A decisive battle has been going on within the PSUV in Venezuela, a battle over who are to be the parliamentary candidates for the party in the elections later this year. The left have been fighting an unequal battle, where more right-wing candidates have had much more resources and official backing locally than candidates who genuinely represent the workers and poor. It is a key battle in the Venezuelan revolution.I think, and fear, that he is probably right--that the elections later this year will be crucial for the development of an alternative social system in Venezuela. The growing infiltration by careerists into the bureaucracy is forming a class of people who, as in the former Soviet Union, differ only marginally from regular capitalists.
The cause, as I see it, is the continued use of the old representative electoral system that the capitalist class refined into an instrument serving their interests. The key features of this system are elections of candidates (selected largely by the ruling class) to represent large and widely dispersed populations so that people tend to be disconnected from any direct experience with, or knowledge about, these candidates. Ordinary people must rely on mass communication and other media that requires funding to learn about the candidates. This process provides opportunities for corruption by people with money or backing by people with money.
