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are across the board, and though more pertinent in this election campaign,
can be said to be general problems in the PSUV.
Chavez’s candidates
Not only one of the main election slogans, (here in Merida: “Alexis
Ramirez, candidate of Chavez!”) the idea that the PSUV governor
candidates are associated with, and chosen by Chavez is a key political
strategy the PSUV has been using over the last few months.
It’s a stance that suggests the party leadership are unconfident their
candidates have merit on their own, and also that the PSUV’s objectives of
socialism, justice, economic and land reform and so on, have merits on
their own. It’s a dependence on the guaranteed victory the character of
Chavez brings, but it has also been used as a way to make the PSUV the
only “real” Chavista party, and to delegitimise other revolutionary, pro-
Chavez organisations and parties which haven’t dissolved into the PSUV,
such as the Venezuelan Communist Party (PCV), the Tupumaros
movement, and even unions and the Great Patriotic Pole (GPP).
As a member of the PSUV national executive, and also head of the
national assembly, Diosdado Cabello told the press yesterday, “Chavez has
just one candidate in each state. We can’t impose any candidate on our
allies, but what we ask of them is that they don’t say they are candidates of
Chavez, because they aren’t.” He also made the exaggerated claim that
“Socialist candidates [PSUV] will win in all 23 states on Sunday”.
The tactic aims at preventing a divided vote; as Chavez said before he
left for Cuba on Sunday, “Unity, Unity, Unity”, yet it is a unity that
excludes anyone who isn’t in the PSUV.
And then there is the big question of why, during a revolution, are
these candidates Chavez’s candidates and not the people’s candidates? For
Merida state, Chavez and the PSUV national executive, based far away in
Caracas, picked the unknown Alexis Ramirez for the candidate for
governor. Then they chose Rafael Ramirez, energy minister and president
of PDVSA and not at all familiar with Merida; an agricultural state and not
an oil one, in charge of the campaign. There was no consultation of PSUV
membership. While perhaps primary elections are not the best road, since
many registered members of the PSUV actually support the opposition,