This Sunday, Venezuela's rightist opposition lost yet another chance to claw back political clout, concludes Gamal Nkrumah Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is slaying the shibboleths of Western preconceived notions of South American socialist democracies. South America's most militant socialist leader must win the hardheaded middle class in the febrile last months before the 2012 presidential polls. Chavez's United Socialist Party of Venezuela better known by its Spanish acronym (PSUV) has emerged as one of the most progressive parties in the Americas. Success at the polls in Venezuela this week means that leftist parties in the entire Western Hemisphere are surging ahead of their reactionary rightist rivals. It was not in the end a decisive showdown. However, crucially, Venezuela's opposition parties failed to land a killer blow. There was no "aha" moment. Venezuela under Chavez, contrary to doomsayers, has not made a jackbooted hash of its economy. Venezuela's open political system disproves the myth that socialism is incompatible with democracy. The left, as demonstrated by the PSUV's victory at the Venezuelan 26 September 2010 parliamentary polls, managed to retain two-thirds of the 165 deputies for Venezuela's National Assembly -- a great achievement. Next, it will focus on unseating the reactionary forces in the Americas by democratic means. The Colombians next door can only look longingly at their exuberant antithesis. The international media portrayed the results as a setback for Chavez and his PSUV. In reality, the left now has a golden opportunity to develop a progressive policy programme that will eradicate poverty in the Western Hemisphere, advance the cause of socialism and ensure that social justice is of paramount importance on the continent. The left has been given free rein to seriously examine how to fulfil the aspirations of the disadvantaged and underdog. The leftist forces in the Americas have tapped into the popular mood among the low people on the totem pole. "Maximum mobilisation, push hard on all battle fronts," declared Chavez in a Twitter message on Sunday. Yet it would be unwise for the world to dismiss the rightist forces, represented in Venezuela by the Coalition for Democratic Unity (CDU), as a spent force. The Venezuelan opposition, one of the most regressive and reactionary in the Western Hemisphere, boycotted the 2005 elections. It refuses to admit that Venezuela is a robust democracy and a country courageously experimenting with socialism. Venezuelans under Chavez are doing away with parsimonious individualism and cruel, irresponsible capitalism. Under Chavez Venezuela has consolidated a stable democracy in the once politically volatile South American and Caribbean region. Yet Chavez's ideological convictions have hardly budged. To rub it in, this week's legislative elections, where the CDU won 65 seats, were universally acknowledged as characterised by fairness and transparency. Nobody can say that the 96 deputies of the PSUV have not found common cause with the toiling masses of Venezuela. "What the opposition claimed all along is the media message that they hold the majority. On the contrary, throughout the past 11 years, the revolutionary process has won every election and this too is going to be a victory for us," Chavez said on the eve of this week's parliamentary polls. Just how destructive and disruptive will the post-election rightist opposition be? It is time to further curb the power and the influence of Venezuela's super-rich, the lackeys of Western imperialism, to use the parlance of yesterday's leftist politicos. Chavez knows that championing the cause of the poorest of the poor must be at the forefront of his government's attention at all times. Yet this remains very much in the genre of red scare- mongering as far as the right is concerned. They over-hype the fear of socialism in the interest of making a bigger splash in the ousting of their nemesis Chavez. So perhaps Chavez was not so wide off the mark after all. His pledge to uplift the poor is far from being insipid. This is in marked contrast to his opponents who are constantly being politically undermined by their insensitivity to the plight of the poor. This week's parliamentary polls are a victory for progressive and peace-loving people around the world. The detractors of Venezuela's left-leaning President Hugo Chavez amplify democracy's demise in Venezuela. Venezuelans still trust parliament to sort out their differences and have not taken their grievances to the streets. Yet Venezuela under Chavez is among the most attractive democratic pin-ups in contemporary South America. Long gone are the days when the price of running against an incumbent president of Chavez's political stature was jail. Political violence in Venezuela scaled new heights during the past elections, but not this time. Chavez has proved Washington spectacularly wrong on that score. Must Venezuelans go through the rigmarole of transferring power to a rightist opposition in order to be accepted as a democratic nation by Washington? Venezuelans clearly couldn't care less what Washington thinks. Chavez's ruling party's hold on power looks as firm as ever. So what if the Venezuelan electorate rejects the lock-step progress of economic and political liberalism championed by