MAS and the Causa R in Regional Power
Ellner, Steve
As the resources and prestige of Venezuela's central government continue to decline, regional government is slowly beginning to challenge national politics as the key arena of decision-making and...
...While a simple alliance of MAS-Convergencia, the two principal partners in the government, would certainly be manageable, Convergencia would view with disfavor MAS' efforts at building bridges with the Causa R, which is strident in its opposition to the Caldera government...
...In a program of the latter type in Aragua, the state government has planned new housing for the poor, creating the necessary infrastructure and selling building lots, while leaving the actual construction of the houses to individual families...
...5. Francisco Guacaran, Causa R state deputy, personal interview, Barcelona, March 9, 1995...
...Caldera has done right in not accepting the extremes of decentralization...
...Shortly thereafter, at the MAS national convention, Ochoa Antich proposed to federate the party internally by limiting the national leadership to state-appointed representatives...
...The struggles that leftist candidates had to endure in order to take office set the tone for their three-year terms in office...
...Relations between traditional power holders and incoming anti-corruption reformers have been tense from the outset...
...Gramsci might have approved of MAS' electoral inroads at the regional level...
...Another, Irene Sez, a former Miss Universe, is an independent who has multiparty support in her bid for reelection this December...
...Upon assuming office in 1989, Tablante and Velisquez took the lead in organizing conventions of the nation's governors...
...The effort to neutralize these hostile sectors by coming to terms with the more enlight0 2 NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 40REPORT ON LOCAL POLITICS ened members of the local establishment-and specifically the appoint- MAS' reg ment of family member Manuel Capriles as secretary general of the approac governorship-was seen as a master enhance stroke...
...On the one hand, as progressive national legislation is rescinded in the name of the neoliberal restructuring of the central state, decentralization can be a first step toward privatization...
...Carlos One state deputy who attended the last the MAS gov meeting underlined its openness and informality: After the first meeting, the 300-odd delegates were asked to reach an agreement among themselves as to who would drop out in order to facilitate deliberations at the next assembly...
...On the positive side, the Causa R has sent out signals to MAS that it is ready to drop its rigidly antiunity line...
...In MAS, the articulation of local strategies and experiences with national needs and policies has been equally problematic...
...In the state of Sucre, MAS' gubernatorial candidate Ramon Martinez locked himself in the governor's palace and under the threat of an assault by an AD-organized squad allegedly under the direction of the state police, declared, "the only way they will take me out of here is dead...
...In contrast to MAS presidential candidate Petkoff's promotion of local candidates in 1988, the Causa R's legislative candidates in 1993 took a backseat to presidential candidate VelAsquez, on whose coattails many of them were elected...
...ed coups whicl The left's success at the local level is a result of its 1992 impeachrr embrace of the movement toward political decentral- AD on charger ization and electoral reform which swept the nation in presidential can the 1980s...
...Mutual animosity was particularly pronounced in Bolivar after 1989 when AD threatened to use its two-toone majority in the state legislature to alter Andres Velasquez' proposed budget and at the same time oust him from the governorship...
...The left scored even more impressive gains in the state-municipal contests in 1992 and 1993 when MAS gubernatorial candidates won-or credibly claimed to have won-in seven states, and the Causa R emerged victorious in Bolivar and the city of Caracas...
...Eventually, Velbsquez defied the legislature by putting his original budgetary program into effect and taking the matter to the Supreme Court, which decided in his favor...
...Party leaders hint that they will no longer condition electoral pacts with MAS on its abandonment of the Caldera Administration, pointing out that the December elections reflect largely local and state issues, and not national ones...
...9 st( le The left must evaluate its experiences in local and regional government, and design a coherent and fairly uniform strategy for local-state rule...
...In the name of decentralization, MAS' state leaders have refused to accept national evaluation, let alone supervision, of key policies and decisions...
