attaining Chávez’s goals if he had counted on a much stronger party base. The politically inexperienced MBR would have embarked on an all-out war with the forty-year old Acción Democratica, AD and COPEI to defend the Constituent Assembly convocation. Chávez’s party was not in position to win this confrontation against those political veterans who had dominated the system during the previous forty years. The analysis of the possible outcomes reveals that this preference has a two-fold consequence:
First, the conscience-building process needed to articulate massive participation is not a spontaneous act. In order to organize the type of popular mobilization that Chávez sought, he needed politically experienced collaborators. Moreover, without a permanent, intelligent and creative effort from party leaders, popular activation was likely to fall apart. The Movimiento Bolivariano Revolucionario, MBR (Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement) was very weak in this respect. It had formed in 1982 as a military insurrection movement and its political contacts were very limited by 1996, relying mainly on the leftist factions. By early 1997, the party had lost its convoking power and lacked sufficient contact with the Venezuelan people across the country as to increase participation. President Chávez himself asserted that the movement (MBR) had gradually bureaucratized and become isolated from the masses (Harnecker, Hugo Chavez 202). In spite of the numerous Bolivarian Circles created in several states, there was not enough mobilization to open channels for citizen incorporation into the political discussion. There were numerous organizational and logistic difficulties and internal divisions among party members, which caused strong rivalries (Blanco, Habla 541). In addition, there were insufficient financial resources, which became a cause of discouragement for popular sectors incorporation (542). For these reasons, Chávez had no guarantee that his political and ideological leanings would be reflected in the new Constituent Assembly. If MBR members were incapable of transmitting and disseminate the fundamentals of Chávez’s project in a proper way, the National Assembly would not have attained Chávez’s major goals. Therefore, the full control over the “restructure of the political system” would have been out of his hands.
Second, it was the image of Hugo Chávez that attracted the masses. The party in itself could never count on the popular support in the years preceding the elections. Therefore, except for Hugo Chávez, the party had no leadership. In sum, the party had no maturity to control the legislative dynamic. More importantly, without a strong MBR leadership in the new Constituent, Chávez’s top position in the new government was not guaranteed. As a result, MBR would have been forced to make coalitions with other parties to gain the majority in the process of drafting a new Constitution. This feature would have been unacceptable to Hugo Chávez due to his rejection of traditional parties.
Risks:
1) Hugo Chávez repeatedly noted that the Constituent Assembly was the best tool to dismantle the prevailing political structure and achieve a truly revolutionary change in Venezuela (Chávez Hugo, Presidential 3). By 1996, limited popular activation, internal party divisions and weak political connections, the completion of this goal was at peril. Also, there was the risk of introducing a new type of “exclusive system” originated this time by the Chavistas factions. The MBR would have had to seek alliances with other parties to gain majority. Such alliances would mean political bargaining and this put in risk not only the drastic transformation that Chávez sought in the system, but also the active role of the military in the new polity.
2) There was a second risk, derived from the limited popular activation, which implied two issues: (1) Chávez’s own position in the new political system; and (2) his control over the transformation of the system through the use of the military. First, amid deep political opposition to Chávez’s militaristic drift, a strong support base was necessary to guarantee his immediate access to power. Again, by 1996, there was no such popular base support. In President Chávez’s own words, “It was not enough to wake up the consciousness of the Venezuelan people, it was urgent that they organized themselves and unified their popular force […]” (Harnecker, Hugo Chávez 200). The new National Constituent demanded a vast revolutionary-oriented team so as to achieve Chávez’s called for changes: recovery of legitimacy, efficacy and effectiveness of the state.
The second issue is conditioned by the first. In order to rely on the military as a transforming agent in the political arena, Chávez had to be in power. There was no guarantee that the military would gain an active role in the state apparatus if Chávez were not in a position of power to secure such a role. In sum, choosing this alternative would have meant a high risk for Chávez’s own path to power, and for his plans to incorporate the military into the socio-political transformation of Venezuela.
3) The Run for President and the Militarization of the Political System from a Position of Power:
In May 1997, Hugo Chávez announced the creation of the Movimiento Quinta República, MVR (Fifth Republic Movement) (Harnecker, Hugo Chávez, 201). The MVR political party emerged for a specific tactical juncture: to launch Chávez’s candidacy for the 1998 presidential elections. Given the impossibility of realizing political changes through a popular-led Constituent, Chávez decided to attain those changes through the top national leadership. This alternative granted him the possibility to publicize his project all over the country. Also, it allowed him to recruit party members on a personal level in order to control political participation. More importantly, by being elected President, Chávez could directly appoint military peers to key political positions and replace political actors by trusted officers. This way, he did not have to rely only upon the National Assembly to dismantle the old political structure; he could assure the desired “revolutionary change” by endowing the military a wide scope of political action. The appointment of military peers in key ministries and state institutions would allow Chávez direct involvement in specific issues of policy making.
President Chávez himself noted that there was an enormous lack of leadership in every sphere of the country (Blanco, Habla 175). This gap, he stressed, “had to be filled by convoking a new leadership: one that joins civil and military forces to deliver an effective government, with efficient policies” (176). Hence, as a presidential candidate, Hugo Chávez embarked on a year-and-a- half campaign to capture strong popular support. During his campaign, he could articulate party alliances with some leftist parties, which he came to consider “strategic and tactic” for the “electoral war” (561). Specifically, eight political parties - besides MVR - supported his candidacy such as MAS, PPT, PCV, etc., (Venezuela, Consejo Nacional “Estadísticas Electorales” 5). In addition, he and his new movement supported numerous military officers’ candidacies for governorships and majorships. From these candidates, only four won elections (Venezuela, Consejo Nacional “Cuadro Comparativo” 1-4).
Outcomes:
Through the increasing militarization of the state apparatus Chávez was able to introduce the political changes he wished with a relatively low level of conflict. The sense of corporateness shared by military peers, next to the relative support he enjoyed within the armed forces, facilitated the realization of structural changes in the Venezuelan political system. The appointing of trusted military personnel in key political positions such as ministries, budget directorates, public services, foreign embassies, etc., granted Chávez direct control over such posts. Furthermore, by allowing the military to run for public positions such as governors, deputies, or city mayors, he assured himself direct intervention at both the state and local level.
In addition, President Chávez’s “post-democracy” project entails a triple alliance -caudillo-army-people - and excludes all institutions and any other type of mediation other than the “people’s will” (Rodriguez 17). According to this project a president must govern with popular legitimacy, but also through the army, so that the political divisions inherent to representative democracies can be avoided (Caballero 51). This preference ensured Chávez’s first goal, to achieve a revolutionary change in Venezuela’s political system through active participation of the military in the public arena. Also, it increased the likelihood of attaining his second goal: transform the political and juridical structures of Venezuela. This alternative offered Chávez the possibility of supervising the incorporation of military men into the new Constituent process and ensuring their active participation in the legislative decision-making.
Risks:
The risks of this alternative are: 1) Public criticism. Criticism would escalate as Chávez was considered a violent and militaristic character. An intense campaign from the opposition sectors against these personal characteristics may have diminished his popular support, that by the end of 1998 had reached 80 percent (Keller 7). 2) Inefficiency in some areas of the public sector. This inefficiency could be caused by the technical inadequacy of the military in dealing with non-military tasks. The Venezuelan military had been professionalized in their original military missions for over forty years. More importantly, military officers had not intervened in political issues for over thirty years. They had remained under the civilian control of successive democratic presidents.
