[For Edgardo Lander, a Professor of Social Studies at Caracas' Central University, the
establishment of a disciplinary tribunal in Chavez’s new socialist
party before it even has statutes and structures is a worrying sign for
those committed to radical democracy in Venezuela. Click here to view a Spanish version of this article.] 
Party Disciplinarians: The Threat to Dissidence and Democracy in the United Socialist Party of Venezuela
The establishment of a disciplinary tribunal in Chavez’s new socialist party before it even has statutes and structures is a worrying sign for those committed to radical democracy in Venezuela.
Introductory
note: The United Socialist Party of Venezuela was proposed by President
Chavez during the 2006 elections after winning several elections with a
coalition and left and progressive parties. His proposal to unite the
Venezuelan left was accepted by several (but not all) small parties who
agreed to dissolve and help form the new party.
On 5 March 2007, Chavez announced the start of the process for forming
the party and the designation of a technical council to oversee the
process. He also outlined the first steps which would include
swearing-in and recruitment of members, formation of local “socialist
batallions”, a founding assembly and elections of a party council.
Edgardo Lander
is a TNI fellow and Professor of Social Studies at Caracas University
who has been part of the organising committee of the World Social Forum
and worked as part of the Venezuelan Government negotiating team to
defeat the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas.
The style of debate and the mechanisms for resolving differences
currently being developed within the United Socialist Party of
Venezuela (Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela, PSUV) are extremely
serious. If its style of leadership, decision-making structures and
dispute mechanisms are not swiftly reversed, then the new party
structure will be one that develops Stalinist conceptions and
practices.
This is not an issue that only concerns present candidates or future
members of this party, but one that concerns the whole of the
Venezuelan population, and the millions of people on this continent and
the rest of the world who are monitoring the present Venezuelan
political process with the expectation that it is possible, in today’s
world, to confront predatory-militarised capitalism and take steps
towards the construction of another possible world, a world of radical
democracy and never-ending democracy.
This is not about any old party, or about just one more among many
parties. It is about the party of the government (of the State?), the
party of President Chavez, the party which seeks to bring together all
the political sectors that support the government. Its more or less
democratic, plural or participatory nature or, by contrast, more or
less vertical or authoritarian nature, will be the measure of the model
of society that it will be possible to build as a result of the present
processes of change that are taking place in the country. It will not
be possible to make progress in the deepening of democracy, in the
construction of an ever more democratic society, with sustained growth
in popular participation if the main political instrument of the
process of change in society, in this case the PSUV in its formative
stage, is not a democratic organisation.
In this regard, the information that has recently been made public with
regard to the creation and operation of the Disciplinary Tribunal of
the PSUV is worrying.
Firstly, what is very striking is that a political party which is in
the process of creation, a party that does not yet have members or
doctrinal documents, has no statutes, and does not yet have organic
structures, should already have a Disciplinary Tribunal in operation, a
Tribunal which has already been sent its first case for consideration.
At the end of August, President Chavez addressed an audience of
‘socialist battalion’ members at the Caracas Polyhedron on the subject
of the high level of discipline that every aspiring member of the
future revolutionary party should have, and reported that a
‘Provisional Disciplinary Committee of the United Socialist Party of
Venezuela’ had been created, presided over by the governor of Miranda
State, Diosdado Cabello1.
The first action of this Disciplinary Committee came about with regard
to the conduct and declarations made by deputy Francisco Ameliach, who,
until then was the Coordinator of the United Socialist Block in the
National Assembly. As it has publicly transpired, deputy Ameliach had
expressed the opinion that if by the time of regional elections in 2008
the formation of the PSUV had not concluded, “we will revive the
organisations that are legally registered…”2 , that is, the Fifth Republic Movement (Movimiento Quinta República, MVR,)3.
The response by Chavez was devastating:
“I have passed a national leader (who aspires to be part of the party)
to the Disciplinary Council for talking nonsense. I will be watching
closely … Critical thinking is fundamental to a revolution, but that is
very different to going around talking badly about a party that has not
been born, collecting signatures to present them who knows where.
Anyone who wants to be an anarchist, get out of here, you are not
wanted, what is needed here is a creative, but disciplined active
membership.” 4
Immediately, in the National Assembly it was announced that Ameliach
was suspended, or had resigned, first from the Presidency of the
National Assembly’s Defence Commission5, and the next day, from the Coordination of the Parliament’s United Socialist Block6. His replacements were named immediately.
Recalling ‘self-criticisms’ from the past, deputy Ameliach declared a
few days later that it had been his decision to resign from the
Presidency of the National Assembly’s Defence Commission and the
Coordination of the United Socialist Block, and that his conduct had
been a “political mistake”, confirming his loyalty to the “only leader
of the process”7.
He denied the existence of a letter signed by 140 deputies, and stated
that “…what exists is a draft document that collects some concerns of
some deputies that I, Francisco Ameliach, sent to President Chavez, so
that he as leader, can take the decisions he wishes to take”…. “I have
been extremely loyal to President Chavez; here a revolution is
impossible without President Chavez”.8
(click here to view the entire article)
Good for Edgardo Lander! He has discovered lukewarm water. Is it any surprise that a party created by presidential fiat, from the government, with government money, not because of a real necessity but out of caprice, should be authoritarian? After all, Chávez already has his party. It is called FAN (now renamed FAB).
Posted by: Henry | October 18, 2007 at 03:58 PM