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Venezuela Political Parties
Contemporary Venezuelan political parties evolved from
the
student groups formed at the Central University of
Venezuela in
the capital during the long years of the Juan Vicente
Gómez
dictatorship. The most prominent of these groups was the
FEV. Not
surprisingly, the aging dictator swiftly dispatched into
exile
some of the young leaders of these protests. Abroad, they
formed
links with activists of similarly democratic inclinations.
Other
leaders who avoided exile established the bases of
clandestine
partisan organizations, the most important of which was
the
Republican National Union (Unión Nacional
Republicana--UNR).
Shortly after Gómez's death in 1935, these exiled leaders
returned, and a spate of new political groups emerged.
Many of the former student leaders helped launch the
Venezuelan Organization (Organización Venezolana--Orve);
the more
radical elements coalesced around the Progressive
Republican
Party (Partido Republicano Progresista--PRP), a Marxist
group.
The UNR mostly attracted young businessmen, while the
Democratic
National Bloc (Bloque Democrático Nacional--BDN) was
primarily a
regional organization centered in Maracaibo. The Orve, the
PRP,
and the BDN decided to join forces and, with the remnants
of the
old FEV, formed the National Democratic Party (Partido
Democrático Nacional--PDN). Novelist Rómulo Gallegos ran
under
the PDN banner in the 1941 presidential election against
government candidate Isaías Medina Angarita. Although
Medina's
victory was a foregone conclusion, as president he did
open up
the system somewhat, enabling the opposition, under the
banner of
AD, to make common cause with a reformist faction of the
military
to launch a crucial experiment in democracy between 1945
and
1948.
The
trienio (see Glossary) was a time of great
political ferment during which two former leaders of the
Generation of 1928 came to the fore. Jóvito Villalba
called his
political group the Democratic Republican Union (Unión
Republicana Democrática--URD) and Rafael Caldera founded
COPEI.
AD also began organizing labor and peasant leagues during
this
period. Although Betancourt was the undisputed AD leader,
he and
others felt compelled to put forward Gallegos as their
presidential candidate in the late 1947 elections.
Gallegos won overwhelmingly, but his political
inexperience
contributed to his overthrow less than a year later.
During the
reign of Pérez Jiménez (president, 1948-58), political
activities
were banned, political groups once again had to go
underground,
and political leaders such as Betancourt once more went
into
exile. The ten-year hiatus, however, allowed the
Generation of
1928 to mature and to deepen its understanding of
Venezuelan
political and economic problems and realities. After 1958
many of
the old organizations revived and reestablished
themselves. AD
and COPEI went on to hold the presidency a number of
times, while
Villalba made several runs for the office.
Several other political parties and organizations also
were
active in 1990. National Opinion, formed in 1958, won
three seats
in the Chamber of Deputies in 1983 and placed fifth in the
presidential elections. New Democratic Generation, a small
conservative group formed in 1979, managed to elect one
senator
and six deputies in 1988. In January 1989, it merged with
two
smaller groups, Formula One and the Authentic Renovating
Organization, under the name of the Venezuelan Emergent
Right.
The Venezuelan Communist Party (Partido Comunista de
Venezuela--
PCV), probably the oldest political party in the country,
had
functioned under the same name since 1931. Accused of
involvement
in subversive movements that threatened the new democracy,
the
PCV was banned for several years beginning in 1962. MAS
originated as a radical left-wing faction that split off
from the
PCV in 1971. In the 1970s, MAS became the Venezuelan
counterpart
of "Eurocommunist" parties. In the 1988 presidential
election,
the MAS's nominee, Teodoro Petkoff, came in third, after
the AD
and the COPEI candidates. Still smaller organizations,
most of
them former factions of the major political parties,
included New
Alternative, the United Vanguard, the Revolutionary Action
Group,
the Radical Cause, the People's Electoral Movement
(Movimiento
Electoral del Pueblo--MEP), the Independent Moral
Movement, the
People's Advance, the Socialist League, and the Party of
the
Venezuelan Revolution.
The most noteworthy aspect of Venezuelan party
politics,
however, was not the proliferation of small parties, but
rather
the fact that two parties, AD and COPEI, have been the
major
contenders for power for over three decades. The
competition
between these two democratic and pragmatically reformist
parties
gave the Venezuelan political system a great deal of
stability;
and although the other contenders contributed fresh ideas
and at
times brilliant leaders, AD and COPEI managed to occupy
the broad
center, where most Venezuelan voters felt most
comfortable.
Data as of December 1990
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