The Significance of Venezuela's Parliamentary Elections

On Sunday September 26th Venezuelan's voted on a new parliament. Hugo Chavez's Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) won a clear majority, winning 98 of the 165 national assembly seats, short of the two-thirds needed to easily pass legislation. In the Latin American Parliament, the PSUV won 6 out of 12 seats. The National Electoral Council reported a record turnout for the elections, over 66% of eligible voters voted. The headlines of the day was the seats gained by the right-wing, the Mesa de Unidad Democratica (MUD). Although, the elections show that the majority of Venezuelans support Hugo Chavez and the PSUV, it also reveals that the right-wing is gaining ground. A right-wing whose platform is staunchly anti-Chavez, pro-business, and which we should have every reason to suspect is being funded by Washington D.C.

The results signify an increasing class and political polarization in Venezuela. The battles between Chavez and the MUD are about to get stormier. With a stronger voice in the national political scene, the right-wing will begin to undermine Chavez' attempt to legislate reforms and his vision of "Socialism for the 21st Century". A battle that will ultimately culminate in 2012, when Chavez will seek another presidential election.  

The results also put in question the strategy the PSUV has taken to organize mass working class support for Chavez. As has been the case since he was first elected in 1998, the terms of the debate are: are you for the Bolivarian Revolution or against it? And since Chavez is the leader of the movement, even non-presidential elections feel like referendums to his presidency. Moreover, the right-wing strategy is also Chavez centered, with no real alternatives besides anything anti-Chavez and return to pre-1998 Venezuela. The right-wing still has not claimed it's legitimacy after it's failed 2002 attempted coup. So how do you explain MUD's gain in the elections? The economy.
The economic situation in Venezuela, i.e. oil prices and the world recession, have had a devastating impact on many social programs. An example is the national healthcare system which is on the brink of collapse. Furthermore, the massive bureaucracy around the Chavez government and the core of the PSUV, a party which claims six million members, is becoming a constant frustration for ordinary Venezuelans. Also telling is the way Chavez has handled the indigenous movement in Zulia, where they have been fighting the take over of their lands by a state owned coal company. He has referred to them as "counterrevolutionaries", which is reminiscent to how Evo Morales dealt with striking miners in Bolivia. For the last six years, Chavez was able to use oil money to fund important social services to tackle poverty, with adequate healthcare and free education, but with the world recession, and a looming double-dip recession, it seams like his ability to do so has been grounded to a halt. The effect of this will be the decline of working class support.
Chavez subscribes to a Stalinist idea, albeit with Latin American characteristics, of socialism, which to the PSUV means state-ownership of basic industry. However, an always important question to ask is who will control the state and by what means? Will it be Chavez "representing" the working class, or the workers directly controlling the means of production? We must remember the import lessons of Chile 1973 and Allende's flawed parliamentary road to socialism, you cannot legislate socialism or create a revolutionary movement from the top-down, but the only way to actually fight for a new society is through working class revolutionary self-organization.