...The model of the parochialization of Caracas is derived from Causa R-run Ciudad Guayana in Bolivar, where an immense room in City Hall of about 15 by 15 meters has been furnished with tables, chairs and bulletin boards, allowing as many as ten community groups to meet simultaneously, some formally and others informally...
...The district taking in the city's center (which retains the name Caracas) is governed by the Causa R's Arist6bulo Isturiz, who in 1992 upset AD's future presidential candidate Claudio Fermin...
...5 Causa R activists point out that the community assemblies organized by the governor in Bolivar and the mayor in Caracas are generally less tedious than these nominating sessions...
...See "Local Roads to Power," p. 39...
...Tablante and Veldsquez have promoted creative and novel programs in areas such as health, education and housing...
...The Causa R has wholeheartedly thrown itself into the fight for the devolution of powers to the localities, while the MAS leadership has been more cautious...
...MAS will attempt to balance two concerns in its selection of candidates for the state and municipal elections to be held in December of this year...
...The state has also encouraged the establishment of foundations, run mainly by medical personnel, to administer hospitals or specific operations within them...
...Beyond these initial perceptions of success, an analysis of MAS and Causa R municipal and state governments inevitably raises one key question: Is the major difference between these administrations and their AD-Copei counterparts one of greater efficiency and less graft (as many assumed at the time of the first separate municipal elections in 1979) or has the left designed and implemented distinct political projects at the local level...
...In Bolivar in 1989, and in four states and Caracas three years later, the Causa R and MAS mobilized support on the streets to defend their electoral victories which AD and, in one case, Copei refused to recognize...
...Tablante's defenders point out that more conservative entrepreneurial groups are well-represented in Aragua and that the army high command has a strong traditional presence as well...
...Three marathon sessions were held, the first lasting almost 24 hours...
...The message was clear: the working class has the final word...
...The opposition accused Governor Tablante of promoting the proliferation of shantytowns, since many of the houses, at least initially, were mere shacks with corrugated metal roofs...
...The growth and electoral successes of MAS in the provinces obey a dynamic which is unique for any major party in Venezuela...
...The last meeting was held on a beach on the Caroni River in an area cordoned off by cars...
...In 1989 MAS' Carlos Tablante was elected governor of Aragua, and the Causa R's Andrds Veldsquez triumphed in Bolivar...
...Finally, Nuevo Sindicalismo [the Causa R's trade-union movement] stepped in and stated, 'now that it is evident that the selection of a candidate is not forthcoming either here in the assembly or by the cogollo [national leadership], we will impose ours,' and they insisted on the nomination of [ex-steelworkers' pres- ident] Victor Moreno...
...Indeed, the slogan, "The Causa R: Your Reason to od deal of resonance after years of mass Il abstention of over 50%, two attempth raised quasi-radical banners, and the lent of President Carlos Andr6s P6rez of s of corruption...
...National victories invariably spill over to the congressional, state and municipal electoral contests...
...ew political actors who emerged at the a consequence of the reforms were VOL XXIX, No 1 JuLY/AUG 199537 Steve Ellner is director of the Research Center for Administrative and Economic Sciences of the Universidad de Oriente in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela...
...These up-andcoming figures in MAS were given a boost in the 1988 campaign by the party's presidential candidate Teodoro Petkoff who on the stump reserved a major part of the limelight for the party's congressional candidates...
...In the latter three, MAS was on the winning side...
...An additional barrier is the intent of several MAS chapters to buck the party's official line by allying with Copei against AD, allegedly the more corrupt of the two...
...The 1993 election of adidate Rafael Caldera with the support all parties, finally put an end to uninter,ei rule, and may have also given the eathing space...
...As a result, the party has suffered numerous defections in state legislatures where it had a significant representation or a swing vote...
...Like Ist0riz, other mayors in the Caracas metropolitan area depart from traditional molds and feel no need to be deferential toward the pow- ers-that-be at the national level...
