> BACK TO THE ELECTORAL CESSPOOL
Rafael Iribarren

If Chavism doesn’t have any real projects or politics, then anti-chavism, the opposition, doesn’t either. Basically, if Chavez doesn’t have anything more than a personal goal that he will work towards indefinitely, the opposition, for the most part, don’t seem to be more than the sum of their personal projects, be they group- or faction-oriented, which are also motivated only by the interests of their leaders, who are also in control
indefinitely. What anti-chavism did in its forty years of government, which
was basically ((puntofijismo)), is substantially the same as what Chavez and
Chavism have done in four long years of negotiations: simple, insignificant,
social-democratic reforms which were only implemented to keep them in power,
corruption, factionalization, cronyism, and political scheming. From the crisis of April 2002 until today, an equilibrium has been reached—a deadlock, a relationship between Chavism and anti-chavism that does not allow either to destroy the other. Both are trying, simultaneously and methodically, to deepen the obvious polarization between them in the expectation on each side that this deepening will act in their favour. From
April 2002 until the lockout of December and January 2003, the entrenching
of the polarization was manipulated through a process of strikes and counter-strikes, but ever since the lockout—since its failure—until today, the process has been electoral, or pseudo-electoral. Now everything is about this pseudo-electoral, farcical polarization of political maneuvering, all because of the false idea that there is no choice except to be with Chavez and Chavism so that “the process” can continue and not return to ((puntofijismo)), or to be with the antichavists to prevent Chavez from
completing his destruction and communization of the country. But everybody
is in the countryside; they don’t know the situation of their country; they only know their “position” in the electoral process. Pure and simple candidates, from Chavez to the most recent bastard aspiring to power at some tiny meeting. But the truth is that, whatever the government may say, anyone would do the same thing as Chavez in his position; they know it, just like they know that he is nothing more than a continuation and variation on CAP, JL and RC: that he does the same thing in a different manner and with different rhetoric. They know that, in the event that this Chavez is
rejected, a new one will appear with the same or different rhetoric and expressions. The electoralization of the crisis is the decision that both powers in this paralysing equilibrium are obliged to make in order to maintain this fundamental polarization in discussions and policy initiatives, only now without the mobilizations in the street that, for different reasons and in spite of the fact that they are always supposed to
start up again before the elections, have shrunk to the point of almost disappearing. And it doesn’t make sense that the “way out of the crisis” is through elections or referenda, because essentially—and the silence in the discussions indicate—that everybody knows that the crisis does not have an immediate solution, regardless of whether Chavez stays or goes. It is also evident that Chavez is in favour of the gubernatorial and mayoral referenda, but not the presidential one, and that he knows that it is very possible that he might lose. And behind the valid, true arguments of the opposition that he will try to prevent a revocation of his presidency, there is a clear
fear that he might win, or at least be safe, even if only in the same way as AD was safe when they fraudulently determined the results of elections for forty or more years because they controlled the structure of the electoral machine. The long, recurring impasse in AN and TSJ for the appointment of the board of directors of the CNE, without any unnegotiated solution and without the possibility of a balanced negotiation, makes it clear that both Chavism and anti-chavism are fully aware that the one who doesn’t control the CNE, that is, the one who doesn’t control the fraud, will lose any
election, no matter how many votes it has. When the antichavists say they are ready to throw Chavez out, staying in the battle for control of the electoral process, they are not trying to guarantee “a transparent process”, which would be impossible; they just want to restore the old, fraudulent, ((puntofijista)) methods that they used before, which always guaranteed their “victory” in the past, and with which they now intend to defeat
Chavez. For that matter, these are the same methods Chavez wants to use to
guarantee his victory over (((puntofijismo)))).

THE ELECTORAL SNARE
Anti-chavism is struggling desperately, and on the whole fruitlessly, to present a single, unified, electoral front. Of course, they can unify around the idea that they need some program, some project, some response to poverty, etc., but even this they can only invoke generically and only with respect to their common ground. They are truly unified, however, in their intent to strengthen their electoral processes in order to utilize the antichavist masses from the last year and a half of protests in the electoral structure and strategies handed down from the leaders. Chavez and Chavism, meanwhile, with their hollow pseudo-revolutionary and pseudo-anti-imperialist rhetoric, are arguing the necessity to revamp, or something, the forces that support the path to revolution. Tellingly, despite his call for the unity of the revolutionaries, Chavez is
concentrating all his efforts on his party, the MVR. Gone are the allies: the commandos and united leaders of the revolution, the patriotic and Bolivarian and Zamoran fronts; and in the most vulgar, scheming, opportunist, reformist, and electoral sense, Chavez is reinventing his party as an electoral machine, marshalling the great gubernatorial and mayoral electoral battles to Chavism. The electoral snare is regenerating; the electoral swamp is once again opening up before us, just like it always does. Manipulation annexation factionalism, favoritist rhetoric through and
through, and fraud, always the same fraud, omnipresent, absolute, and administered by either side, take your pick, since today we don’t have the option to negotiate like AD and MVR negotiated in the 2000 elections; this is what they are calling the Venezuelan people together for, one more time.
After the huge, incredible insurrections of 27 February 1989 and 6 December
1998… fuck it! To collect signatures, to manufacture voting blocs to win them their candidacies or their positions on the lists or the ballots, to form chain gangs of voters to hang up posters and hand out leaflets and fill out lists from door to door, to go to rallies and marches with flannel berets and banners; to campaign and enlist voters for YES or for NO. This is what the Chavist and antichavist politicians and electioneers are calling us back together for, these politicians who don’t even look different, but
only differ (and they differ less and less) in their debates. What roll can we play if we reject this polarization and this wholesale manipulative process that forces everyone through the same narrow channels, if we are dedicated to real, historic change in the power structure, if we are convinced that “the process” isn’t just another political swindle that doesn’t amount to anything more than somebody’s pet project, but is actually regressive and reactionary? We are convinced that this Chavist/anti-chavist
electoral racket has nothing to do with real historic change or even with the possibility of responding to the problems of the people through reform.
How, and with what foundation, can we make ourselves call people to vote YES
or NO, or vote for Chavez or for anti-chavism, when we know that it will all turn out the same?

WHAT SHOULD WE DO?
What should we do? Not participate electorally, but rather anti-electorally. Not expend energy on the systematic manipulation of the Chavist/anti-chavist electoral scam. Neither contribute to the illusions and expectations of the people, nor push them into the factionalised political swamp of representation. Withdraw from the politico-institutional dynamic and confront it and question it, deeply and entirely, without
dialectic or reformist tactics. This isn’t about equal distances or intervention or neutrality: this is about being actively against the absolute farce we’re being presented with from both sides, being absolutely against both sides of the Chavist/anti-chavist system, from which, whatever happens, we can only expect more deadlock, more regression, more crisis.
This is about fostering and promoting a real leftist belligerence without any concessions, promoting an awareness of the true systematic nature of the
crisis we are living in and of the necessity of fighting for real and profound changes in the power structure, and about the uselessness and insignificance of any kind of reform in relation to the structural dimension and the accumulation of corruption and deterioration in which the majority of people live, including all of Venezuelan society and all of the countries within the capitalist borders. This is about promoting lucid, mature, intelligent scepticism; active and activating scepticism that forces
consciousness and comprehension into the national awareness and learning
that there is no escape from our crisis through reform in the current state of political, economic, and socio-economic structures, entities, and institutions.

[Translation: Erin]