Venezuela's Secret Grassroots Democracy

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Venezuela's Secret Grassroots Democracy

Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit

Venezuelanalysis - Nov 28, 2006
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1890



Venezuelas Secret Grassroots Democracy

By Michael Fox

With all international eyes on the December 3rd Venezuelan presidential
elections, a totally new and revolutionary experience of Venezuelan
grassroots democracy has completely slipped below international radar. An
experience that has already formed 12,000 local community councils, and
whose participants and promoters hope will change the way decisions are
made in Venezuela and potentially alter the very essence of Venezuelas
political system.

13 de Abril Community Council

The region of 23 de Enero lies on the southern hillsides in Western
Caracas. Since the fall of the decade-long Marcos Perez Jimenez
dictatorship in 1958, it has been an area of high community organization,
when, on that dayJanuary 23thousands of poor Caraquenos (as Caracas
residents are known) came down from the hillsides and occupied the vacant
and newly built apartment blocks. It remained a place of revolt and of
police repression. A region, according to one community member, that was
blamed for anything that happened.

Earlier this year, residents again began to lead the way. Citizens living
in the apartment building blocks 45, 46, and 47 heard about the new
communal councils, which communities were beginning to form around the
country.

These new communal councils were being called a new form of grassroots
local government, in which the residents of the local community would have
the ultimate decision-making power in their neighborhood. It was said that
these councils would even receive funds from the government to carry out
community and public works projects that previously could only be acquired
through a long and protracted struggle with the local mayors office.

Members of the local health committee took the first steps to create their
own council. They held workshops on the idea and elected a Provisional
Promoter team in March, to carry out a census of the communitys residents
and needs.

An electoral commission was soon elected to supervise the upcoming election
of community spokespersons. Various community committees (infrastructure,
sport, communication and information, energy and gas, and legal) where
formed to join those already in the community (health, urban land) and the
promoter team did its best to get the word out on the upcoming election.

On childrens day, June 16, with the support of the electoral commission,
hundreds of residents from the communitys 520 apartments showed up for the
communal council spokesperson elections.

It was tremendous; the line didnt end, said Hector Haraque, describing the
scene at blocks 45, 46, & 47 on Election Day. It lasted all day, till 1 in
the morning. It was very impressive.

The community elected 5 financial spokespersons to manage the councils
resources, 5 social controllers to audit the councils dealings, and one
spokesperson for each of the communitys 9 committees. By the end of the
month, the19 members where sworn in, and the April 13th Community Council
was officially formed- the first in 23 de Enero.[1]

There are now 20 communal councils in 23 de Enero, more than 12,000 in the
country, and more on the way. Which begs the questions: Where did this
experience come from? Are these communal councils truly empowering
residents and building a Venezuelan style of participatory democracy that
is changing the fabric of Venezuelan society? Or are they, as the
opposition says, just handouts for Chavez supporters during an election
year?

History

The communal councils were modeled after experiences in participatory
budgeting in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and grassroots participatory democracy
in Kerala, India. The concept of participatory democracy is not new in
Venezuela, and since the election of President Hugo Chavez in 1998, and the
subsequent Venezuelan Constitutional Assembly in 1999, the Venezuelan
government has been attempting to incorporate more participation in to the
decisions of the state.

In 2001, the Local Public Planning Councils (CLPP) were formed across the
country with the intent of electing community representatives to work hand
in hand with government officials to agree on municipal budgets.
Unfortunately, the CLPP were far from successful. In many cases political
parties only gave representation to fellow members, and true community
control was hard to find when spokespersons, expected to represent hundreds
of thousands of people where elected with almost no input from the
community.

They were captured by the mayors, that manipulated the elections, said
former Venezuelan Planning Minister, Felipe Pérez Marti recently.
According to Pérez, the CLPPs, which technically still exist, have become
further debilitated with the creation of the communal councils because the
people have decided to try out the newly formed councils, where they feel
they actually may have a say. An addendum to the recent Law of Communal
Councils additionally gave the newly formed councils power over the CLPPs.

