El chavismo en crisis: Desafiando desde abajo el giro neoliberal-autoritario del PSUV en Venezuela
Supporting Agencies
- Irish Research Council Pathway Award
Abstract
This article sheds light on the current state of popular sector organizing in Venezuela, asking if, and to what extent, a movement organization or party has emerged with the capacity to challenge the PSUV - on the streets or via the urns. Drawing from data gathered during interviews with figures from the communes movement, activists, leftist party leaders, former and current PSUV figures, as well as active participants in consejo comunales and communas, the article details the challenges facing critical sectors today. Utilising an array of tactics including clientelism, co-optation, and paralellism, in addition to legal and physical repression, the party-State has, to a large extent, controlled popular organization capacity to challenge the PSUV. In a further bid to manipulate popular discontent, there have been numerous efforts to ensure that a rival party or candidate cannot challenge the PSUV at the ballot box - via legal impediments, the placing of loyal PSUV figures inside existing leftwing parties in an effort to foster schisms, as well as threats of physical violence. Moreover, the article discusses the Future Movement - a new party which has emerged from the PSUV. Some leading PSUV figures have suggested it may act as electoral option for critical chavistas who do not wish to vote for Maduro nor the opposition. However, our interviewees remain skeptical that it could represent a real challenge to the PSUV.
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