...With control of five state governments and the separated muni city of Caracas, and ministerial participation pie, leftist partit at the national level, the Venezuelan left has cil seats-then overcome its long-standing role as outsider and theo- conveying the retical critic with little or no policymaking influence...
...But he would certainly turn over in his grave at the prospect that the very successes of regional organization and governance could rule out taking power at the national level...
...In Caracas, Mayor Isttiriz has attempted to reactivate the city's dozen or so district councils, called parochial sectors, which up until 50 years ago had a rich life of their own...
...This strategy was particularly effective in the state of Bolivar where the party parlayed its worker influence at the huge Orinoco Steelworks (SIDOR) into votes in the 1989 gubernatorial election and after that consolidated its support Tablante, ernor of Aragua...
...Istdriz spends half of his time in community assemblies," says one Causa R city-council representative approvingly...
...69-70...
...While MAS managed to bring the party's 22 mayors and four governors together for the first time last December, the result was characterized by meeting organizer David De Lima as "an event which for all practical purposes did not 6bulo lstOriz (second from left) occur...
...2 The Presidential Commission for Reform of the State (Copre), created by President Jaime Lusinchi in 1984, provided yet another opening for the left when in 1989 governors and mayors were elected for the first time, and a law mandating direct election of individual congressional candidates was passed...
...AD did not relinquish its traditional strongholds without dogged resistance...
...occur, b Indeed, MAS has been a victim of the very decentralization which brought to the fore regional leaders who have so ably vied for control of one third of the nation's governorships...
...Discussion in the assemblies "revolves around the sewage and water-pipe systems, and potholes," says Tello Benitez, a former steelworkers' secretary general, "so that militants of AD, Copei and other parties for once forget about their partisanship and miraculously talk a common language...
...s The most notorious case of alleged insularity is the alliance that Tablante fashioned with Aragua's elite Capriles family...
...o Indeed, MAS 'ft) celebrate 1992 election results...
...Much more than MAS, the Causa R has promoted popular, rank-and-file participation in decision-making...
...The plan, however, was voted down by an overwhelming majority of delegates who feared that the party's already decentralized structure would fatally unravel...
...While at first these funds had virtually no strings attached, now the governorship requires the city to spend 25% of the allotment on development of the city's administrative capacity...
...The success of charismatic local leaders has generally been translated into organizational gains in their respective states...
...Their performance in these state the growing pi and city administrations-more than their discourse on incompetent, a national issues-will determine whether the country's 1993 campaign two major leftist parties, Movement Toward Socialism Vote" had a go (MAS) and the Radical Cause (Causa R), continue to rioting, electoral grow both in the electoral arena and in civil society...
...Indeed, regional government has slowly begun to challenge national politics as the key arena of decisionmaking and participation...
...With MAS' regional approach, it was only a matter of time before local leaders attempted to gain control of the party's national leadership...
...As the resources and prestige of Venezuela's central government continue to decline, regional government is slowly beginning to challenge national politics as the key arena of decision-making and participation...
...art of the answer lies in the steps taken by MAS and Causa R governors toward decentralization...
...Outside Bolivar and Caracas, however, the Causa R is lacking in local leaders who can match Velisquez-or even Istdriz-in charisma and popular appeal...
...Tablante's supporters also point out that since his first term in ability of office when he seemed to believe he could govern without his own party, leaders to he has drawn closer to MAS and has power w distanced himself from local interest groups...
...7. Benitez, February 20, 1995 8. Freddy Diaz, MAS national leader, personal interview, Caracas, February 21, 1995...
...The Capriles control the main newspaper, El Siglo, and their dozens of construction firms have received the lion's share of the funds earmarked for public works in the state...
...Some of them were nominated as candidates in hopes of reaching out beyond the traditional left in order to further Veldsquez' chances...
...he national leaders of both MAS and the Causa R are set on achieving two overriding political objectives: dislodging AD and Copei from power at all levels and, in so doing, deepening the nation's democracy...