Community Council Law

Although government institutions began to promote the communal councils
late last year, the official communal council law was passed in the
Venezuelan National Assembly on April 10, 2006. It legally recognized the
communal councils and, according to Chapter Five of the Law, established
the councils right to legally receive and administer resources from
government institutions.

Article 2 of the Communal Council Law states:

The communal councils, in the constitutional framework of participatory
and protagonistic democracy, are instances of participation,
articulation and integration between the diverse community
organizations, social groups and the citizens, that permit the organized
people to directly exercise the administration (management) of public
policies and projects oriented to respond to the necessities and
aspirations of the communities in the construction of an equal and
socially just society.

The Communal Council Law established that the councils generally be
composed of between 200 and 400 families in urban areas, 20 in rural areas,
and 10 in indigenous areas, and that final decisions be made by the
citizens assembly or total voting-age residents of the community, which is
the primary instance for the exercising of power. Anyone over the age of
15 is allowed to participate in the citizens assembly, and at least 20% of
the voting population must be present in order for a decision to be valid.

The law further called for the election of the local community
spokespeople, one from each of the community committees, and five each for
the financial and controller branches.

The Communal Council Law essentially put all of the neighborhood committees
and community organizing experiences under one umbrella: the communal
council. A revolutionary idea and a large task, but not everyone was
happy.

Community Reaction

With the passage of the law, many members of Venezuelas Urban Land
Committees (CTUs)one of the most organized and important instances of
community organizingwere put off. They saw the communal councils as an
attack against the work they had already been doing in the community.
After all, they said, the CTUs are the ones writing community charters and
pushing for land titles and housing rights for communities that were never
before legally recognized.

CTUs viewed the creation of the communal councils as a government attempt
to do something good, while inadvertently causing more harm.[2] Infighting
was predicted, as community committees: urban land, health, water, etc.
would fight for resources amongst each other that they had previously
struggled individually to acquire from the Mayors office.

A shift occurred quickly, however, in the months following the passage of
the communal council law. The CTUs realized that they would have to join,
organize, and promote the communal councils in order to have a say in
community decisions. The CTUs now appear to be one of the main pillars of
the communal councils, believing that the new proposal is the next step in
local democracy.

The CTU should be one of the fundamental bases of the communal councils.
They should not substitute them nor be the councils themselves, declared
CTU activist Hernan Peralta, at the CTU National Meeting earlier this month
just outside of Caracas. They are the crystallization of this project of
new construction, he added.

Although there continues to be discussion, the predictions that community
committees would break out in in-fighting does not appear to have
materialized on a large-scale.

Participation

The communal councils are nothing more than a series of tools that are
being given to the people for participation, said Richard Canaan, President
of the Venezuelan Institution, FIDES, that has delivered millions of
dollars to the communal councils. One of the most important changes for us
is that the Constitution of 1961 was 100% representative. For everything
in life, we named representatives. The assembly, representatives of the
neighborhood council, and other instances. Now we are driving the active
and protagonistic participation of the community. So from representative
to protagonistic, where the people are leading the way.

For many, the communal councils are the latest in a Venezuelan policy under
President Chavez to break from business-as-usual representative society, to
a working pro-active participatory approach.

This ideology has not been lost on the members of the April 13th communal
council. Meetings are held weekly among the spokespersons and in the
various committees. At times discussions turn conflictive and they often
drag on or wander in typical Venezuelan style, but fortunately council
members appear to be willing to listen to one another.

During one evening meeting on September 26, the April 13th council spent
the night meticulously debating how they would divvy up work and
decision-making to ensure that all decisions made are responsive to the
council and the community at-large.

The larger community is involving itself in the council, as proven by the
tremendous electoral turnout, but it has been slow going.

The community at the beginning has been apathetic, but changing the way
people think is a process, said Ennys Guerrero, who is a taxi driver and a
social comptroller spokesperson of the April 13th Council. Guerrero been
living in the community for 44 years and never thought to participate until
now.

