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Venezuela The Electoral System
The 1947 constitution guaranteed universal suffrage and
direct elections by secret ballot, but the Pérez Jiménez
dictatorship abrogated these guarantees. Free and fair
elections
have been held regularly since 1958; voter turnout has
been high,
especially for national offices.
Voter registration and participation in elections are
compulsory for all eligible citizens. Penalties exist for
failing
to vote, but they were seldom enforced as of 1990. All
citizens
over eighteen years of age, except members of the armed
forces on
active duty and persons serving prison sentences, are
eligible to
vote. There are no literacy, property, or gender
requirements for
voting.
With the exception of the president, all candidates for
national and local offices run on lists as members of a
party.
Each party issues a party list with its more prominent
members at
the top. Candidates are elected on a proportional basis
according
to the number of colored ballots cast for their party and
their
position on the list.
Elections are supervised and directed by the Supreme
Electoral Council (Consejo Supremo Electoral--CSE), which
consists of thirteen members chosen every two years by
Congress.
The CSE heads an electoral system composed of state,
district,
and municipal electoral boards. The CSE is responsible for
registering eligible voters, operating the polling places,
counting the votes, ruling on appeals from lower electoral
boards, settling controversies between parties, and other
electoral matters. No political party may have a majority
on the
CSE or any of the lower boards.
Presidential, legislative, district, and municipal
elections
are held once every five years. The president is elected
by a
simple plurality, and congressional representatives are
selected
on the basis of a system of proportional representation
for the
major parties. The minor party representation is
determined by
dividing the total number of votes cast by the total
number of
persons directly elected to calculate the number of votes
necessary to award a seat to a party. In the 1973
elections,
minority parties gained one seat in the Senate for each
98,491
votes they received. In this way three parties that did
not win
Senate seats through the direct elections nevertheless
gained a
total of five seats in the upper house. In addition to the
six
parties that won seats in the Chamber of Deputies by
direct
election, six other parties were awarded seats under the
quotient
system.
Despite efforts, such as the quotient system, that
sought to
accommodate minority parties, the Venezuelan electorate
remained
loyal to the two major political groups that have
dominated the
system since 1958, AD and COPEI. In the congressional
elections
of December 4, 1988, AD received 43.3 percent of the
total, COPEI
31.1 percent. The closest competitor at the polls was the
leftist
coalition that united the Movement Toward Socialism
(Movimiento
al Socialismo--MAS) and the Movement of the Revolutionary
Left
(Movimiento de la Izquierda Revolucionaria--MIR), which
obtained
10.2 percent of the total. Small groupings of rightist and
personalistic orientations garnered a combined total of
only 7.6
percent. The balance went to a variety of very small
parties; the
Venezuelan Communist Party (Partido Comunista de
Venezuela--PCV),
attracted only 0.9 percent of the vote.
The elections held since 1958, as a whole, have been
noteworthy not only for their high voter turnout, but also
for
the increasing sense of legitimacy they have conferred
upon the
winners. Domestic and foreign observers alike have praised
Venezuelan elections as fair and highly competitive. Over
the
years, as AD and COPEI have become the dominant political
parties, a return to the traditional fragmentation of the
Venezuelan political system has become increasingly
unlikely. The
fact that on four occasions before the 1990s a president
from one
party handed over the mantle to the president-elect of
another
party seemed to augur well for a general acceptance of the
democratic system. Increased legitimacy at home has also
provided
Venezuelan presidents with an international clout they
would
otherwise lack.
The December 1989 gubernatorial and mayoral elections,
however, might presage a certain undermining of this sense
of
legitimacy. Abstention reached a record level, with
estimates
suggesting that some 60 percent of the nearly 10 million
registered voters did not cast ballots--substantially
greater
than the 41 percent abstention rate recorded in the
previous
municipal elections held in 1984. This sense of apathy and
alienation may have been heightened by a decline in the
quality
of life during 1989, by an unprecedented crime wave, and
by a
deterioration of public services.
Data as of December 1990
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