...The MAS national leadership, however, overruled its state chapter, and pursued the matter in the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) and then the Supreme Court...
...This lesson was not lost on the national leadership, which subsequently questioned these pacts on the grounds that the party had lost prestige, credibility and votes...
...A major step in that direction was last year's election in internal primaries of Enrique Ochoa Antich as secretary general...
...In Caracas, the Causa R's three union foci are the recently privatized telephone company, the municipal electric company and the subway system...
...Although not opposed to associations with foreign capital on principle, particularly those involving non-conventional technology, the MAS national leadership objected to various provisions such as the one in which unresolved disputes would be remitted to the court of the Chamber of Commerce of Paris located in New York, thus bypassing the Venezuelan judicial system and slighting national sovereignty...
...in Commonweal, February 15, 1980, pp...
...2. See Steve Ellner, "Venezucommunism: Learning the Lesson of Chile...
...6 s it articulates a vision of regional and national politics, the Causa R's modus operandi is to establish beachheads in key unions and neighborhoods, and spread out from there...
...Likewise, MAS and the Causa R made significant inroads on the political map, though not without great struggles against a political establishment reluctant to give up power...
...NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICASREPORT ON LOCAL POLITICS In a program designed to fortify municipal government, Tablante has allotted the municipal governments about twice as much money as he is obliged to by law...
...Although several AD and Copei elected officials have played active roles in promoting decentralization, MAS and the Causa R have plainly been in the forefront...
...Selection of gubernatorial candidates is no light matter...
...The receptivity of these governors is particularly significant because the 1989 decentralization law that governs the process leaves much of the substance up to the initiative of individual states...
...The party's Tello Benitez says he does "not believe it was a mistake [in 1993] for us to have centered efforts on the figure of Andr6s Veldsquez at the expense of our local candidates because we really felt he had a good chance of winning...
...This includes computerization, the creation of a treasury department, and the drawing up of a tax list of real-estate property...
...4. Bernardo Alvarez, Causa R city-council member, personal interview, Caracas, March 13, 1995...
...Ochoa Antich was backed by Tablante and other MAS governors and major gubernatorial aspirants, but lacked any support from the party's national leaders, possibly because he lambasted them as "bureaucrats" and "perennial losers...
...Nevertheless, Caracas mayor Ist6riz' personal popularity ratings are higher than his actual performance...
...The Causa R's fervent belief that discussion can solve all differences was well-demonstrated by the nominating process for its gubernatorial candidate for this December's election in Bolivar...
...SE VOL XXIX, No 1 JuLY/AUG 199539 VOL XXIX, No 1 JULY/AUG 1995 39REPORT ON LOCAL POLITICS Nevertheless, this style of lengthy debate lacks formal mechanisms of decision-making and thus sometimes leads to disenchantment...
...Reruns were eventually held in Lara, Sucre, Delta Amacuro and Barinas...
...On questions of style, strategy and internal organization, however, the two parties are quite different...
...1 By the late 1980s, the declining resources and prestige of Venezuela's central government enhanced the applicability of the local strategy beyond what Gramsci could have imagined...
...In addition, the Causa R boasts of its anti-party discourse, its go-it-alone approach, and its VOL XXIX, No 1 JULY/AUG 1995 41REPORT ON LOCAL POLITICS intransigent opposition to Caldera, who it claims has fallen into the arms of AD and powerful financial interests...
...3. Jose G6mez Febres, MAS national deputy, personal interview, Caracas, March 14, 1995...
...The inhabitants [of the state-planned communities] do not have to worry about basic services and can therefore dedicate themselves to upgrading their housing...
...In contrast, MAS' electoral focus is its local and state candidates...
...In the 1993 elections, the party swept all ten of the state assembly districts and triumphed in the three largest cities-Ciudad Bolivar (the state capital), Ciudad Guayana and Upata...
...Such a response was consistent with the Causa R's concept of participatory democracy, but it was also a political imperative given the recalcitrant opposition of AD and, to a lesser extent, Copei state deputies...
