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Revalidating Chavez - again
Being there for Venezuela's national referendum
By Valerie Busch-Zurlent

It was three a.m. Sunday, August 15, 2004. We were awakened from a restless sleep by a series of distant explosions and “Charge!” bugle cries initiating a litany of overlapping popular songs honoring Venezuela’s “Revolución Bolivariana,” “El Proceso,” and it’s tireless figurehead, President Hugo Rafael Chavez Friás, who has been accused by U.S. officials as being a dictator in waiting. The music was at once celebratory and edgy. This day Venezuelans would vote in a highly polarized national referendum. There were two options: “Si” to recall the president and hold new elections; “No” to revalidate Chavez and allow him to serve the remainder of his term. We were there to observe it.

“We” were the Midwest International Observer’s Delegation (MIOD), comprised of four Chicago delegates and one delegate from Minnesota, respectively representing Earth Charter Chicago, The Hot House, Chicago IndyMedia, and the Minnesota Anti-War Committee. MIOD was one of numerous non-governmental organizations, academics, and political personalities from various nations participating as international referendum observers under the auspice of Venezuela’s National Electoral College (CNE). Other observing bodies were the Carter Center and Organization of American States.

On any given day, Caracas is a captivating, vibrant, and politically charged capitol city. This particular morning the air had grown thick with tense anticipation.

While still in Chicago, I was repeatedly warned by a travel agent, who happened to be Venezuelan, of certain violence—especially where our hotel was located. In Caracas on Friday, a woman in the grocery line said people were stocking up in preparation for the expected civil war; on Saturday night the Venezuelan Armed Forces had secured our hotel. Two hours before the explosions began we were notified of a highly probable armed assault on Mira Flores, the plaza that is home to the capitol buildings.

The explosions were getting progressively closer. From our hotel balcony we gazed out at the massive high-rise apartment buildings across from our hotel in the Plaza Parque Central. A distant but unmistakably passionate “Viva Chavez!” echoed back and forth. Had he been killed? Eventually we were told that all the commotion was simply people announcing the time to get out and vote.

Wow! Preparing to vote at 3 a.m.! Never heard of that before, but in the big picture it really wasn’t so odd; this referendum, like so much of what has happened within Venezuela throughout the Chavez administration, has been unique.
This referendum marked the first time ever a sitting president was to face re-affirmation by the national electorate. The revocatory process, one that Chavez himself had advocated, was part of Venezuela’s new constitution.
It was apparent that for much of Venezuela’s poor (80% of the population) and its supportive middle class this referendum was about far more than retaining or dismissing Chavez. It was an opportunity to re-validate their process and the political and economic space they had been creating and securing through Chavez, within a previously exclusive political and economic area.

A bit of history
Chavez’s initial 1998 presidential campaign consisted of two arms, each embracing the poor and those hungry for a self-determined nation. One arm was formed by the three-pronged philosophies and teachings of Simon Bolivar, Simon Rodriguez, and Esquivel Zamora. The other arm consisted of Chavez’s repeated nation-wide tours to meet with and listen to the people’s frustrations and fears, ideas and dreams.

Pre-election polls indicated few thought he was a serious contender. Yet win he did, by a landslide, and in his inaugural address he declared, “Today we begin the fight!” “The fight” is for the political, economic and social reforms for which the Venezuelan people voted: the vision of a Venezuela that protects basic human rights to shelter, food, education and health care, and affords direct political participation in the design and formation of their communities as part of a sovereign nation responsible to its people.
In 1999 Venezuela began a process of rewriting its constitution. Approved by over 75% of the popular vote, the document was written through a participatory process in which popular, municipal, state, and federal sectors contributed and refined the articles that now serve as a guide and vision for the society they intend to create. It expands the representative form of democracy to include mechanisms and methods of a direct participatory process, acknowledges the rights of indigenous peoples to teach their languages in school and promote their culture, and guarantees housewives the right to a pension. Intellectuals worldwide laud Venezuela’s constitution as the most advanced of our time.

But not all were happy with “El Proceso.” Opposition efforts to destabilize and overthrow the Chavez administration began immediately. Many have been illegal. The pueblo-backed government has survived an initial $40 billion corporate disinvestment, a relentless 24/7 media campaign to discredit the government and instill fear in the general population, a U.S.-backed coup in April of 2002, and a three-month long oil production lockout that sabotaged the nation’s economic backbone. Each of these efforts not only failed to force Chavez from office, but instead strengthened the people’s and their government’s resolve.

