Vol. 71/No. 43      November 19, 2007

Venezuela’s National Electoral Council has set December 2 for a referendum on the amendments, to be voted on as a package. In August, President Hugo Chávez proposed 33 changes to the country’s constitution, and government ministries and community groups subsequently proposed an additional 36. The amendments range from eliminating presidential term limits, to bringing the Central Bank under direct presidential control, shortening the workday with no cut in pay, and creating a “popular militia” branch of the armed forces.

The 69 amendments were debated and approved by the National Assembly, all of whose seats are held by pro-Chávez parties.

The bulk of the proposals involve changes to the country’s political and territorial organization. They would bring existing community councils into official government structures. The councils are neighborhood-based groups of workers, peasants, students, and others active in government-sponsored “missions”—social programs aimed at expanding access to education, health care, culture, and job training. The councils will be able to obtain and manage government funds for projects they decide on.

Many government supporters say the moves to increase the centralization of powers in the hands of the president will help combat corruption and cut through red tape that workers and peasants often bump into as they fight for better living conditions. Others support the measures as a way to avoid direct confrontation with the rule of industrialists, bankers, and large landowners by setting up new structures while leaving existing institutions fundamentally intact.

“Two states will exist,” said William Barreto, vice president of the Caracas Municipal Youth Institute, in an October 24 interview. “We will keep the institutions and organizational forms from bourgeois society at the same time that we build a parallel government with a socialist character.”

While the opposition argues shrilly that the package would eliminate private property, the amendments guarantee five forms of property that are described as public, social, collective, mixed, and private.

“Private property is to be respected,” said Barreto. “Our president has said that what we are after is the diversification of property.”

The package also includes a number of popular measures that are likely to raise the expectations of Venezuela’s workers and peasants. Such proposals include the expansion of state ownership of large landholdings that are currently in the hands of private owners, a ban on forced overtime, and bringing taxi drivers, street vendors, and bus operators under the national social security system.

“Many articles will broaden the political participation of youth and students,” said Alberto Castelar, a deputy in the National Assembly, in an October 23 interview. One provision would lower the voting age to 16. In addition, according to Castelar, two new government ministries for youth and students would be set up, and college campus workers would be eligible to vote in university elections.

Gerardo Blyde, an opposition leader and former legislator, told the press, “Chávez is seeking to reduce the territory held by the opposition and give his intention to remain in power a legal foundation.”

The leaders of the student government at the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) in Caracas have been at the center of opposition activities in recent months. They argue that the constitutional changes will weaken civil liberties and further consolidate Chávez’s power.

Students comprised a slight majority of today’s march, which started out at the UCV. A contingent of medical students carried a banner with pictures of Venezuelan scientist José María Vargas and Cuban revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara, asking, “Which one is the father of Venezuelan medicine?”

The pro-imperialist opposition forces here have raged against the Chávez administration for its close collaboration with revolutionary Cuba. This cooperation includes 20,000 Cuban volunteer doctors and other medical personnel who staff free clinics in working-class neighborhoods throughout the country where most Venezuelan doctors will not go.  
 
 
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