...Petkoff, in a departure from MAS' previous campaign policy, went so far as to admit that he had no chance of winning, and urged uncommitted voters to split their ticket in favor of the party's congressional candidates...
...The secretary general of MAS in Aragua, Jos6 G6mez Febres, defended the program, saying "it is a lot cheaper and more effective to lay out pipes and build roads prior to settlement than following a spontaneous land invasion...
...Mama Arepa," for example, is a hot-lunch program in which women are contracted in impoverished areas to prepare arepas-Venezuelan cornmeal sandwiches-for school children...
...On the other hand, in has states where the party is weaker, it will forge the alliances with progressive forces to dislodge the mainstream parties, AD and Copei...
...More recently, however, all 22 state governors have participated, passing resolutions on issues that concern them all: acceleration of the process of decentralization, allocation of 50% of the money collected under the value-added tax to the states, and central-government payment of all debts to its employees prior to the transfer of authority to the states...
...MAS and the Causa R in Regional Power 1. See Steve Ellner, Venezuela's Movimiento al Socialismo: From Guerrilla Defeat to Innovative Politics (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1988), p. 23...
...One foundation offers poor people access to such expensive services as tomographic and ultrasound exams in the general hospital of Aragua's capital city, Maracay...
...Indeed, the MAS vote has declined in several states where the party endorsed Copei politicians who went on to become leading figures with a broad appeal...
...MAS leader Teodoro Petkoff defends this cautious approach as far preferable to that followed by former President Carlos Andr6s P6rez "with all his empty rhetoric which served as a prop for neoliberalism...
...Never easily intimidated, the Causa R responded by calling assemblies in localities throughout the state in hopes of generating active support for the party's budgetary allocations...
...Since the first gubernatorial elections in 1989, some elected governors have become key figures in their states, towering over their respective political parties...
...VOL XXIX, No 1 JULY/AUG 1995 37REPORT ON LOCAL POLITICS scores of makeshift electoral groups-many inspired by the nation's burgeoning neighborhood movement-who fielded local candidates...
...He is the co-editor of The Latin American Left: From the Fall of Allende to Perestroika (Westview, 1993...
...Ochoa's goal is more easily proclaimed than achieved...
...Venezuelan leftists have successfully applied the vision of Antonio Gramsci, the Marxist political theorist who inspired the Italian Communist Party's democratic turn to regional politics, and its effective administration of local and state gov- ernments after World War II...
...In the state of Portuguesa, MAS' state organization conceded defeat in order to avoid a bloody showdown between security forces and an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 supporters on the streets...
...After a Municipal Governance Law of 1978 of a host of sm...
...City Hall has provided each one with an engineer and an architect, and is beginning to allocate funds directly to a five-member parochial board, designed to administer the district councils in conjunction with city government...
...The delegates to the sessions were neither formally chosen by, nor even officially enrolled in the Causa R, in accordance with the party's open membership policy...
...Nor do the two parties see eye-to-eye on the question of decentralization itself...
...6. Tello Benitez, Causa R national leader, personal interview, Caracas, February 20, 1995...
...Indeed, the party has played up its success in Bolivar for everything it is worth and neglected the development of local leaderships elsewhere...
...In the case of AD and Copei, for example, the presidential candidate is the party's driving electoral force...
...Not only did the assembly fail to reach a consensus, but the party's national leadership was polarized between one aspirant...who was supported by Andr6s Velisquez, and the other...supported by [party secretary general] Pablo Medina...
...As junior Victorious Causa R candidates Arim partners in the federal gov- and Andrds Velasquez (third from ernment, many MASistas have been sympathetic to President Caldera who has insisted on greater deliberation prior to the transfer of authority to the states, a policy which has earned his Secretary of Decentralization the unjust pejorative "Secretary of Centralization...
