OPE-L message, Re: [OPE] Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela internal ballot

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Political parties are necessary because a direct democracy is impossible in a large society. The problem here is that there are not democratic mechanisms inside the Venezuelan socialist party (Of course, you donât have it also inside Popular Party, the conservative party of Spain).

By themselves, mechanisms like âconsultation with battalion membersâ and âcongress delegates propositionsâ that Levy referred to are doubtfully democratic, but when you practice them in Iberoamerica (Latin-American, Portugal and Spain), their transparency becomes even doubtful.

Unfortunately we have in these countries a corporative culture that subordinate merit and other criteria of justice to cronyism, plutocracy and patronage. Even Spain, despite its economic and democratic advancements thanks to European Union, has many social institutions corrupted by these practices.

And you can not expect but an increase of this corruption in Venezuela whose polyarchal institutions, that where a case of study in the 70âs and 80âs due to its exceptionalism, have been erased by Chavism.

Regards,

Alejandro Agafonow

----- Mensaje original ----
De: Paul Cockshott <wpc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Para: Outline on Political Economy mailing list <ope@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Enviado: lunes, 10 de marzo, 2008 23:41:49
Asunto: RE: [OPE] Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela internal ballot.

I think that this process that Gerry describes perfectly sumarises the undemocratic
nature of pyramidal elections. No system is more suited to dominance by a party elite
than this. The 'democracy' here is no more than it is in all electoral systems, a
means of legitimising an elite. Here we see the same process that created the party
state of the Bolesheviks.

Paul Cockshott
Dept of Computing Science
University of Glasgow
+44 141 330 1629
www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~wpc/reports/

-----Original Message-----
From: ope-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx on behalf of GERALD LEVY
Sent: Mon 3/10/2008 10:25 AM
To: ope@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [OPE] Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela internal ballot.

Alejandro A:

I question the meaning that you attach to the numbers.

Who are the 87,000 people who chose the provisional executive?
Aren't they, if I recall correctly, composed of 7 _elected_ people from
each of around 12,000 battalions? (NB: the 5 million member figure
for party membership was never a serious # and certainly doesn't
represent 'registered party members'.)

Where did the 69 names come from? If I understood the process
correctly, everyone of the 1600 congress delegates proposed 3 names -
hopefully, in consultation with battalion members. Of course, many of
the delegates proposed many of the same names - especially the better
known and respected Bolivarians. Nothing wrong with that.

None of this sounds undemocratic, especially recalling that there will
be general elections for public offices in which candidates from other
parties and individuals who don't belong to or represent parties will
participate.

In solidarity, Jerry

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