Dont forget that Venezuela lived for 40 years with paternalism, said
FUNDACOMUN (The Foundation for Municipal and Community Development)[3]
Capital District of Caracas Director, Pedro Morales, who believes that the
lack of community participation has deep-seated roots in Venezuelan
tradition of populism and handouts.

Now we are passing from representative democracy to participatory
democracy. We dont know how long it will take, but we are trying to push
towards this participatory democracy, because it is the community itself
that has to participate, he added.

Afro-Cuban-Venezuelan April 13th council member, Regina Michel Rollock, is
very clear that without true community involvement the council isnt going
to get very far.

We are not going to achieve anything unless we have the participation and
protagonism of the community, says Rollock, who has seen a somewhat
disturbing lack of community involvement since the spokesperson elections.
We can have the best ideas, but unless the community realizes what we are
doing nothing happens.

While April 13th council spokespersons organized preparations for the
neighborhoods October 12th Indigenous Peoples Day celebrations and arranged
a number of neighborhood clean-up days, most members believe that the
community will begin to participate more once they see that the council is
solving peoples problems. This is one reason why April 13th spokespersons
are now working diligently to acquire funds for the repair of the apartment
complex.

Presidential Commission & Organization

The National Presidential Commission of Popular Power was formed under
article 30 of the Communal Council Law and set up to work on three levels:
National, Regional and Municipal, in order to streamline these initiatives
and duties of the various institutions. Minister of Participation and
Social Development (MINPADES), Jorge Luís García Carneiro presides over the
commission, in which FIDES, FUNDACOMUN, BANDES, FONDEMI, the Ministry of
Popular Economy (MINEP) and the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum all play
distinct but important roles.[4]

FUNDACOMUN works in training and technical assistance for the communal
councils, and is also currently the government institution (until the local
Presidential Commissions have been formed) where communal councils register
their council and receive continued local training and assistance.

FIDES (The Intergovernmental Fund for Decentralization), LAEE (The Law of
Special Economic Allotments) and FONDEMI (The Fund for Microfinanced
Development) are the primary government institutions in charge of passing
resources on to the councils. FIDES, with a billion dollar budget,
primarily from sales taxes, now passes 30% of its resources on to the
communal councils. FIDES President Richard Canaan declared in mid
September that over $436 million dollars had been passed in to the hands of
the communal councils for community infrastructure projects.

Tell me in what other part of the world are they going to put $436 million
dollars in the hands of the community? And thats just from FIDES alone,
said Canaan, who estimated at the time that there were 8,000 formed
community councils in the country that had or were in the process of
receiving funds, and another 4,000 being formed which had not yet received
any support from the Venezuelan state. A total of 15,000 councils are hoped
to be formed by the end of phase one.

LAEE, whose assets come from dividends of Venezuelan oil revenues, are
worth just over $1 billion. Half of this was designated to the Community
Councils by President Chavez this year.[5]

Meanwhile, FONDEMI works on funding socio-productive projects through the
Venezuelas 250 officially constituted Community Banksfinancial entities
managed and administered by the communal councils and legally born with the
Communal Council Law. FONDEMI has passed nearly $70 million on to
community banks across the country for the local financial entity to
distribute to community cooperative and associative socio-productive
projects in the form of loans of less than $14,000, with 6% interest rate
and 36 months to pay them off.[6]

There have been problems of infighting and competition among some of the
institutions in an attempt to form the most Community Councils.

Morales criticized in September that while FUNDACOMUN only had 54 communal
councils registered, the Metropolitan Caracas Mayors Office was numbering
total communal councils in the same region at around 400. The Mayors
office also had its own list of communal councils, which did not correspond
to that of FUNDACOMUN, even though FUNDACOMUN was supposed to be the local
registering entity for the country.

According to FUNDACOMUN representatives in mid-November, the situation has
calmed somewhat between the organizations, and over the past two months,
their Caracas Capital District communal council numbers have increased from
54 to 192. A line of advice-seeking Caracas residents was standing out the
door during the morning visit to FUNDACOMUN offices in southwestern
Caracas. Case workers confirmed that they receive approximately eight new
community council petitions a day.

