Image of the Day

Supporters rally for PSUV candidate for Merida, Alexis Ramirez. Their placards say
“Alexis – governor, loyalty always” (YVKE Mundial).
“We’ll deal with it when the state elections are over,” a comrade said
to me.
“Ah, but then there’s the mayoral elections in April,” I replied.
Internal debate and criticism of the PSUV and its current state
election campaign, as well as proper grassroots involvement would be put
off, and put off, because in this incredibly democratic country there is
always some kind of election coming up. Yet for how long will such
sacrifices be made in the name of defeating the capitalist opposition?
Aram Aharonian, writing in Rebelion last week, was right when he
argued that this Sunday’s state elections aren’t just “one election, they’re
23 different elections”, because each state has its own socio-economic
characteristics and different types of candidates running -from
bureaucrats, to an indigenous minister, to the military, to the well known
and the unknown.
However, all of the 23 PSUV candidates were chosen by President
Hugo Chavez and the national PSUV executive. The PSUV is a national
“machine”, as we are prone to call it here, and despite some regional
differences, its state campaigning has been conducted according to
national lines and a national strategy. So, although this article will focus
on experiences in Merida state, the problems discussed of treating PSUV
members like voters rather than activists, of isolating political parties and
movements that are not aligned to the PSUV and so on, are problems that