...the pal This localistic spirit is also evident in the state of Sucre where MAS Governor Martinez, anxious to boost the state economy, lobbied for ratification of a megaproject involving the exploitation of natural gas by a consortium consisting of Exxon, Shell and Mitsubishi...
...On the other hand, decentralization can stimulate programs favoring the poor, and generate a more active and participative role in their implementation...
...On the one hand, it will push hard for its gubernatorial candidates in those seven ii I rt states where the party has already proven ona I itself at the polls, having previously pulled in over 25% of the vote...
...MAS, for its part, not only holds open primary elections to choose its candidates-as do AD and Copei on occasion-but also holds membership-wide elections for party authorities, which is unique in Venezuela...
...rupted AD-Cop system some br Among the n local level as cipal from national elections, for exames effectively campaigned for city-counthe only elected municipal offices-by simple, non-ideological message that they were more efficient and less corrupt than the country's traditional centrist parties, Democratic Action (AD) and the social-Christian Copei...
...Some of the bathers engaged us in discussion...
...7 Benitez, however, recognizes that the Causa R's presidentialist strategy-based on a broad appeal and the unrestricted participation of all supporters in campaign planning-attracted people who were not fully committed to party principles and discipline...
...Ochoa oca I Antich calls for a broad coalition taking in the Causa R, President Caldera's Convergencia ie for party, and radicalized military personnel thin grouped in the Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement (MBR 200...
...The local-national conflict has led one party leader to complain that "MAS' local successes have gone to the heads of local MASistas who have developed a parochial mentality...
...Debate was heated and often took on personal dimensions with regard to the aspirants' shortcomings...
...It all ended happily, like in a story...
...Shade was provided by the palm trees but falling coconuts broke more than one car window...
...More recently the party put an end to 15 years of AD trade-union control in the public aluminum company Venalum, and stamped out that party's formerly dominant representation in SIDOR so thoroughly that it was left without departmental delegates...
...MAS leaders challenged election results in three other states as well...
...3 Other programs were also designed to alleviate poverty in Aragua...
...Following a nationwide trend, the nation's largest city has been carved up into several new municipalities...
...4 LOCAL ROADS TO POWER In the 1980s, various leftists including Andres IVelsquez of the Causa R and MAS' Carlos Tablante gained prominence at the local level...
...These programs have important implications since they demonstrate that decentralization can move in one of two directions...
...One mayor is a national spokesperson of a neighborhood move- ment, whose candidacy was launched by a commu- nity-based electoral group...
...Increasing political diversity has cut heavily into the influence of the AD and Copei party machines in Caracas as well...
...These reforms endowed Venezuelan democracy with enough legitimacy to stave off a total collapse following nearly two decades of declining living standards coupled with perception that the ruling parties were uthoritarian and corrupt...
...In contrast, Causa R members have an aversion to internal elections and instead try to reach all internal decisions by consensus...
...In addition, some of its recent electoral successes are due to its policy of alliances, including the one which brought Caldera to the presidency in December, 1993...
...9. Teodoro Petkoff, MAS national leader, personal interview, Barcelona, March 10, 1995...
...Velasquez, as president of the steelworkers' union in the state of Bolivar, and Tablante, first as a city-council representative and later state deputy in the industrial state of Aragua, established their credentials in struggles around concrete issues and then catapulted onto the national stage...
...Initially, the governing party, AD, prohibited its governors, 12 in all, from attending...
...Moreno reluctantly agreed, and the two other pre-candidates acceded in good spirits...
...Other MAS leaders emerged first as local muckrakers and nd activists, and subsequently as popular politicians in other states...
...According to public-opinion surveys, the left's governing record has been mixed: In the states of Bolivar (Causa R) and Sucre (MAS), for example, its rule has met with general approval, in sharp contrast with its current negative rating in Caracas (Causa R...
...throughout the state...
...David De Lima, member of MAS national committee, personal interview, Barcelona, March 24, 1995...
Vol. 29 • July 1995 • No. 1