This is good news for Caracas, which earlier this year appeared to be
festering with problems.

When Caracas FUNDACOMUN director, Pedro Morales, arrived in February from
his position in Miranda state, he was shocked by the institutional fist
fights taking place. Because of all the problems, according to Morales,
Caracas had formed less than 10% the Communal Councils that had been formed
in Miranda over the same period.

The April 13th communal council has also had its fair share of
difficulties, as the roadmap of institutions, offices, prerequisites is not
always as clear as many would like. In October they applied for a $230,000
credit from FIDES to fix the elevators in the apartment complex, ranked
number one in their survey of community needs.

Unfortunately, according to Pedro Caldera, who is a facilitator with
FUNDACOMUN and lives in the apartment complex, the request was denied
because of a problem with their financial cooperative paperwork. Caldera
acknowledged that the council neglected to get FUNDACOMUN help when they
registered their cooperative. He is now working with them to fix the
problem.

Things should be set in the next day or two, he said this week. The credit
should be delivered soon.

The Las Delicias communal council, just up the street from blocks 45, 46 &
47, received the first part of their $150,000 credit this week for housing
remodeling. They applied at the same time as April 13th, in October.[7]

Problems with the Law & Citizen Participation

Its a new experience in Venezuela, says Felipe Pérez, describing the
communal councils. It is the leading project of the political
transformation of the country because it attempts to put the state in to
the hands of the people. It attempts to mold with action the discourse of
participatory democracy.

Unfortunately, though, says Pérez, Because the communal councils law wasnt
really consulted by the people the majority of the communal councils and
grassroots movements are not satisfied in the way that the law was written.

According to Pérez, the largest failure in the law it that it stops short
of giving the councils power over municipal, regional and national
decisions, and only gives the councils power in their local community,
which, he explains, does not change the structure of the state.

Thats the point, says FUNDACOMUNs Morales, the communal council is, in no
way, a parallel power to the already constituted power. In no case but
rather we need to work hand in hand with the power that is already in
place.

But the debate is strong and many are at odds. The Venezuelan National
Assembly (AN) is now discussing the approval of the law of Citizen
Participation and Popular Power, out of a necessity to reconcile some of
the contradictions of the Communal Council Law. But neither does this new
law call for a reformed state structure.

Ulises Castro, Coordinator of the Bolivarian Schools for Grassroots Power,
for the Caracas Metropolitan Mayors office, agrees that the law should be
more radical. He and his office have been in charge of organizing public
consultations in Caracas, so that residents can critique the law
proposals. He is proud of the work they have done, and knows that their
participation made a difference in the final version of the Community
Council Law. But he says that there is much more to be done, and the
public meetings on the Law of Citizen Participation began just last month.

The same political forces still exist, said Castro in early October. If we
believe that grassroots power is the base to construct a new
institutionalism, a new state, then legally you need to reform the state.

Which is precisely the fear of many of those currently in power. According
to Morales, FUNDACOMUN and others promoting the councils have felt
resistance from traditional mayors, governors and institutions that have
been reluctant to hand over power so easily to the community councils.

Handout or Grassroots Democracy?

But these issues appear to be much too subtle for many in the Venezuelan
opposition, who are focused on December 3rd, and have characterized the
communal councils as just another handout to Chavez supporters in an
election year.

Looking at the huge amounts of resources now being passed directly into
community hands, this is an understandable fear. Especially considering
that the overwhelming majority of communal councils are in support of the
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

In the Metropolitan District of Caracas, for instance, according to
FUNDACOMUNs Morales, about 5 of the 54 officially registered communal
councils are in middle-class communities, and are therefore more likely to
be with the opposition.

But that doesnt mean that opposition supporters cant join their local
communal council. The communal councils are inclusive, said Artigas
community bank representative and spokesperson for the Bloquecitos communal
council, Jose Lopez. The idea is to break the old system of exclusion.

