We need more democracy, not less!

January 11, 2004

 


I am quite bothered by this article in today’s El Universal.  Essentially it says that the political parties that are part of the Coordinadora Democrática want to continue choosing candidates and blocking the path of true democracy in Venezuela. According to the article, some parties want to have the local parties discuss a unity candidate for all Governorships and Mayoral races and only if a consensus can not be reached then resort to primaries. I am strongly against this methodology; it should be exactly the opposite: We should have primaries for all races and only if only one candidate is presented will there be no primary.


 


The Coordinadora Democrática has the chance to truly establish democracy in Venezuela from the bottom up and it should not miss the chance to show what a true democracy should function like.  Sadly, in the 1998 Presidential election, NOT ONE candidate was chosen in a primary, all of them were either people who were candidates and then looked for parties to support them (Chavez, Irene, Salas Romer) or people selected in smoke-filled rooms by their parties. I still remember with fondness in 1993 when the Social Christian party COPEI decided to hold a primary to elect Eduardo Fernandez as its candidate. They opened the primary to everyone and lo and behold, Oswaldo Alvarez Paz won running away. (I never liked COPEI, but I voted in that primary because I thought Eduardo Fernandez should not be a candidate again) To me that was one of the few truly democratic processes of the last twenty years in Venezuela. If the Coordinadora decided to hold primaries, for example, on March 15th. for all the races which will take place on July 25th. it will be giving Venezuelans part of the democracy everyone has been promising, but nobody has delivered. Otherwise, it will be once again, more of the same. With this precedent, primaries will become a way of life and all parties (including MVR, Chavez had promised it, but has not even delivered it internally!) will be forced to use them in the future.

This entry was posted on January 11, 2004 at 6:25 pm and is filed under Venezuela.

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