Welcome to the Nineteenth Century: Venezuelan Elections
by Fernando Calzadilla

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The Act of Voting
From 1958 through 1989, Venezuelan elections had basic principles: universal suffrage (all adults over 18 years old), secrecy of the ballot, and obligatory character. Parties identified themselves by color so those illiterate members of the population had little trouble identifying their preference. It was required that unused cards also be deposited in a sealed ballot box to ensure secrecy, but I remember having many to play with after election day. As a further precaution to guarantee the fairness of the process, each voter had the little finger of the right hand dipped in indelible ink so she or he couldn’t vote again. Recipes to remove the ink varied from simple salt and lime to soap and soda to ammonia. Failure to cast a vote was penalized by suspending the citizen’s rights to file any official paperwork, including getting a passport, for a period of time, but these measures were rarely enforced. Abstention was low for almost thirty years after 1958, but broken promises and declining living conditions eroded people’s willingness to participate. Traditionally it was the lower classes and the campesinos who voted massively. They were also the first to abstain from voting. Sociological readings often attribute the act to apathy, ignorance, or just that daily survival prevails over voting.

But for me, those are condescending readings that take for granted certain political and social attitudes. Abstention from voting can also be observed as a form of protest that renders the system illegitimate. I am not proposing that this reading could be made across the board to other countries. I am talking specifically about Venezuela, where the endorsement of any candidate legitimizes a situation in which we find ourselves unrepresented in a cul de sac because the democratic mechanism is undermined by the social imaginaries at play and by the pacts established by those holding political and economic power, such as business associations and the armed forces. But democracy’s rule is the vote of the majority, and that’s the discursive formation we abide by in constitutional form. Democracy’s rule also creates a space for those non-democratic mechanisms of control to operate under an aura of legality. Then, non-participation becomes a form of protest but also a double-edged knife. Since Chavez, the abstentionist trend has reversed. Chavez has consistently gathered the same number of votes in five elections and referendums between 1998 and 2000. Those votes have given him a slim majority compared to the abstention rate. In the 1998 elections, a large portion of the professional middle class voted for Chavez. As the ‘revolutionary process’ took hold and new alliances changed, leaving out traditional actors from the political and economic elite, the lower classes started to vote again and the middle class started to abstain. Marches and protests against Chavez gathered millions of people in the streets. It could be safely affirmed that 4.7 million signatures were collected to call a referendum in December 2003. But, faced with the act of voting on August 15, 2004, the opposition's biggest fear is abstention. Why? Because the opposition does not have a counter-Chavez figure to offer. Because the social imaginary at play is the savior/caudillo, the action figure who can unite a large enough group of people to oust Chavez. Deep inside, perhaps, a large sector of Venezuelans are still disappointed with the democratic experiment. After all, only 46 years have been “democratic” of the 183 years since the declaration of independence. Because the figure of the caudillo is strong in the social imaginary, it outweights the appeal for a democracy. Ninis’ (undecided) main question is 'After Chavez, what?' (12) We Venezuelans have not figured out yet how the person we elect to act in our name is accountable for her/his actions. We know how to change the cast, how to put a new set of social actors onstage and then hope that the new players will be able to transform the spectacle for the benefit of the nation. But that would involve changing both the discursive and the performatic character of the nation. Our constitutional claims would have to be in sync with the fantasies that voters enact through the electoral process. Disappointed with the change, we absent ourselves or change the players again by any means, including violence. If this is not the case, ‘democracy’s rule’ prevails. Chavez supporters will vote and win the referendum with a slim minority in relation to the active population who could vote. They will impose both their social imaginary and discursive formation on the whole nation.

Is participation the answer? I don’t know. If we expand the scope beyond Venezuela we recall that participation was not the decisive factor for those Floridians who voted in the United States 2000 presidential elections. Like many around the world, I protested the invasion of Iraq hoping that my body would count and it didn’t. Too much is at stake at the ballot not to vote. Too much is at stake when in spite of voting, democracy fails. The political choices are fewer as globalization advances and former communist and socialist countries embrace democracy. Is Singapore’s style of democracy the answer? Have we reached the political zenith with democracy and cannot envision another system of government? What would be the effect of (ac)counting for those who decide not to vote? If there is nothing better than democracy, it’s not the best either. More than a crisis of representation, we suffer a crisis of accountability.