As a result of the oil lockout, the Chavez administration was able to regain control of oil revenues previously leaking out of the country. These revenues are now used to pay down its external debt and fund projects for health, education for children and adults, small business and cooperative development, food security, and to promote independent, community based media. Economists predict 6% sustained growth over the next several years.
In the face of these defeats, the opposition and the opposition controlled non-profit SUMATE decided to take the legal route and managed to secure sufficient signatures to call a revocatory presidential referendum. U.S. taxpayers should note that SUMATE has been funded by the U.S.-based National Endowment for Democracy to the tune of $35 million via the U.S. Congress.

The referendum
The day of the referendum, election observers were dispersed throughout the nation to observe the electoral tables and speak with voters about their experience. Extremely long lines marked the day of the referendum. We’re talking three-hour waits for early birds. Electoral tables extended closing times twice to ensure full voter participation. People I spoke with during and after the referendum proudly reported waiting nine, ten, fifteen hours to cast their vote—often without a place to sit and in hot humid weather. The reason? High voter turnout and a new voting system.

Whereas 6 million is an average turnout in Venezuela, August 15 saw 10 million. Voting involved five steps. First came an electronic thumbprint registration, which was compared to other thumbprints collected that day to safeguard against double voting. Second, voters signed a registry book and provided an inked thumbprint. Next they cast their vote, which if electronic was followed by a printout to confirm that their vote was recorded correctly. This receipt was then placed in a box as the physical record. Finally the voter had their little finger marked with indelible ink, another safeguard against double voting.

The manner in which Venezuelans conducted this historic referendum was a gift to the world. Despite the impassioned climate they remained calm, gentle, and considerate as they waited to cast their vote. I witnessed no violent incidents and heard of only three. The last vote was cast August 16th at 4:15 a.m., with the people reaffirming their president and their process by a 60% majority.

After an audit demanded by the opposition, to which they refused to send witnesses, all three observatory bodies independently found no evidence of improper procedure, intimidation, or fraud. The opposition, which never recognized the validity of CNE observers, stated they would only accept the findings of the Carter Center. When the latter declared the referendum fair and transparent the opposition rescinded their validation as well. The opposition still claims fraud but has yet to provide any evidence to support their claims. The United States government took a week to acknowledge the validity of the referendum and continued to charge Chavez with superceding the democratic processes.

Venezuela’s opposition and the Bush regime will continue its overt and covert efforts to dismantle the Chavez administration. As U.S. citizens it is important that we demand of our elected officials that the U.S. stop interventionist foreign policy towards Latin America, respect the sovereignty and will of the Venezuelan people, and maintain a hands-off policy toward Venezuela on all levels.

The Venezuelan government has uncovered several covert U.S. plans to assassinate Chavez. The newest overt tactic to dismantle Venezuela’s government of, by, and for the people has been to exponentially expand the usual demonizing media on the international front. This is especially so here in the United States.

Much of the coverage is not true journalism but biased, agenda-driven “reporting” in the corporate media, an effort to manipulate the U.S. public to accept the concept that it will be okay for our government intervene in Venezuela’s democratic, lawful, and humanistic process. (Remember Iraq’s WMDs?) The strategy has been for high-ranking members of the Bush regime to claim that that although Chavez was democratically elected he does not govern democratically, that he is too friendly with Castro and is a “destabilizing force” in the region. For a good example of this study the cover of the April 11, 2005 issue of the National Review on this page.

Oddly, at a March 2004 conference on the New Latin American Left, noted leftist academics and practitioners asked the Venezuelan’s speakers, “What is Chavez? We can’t figure him out! Is he communist? Is he capitalist? What is he?” The only word close to accurately describing Venezuela’s process is “Bolivarian.” [see facing page] Venezuelans and their advocate Chavez have been making the road they walk by walking it, and others are increasingly seeing the beauty of that road.

Impressive numbers of Venezuelans, despite their lack of money, are well-informed, confident, politically astute, and active members of a society that emphasizes the education of the social being from the inside out. They speak of the value and love they have for themselves and their communities, the hope they have for their nation’s future, and their gratitude to Chavez for being their advocate.

Through tremendous effort, in the face of enormous odds, Venezuelans are achieving concrete results by transforming the energy once consumed by societal discontent and limited thinking into the fuel of hope and creative problem-solving. The Chavez administration has instilled within the people that to be pro-active participants in the building and maintenance of their society is both a right and an obligation at the very heart of what makes a democracy thrive. Not too shabby for a supposed dictator, eh?

Valerie Busch-Zurlent is an adult educator and member of Earth Charter Chicago. She is also a member of the Amada Libertad Bolivarian Circle and co-author of History of the Future that Belongs to Us (psuedonym Ottilia Robers.) You can reach her at valerie@terraincognito.com.