The April 13th communal council categorically denied that Chavez or his
political party has any political say or involvement in their council. We
are autonomous and independent, said one community member. The political
parties do not have strength in the population, said another.
Nevertheless, there is only one self-identified spokesperson who does not
support the President.

One middle-class Eastern-Caracas resident, who asked not to be identified,
said that the communal councils could turn out to be a great thing for
opposition communities. Her community has been organizing a council since
March in order to be able to protect their neighborhood against Chavezs
programs and proposals. If they do not become politicized, they can
succeed, she said, otherwise, forget about it.

There have also been a few extreme cases of two communal councils forming
in the same neighborhood, with representatives fighting to be considered
valid. But such cases are the exception.

There is a lot of variety, says Felipe Pérez Marti, former Planning
Minister under Chavez until 2003. Many places of the opposition try to grab
[the communal councils] as a vindication of their position against the
government In others it has been a difficult process of unity. In others,
it has been the Chavistas, that have tried to exclude the rest.

Pérez himself, is one of the lone revolutionaries or Chavez supporters in
his neighborhoods communal council, made up of a middle-class rabid
opposition. Nevertheless, he was elected substitute spokesperson and plays
an active role since the permanent spokesperson never shows up for the
meetings.

Its been very interesting because as we have participated, says Pérez, they
have realized that we are normal people. Because the people are realizing
that we all want the same thing. We want a better life. We want that
there are better economic, social conditions. Better health, better
education, a more beautiful environment, better streets, roads. Better
living conditions. Employment. So we want the same, we are the same, why
are we divided?

According to Pérez, the divisions come from above, where those in power are
using them as a source for increasing their power, which is why he believes
the communal councils are so important, regardless, of which side you are
on.

From below there is a natural unity that is, of course, being constructed
in the debate, in the exchange of ideas, in the action, in the individual
and collective growth, and that is where they are forming a new political
and collective consciousness, and a new ethic, says Pérez, who remarks on
the near complete absence of the communal councils in the mainstream media.

According to Pérez, the people know much better than anyone in government
what they need and what they want. They know much better how to manage
those resources, because they know the community, and when a community
feels a sense of ownership, they will take care of the project.

If they waste resources, if they ask for large salaries, its as if they are
killing the hen with the golden eggs, says Pérez. They have consciousness
and they say no, the hen is mine, I have to take care of it and breed other
hens of golden eggs.

And that appears to be the direction of the April 13th council. Following
the footsteps of the grassroots mobilization after which they named their
communal council, commemorating the day, as Ulises Castro says, the people
of Venezuela went out in the streets with consciousness of the problem of
power and went to demonstrate and take the spaces of power and demand the
return of their president without political direction of any traditional
party mobilized, but with a different political consciousness.

End Notes:

[1] Interview, Pedro Caldera, FUNDACOMUN Representative, September 25,
2006, 23 de Enero, Caracas, Venezuela. The name 13th of April (13 de Abril)
was chosen for the council, in commemoration of the day President Chavez
was returned to office after a short-lived coup in 2002, and with the help
of thousands of Chavez supporters than came down from the hills to call for
the return of their President.

[2] One Caracas CTU representative likened the governments communal council
proposal to a benevolent good-intentioned giant, that only wants to help,
but while bending down to plant a flower, he crushes fifteen instead.

[3] FUNDACOMUN is a 44 year-old Venezuelan state institute, which until
last year specialized in community housing issues and according to Caracas
FUNDACOMUN director, Pedro Morales, has always worked in organization and
community participation.

[4] Interview, Richard Canaan, FIDES President, September 24, 2006, FIDES,
Caracas, Venezuela.

[5] Interview, Pedro Morales, FUNDACOMUN Caracas Capital District Capital
Director, September 25, 2006, Artigas, Caracas, Venezuela.

[6] Bancos comunales satisfacen necesidades de crédito Ultimas Noticias,
Nov. 11, 2006 http://aporrea.org/dameverbo.php?docid=86144

[7] Interview, Pedro Caldera, FUNDACOMUN Representative, November 17, 2006,
23 de Enero, Caracas, Venezuela

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