12-11-06, 9:11 am

'We saw how people voted. It was very transparent,' stated John Rummel who traveled to Venezuela as part of a delegation of election observers to witness the voting process in that country’s December 3rd presidential elections. Speaking to a Detroit gathering, Rummel, the district organizer for the Michigan state section of the Communist Party USA, described Venezuela's election as an 'above board process.'

Rummel went to Venezuela with a group of 6 representatives of the Communist Party USA as part of a larger delegation of US-based civic groups.

According to Rummel, voters awoke in the early hours of the morning of December 3rd and gathered at polling places. He arrived at one polling place at 3 a.m. at which hundreds of voters were already waiting to enter. By the time voting began, thousands waited enthusiastically to cast their votes.

Rummel described different aspects of Venezuela’s voting process. Voting is no longer compulsory in Venezuela (it had been prior to 2003), but everyone is registered to vote automatically. Polling places used electronic touch-screen voting machines, and the machines produce a paper trail that confirms the accuracy of the electronic data.

Voters supply a thumbprint to confirm their identity and, after voting, dip their finger in ink to ensure they cannot vote again.

This careful process sharply contrasts with a controversy in Miami, Florida during the November US congressional election. There, according to media reports, electronic voting machines without paper receipts to confirm voter intent caused some 18,000 votes for the congressional candidates to disappear. The subsequent dispute over the outcome of that election was eventually settled in a court and not by the will of the voters.

Venezuela's transparent and thorough procedures ensured a fair process to which even the Bush administration, which has been openly hostile to the Chávez administration and has long tried to cast doubt on voting procedures in Venezuela, reluctantly conceded as being democratic.

Rummel pointed out that President Chávez won approximately 63% of the vote, attaining the highest number of votes of any presidential candidate in Venezuela's history.

Why Chávez won

Opponents of Chávez, including writers for the New York Times and the Washington Post, claim that he essentially bribed voters by spending Venezuela's oil wealth on social programs that benefit poor and working people.

While these esteemed US newspapers portrayed the Venezuelan government’s social policies negatively with the intent of casting the results of the election into doubt, the plain fact is that the people of Venezuela, after decades of suffering at the hands of elites who stole and hoarded Venezuela's wealth for themselves – whom apparently these same esteemed newspapers find more appealing – have chosen a new direction.

Rummel says that the delegation met with public officials, including the Mayor Freddy Bernal of Caracas and cabinet officials. Mayor Barreto told the delegation that 'Democracy is more than voting and needs people's involvement.'

Venezuelan voters endorsed the policies of the openly socialist Chávez government. According to Rummel, those social programs have redistributed the country's wealth to create health care programs, schools at all levels, housing programs, food programs, and more jobs with better wages. Venezuela’s social policies sharply contrast with huge cutbacks in major public programs to fund tax breaks for the extremely wealthy and to fund the war in Iraq.

Rummel's delegation of US Communists also met with representatives of the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV), which endorsed Chávez for president. In Venezuela's system of voting, voters select candidates by picture and by party symbol.

While more than two dozen political parties endorsed Chávez, PCV received more than 335,000 votes, making it the fourth largest party on the left. In the 2005 parliamentary elections, the PCV received only about 119,000.

PCV representatives praised the social policies of the Chávez government. One activist told Rummel during a visit to a newly renovated facility that provides educational resources to a low-income community that, 'This is about democracy. People learning to read and write, taking homeless people off of the streets.'

Chávez's party, the Fifth Republic Movement, won more than 4.5 million of the 7.2 million votes cast for Chávez.

Chávez won majorities in every state and the capitol district, including major opposition candidate Manuel Rosales' home state of Zulia.

Rosales' candidacy was hurt by popular disapproval of his closeness to the Bush administration. Rosales, along with other business leaders, media figures, and even some labor union leaders, signed the infamous decree authored by Pedro Carmona after seizing power during the 2002 coup, during which President Chávez was kidnapped and all democratic institutions were declared dissolved.

The Bush administration both secretly provided material aid to the groups behind the coup and publicly announced support for it just after it occurred.

Despite what in most countries might be considered a treasonous act, Rosales was not punished. Rosales currently serves as elected governor of the state of Zulia. The Bush administration openly backed Rosales’ candidacy in this election.

Rosales' candidacy was further hurt by his alignment with the economic elites who disapprove of Chávez’s social policies.



--Joel Wendland is managing editor of Political Affairs and can be reached at