Washington? Chavez has become a master in putting the US in its place. He is under no obligation just yet to clarify that it was his ideology and not the medium of political manipulation of anti-socialist forces that was wrong. To the man and woman on the street in Venezuela, Chavez is an icon. Venezuelans who have to put their votes where their mouths are know that talk is cheap for those who do not -- Venezuela's wealthy economic elite. Venezuela's super-rich class that has traditionally furnished the opposition parties with funds must end this uncaring callousness to stop the intolerable attrition of confidence in its words. Yes, Chavez's ruling party's failure to engage with the "how it looks" to the Western media challenge could, if not resolved threaten its long- term popularity. His supporters may conclude that he does not really put them first. His agenda is clear, his opponents' is intentionally vague. Such posturing by Chavez tells the Venezuelan electorate little about how the opposition will allocate the "pain of the poor" if they come to power and shift the weight of cutting the state on a few departments that are already lean. In a seeming fit of pragmatism this week, Venezuela's opposition conceded that Chavez has the upper hand. Washington feels that Chavez is riding high and that the right is discredited. It risks becoming a self- fulfilling prophecy. The left in Venezuela is embarking on groundbreaking reforms in the historically unjust social, political and economic systems. None of these reforms would be easy to implement. Venezuela was for centuries a cornerstone of Pax Americana in the Americas and the Caribbean. The "Washington Consensus" was at its heart. Venezuela's opposition parties must take a long, hard look at the future of their resource-rich country. The opposition is stepping up its diatribe against Chavez's socialism. The irresponsibility of these comments is mind-boggling at a time when the social gains of the disadvantaged groups are clear for everyone to see. There is no third avenue open to Venezuelans. That the Venezuelan opposition lost once again is largely its own fault. Before Venezuelan voters cast their votes it became crystal clear that it was too late to hope for clarity on where each opposition party would swing the axe. The judicial system is already lean, the Venezuelan opposition groans. But right now there are no pleasant choices left for Venezuela's right- wing opposition. Venezuelan opposition parties must stop nay-saying. The Machiavellian machinations of rightist opposition forces in Venezuela do not and cannot break constitutional ground. A mere third of the vote is no mandate for reversing the Bolivarian revolution. Venezuela's opposition parties need to explain their own ambitions for the state more eloquently. No Venezuelan opposition party has explained how it will achieve the budget plans that it plans. Venezuelan voters will cast their ballots in next year's presidential election without being told what economic choices they have. So what is the answer? Chavez's political standing is gaining momentum throughout South America and the Caribbean. This large natural resource exporter needs to diversify away from oil and gas. Oil exploration and production is intrinsically a risky business as the fatal explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico off the southern United States coast demonstrated. These issues reverberate each time a Venezuelan election takes place. The country, after all, is a major oil exporter. The results of the election suggest that President Chavez needs to rekindle his voter magic in his traditional strongholds among the impoverished millions of this oil-rich South American nation. The spotlight now falls on the poor who didn't cast their vote for Chavez. Disappointment that Chavez has not fulfilled expectations could lead to a lower turnout in next year's presidential elections. If Chavez does not woo those who are now leaning towards his adversaries, this would work against him. The higher the turnout, the greater his chances of winning. Before Venezuelans went to the polls, they pondered the future. Thus far, the political debate among Venezuela's opposition bigwigs has circled around minutiae. Venezuelan opposition parties have fought furiously over the wisdom of Chavez's socialist-oriented policies. Chavez concentrates on the bigger picture. All of Venezuela's parties have programmes for shunting investment into favoured sectors. Only Chavez's party has come closest to articulating an industrial policy which is regarded as too statist by the opposition. Conscious that his party stands to have its majority in parliament significantly weakened, the Venezuelan president is trying to reassure voters that he is tending to the economy. The PSUV is determined to move ahead. The fiction of the erosion of Chavez's base, masterminded by the rightist opposition, comes at a time in the electoral cycle that is typically bad for sitting presidents, and especially one branded as controversial by his detractors. To try and improve his party's standing, Chavez will undoubtedly strive to increase the turnout in the 2012 presidential polls. With no term limits, the opposition will cry foul. If the Venezuelan opposition has indeed ended this little dance, it is back to the status quo ante.
