Venezuelan President Calls for “Re-definition” of Socialist Party

Mérida, May 4^th 2009 (Venezuelanalysis.com) — On his weekly talk show Aló Presidente on Sunday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), of which he is president, will undergo a "re-definition" in which sectarianism and corrupt party leadership must end and the party must strengthen its ties to social movements.

The PSUV is "on course toward the redefinition of many things in the party's internal operating," Chávez said on the nationally televised talk show. "In the PSUV, we must distance ourselves from the tendencies of the past; we cannot let ourselves be trapped by sectarianism," he said.

However, Chávez said this does not mean debate and difference of opinion are not allowed. "It is positive that there are internal currents, but they must have a political basis, not a personal one," he said.

Chávez also told PSUV leaders not to take their leadership positions for granted and not to prioritize their personal concerns over those of the party's more than four million members. "We cannot permit a small group of unconditional [party leaders] to construct their personal projects over the hopes of the people," he said.

Since Venezuelan voters approved a constitutional amendment to lift term limits on elected offices last February, Chávez has called for an acceleration of Venezuela's drive toward "21^st Century Socialism." His administration has revived land re-distribution to empower food production "communes," which are based on a new form of legally sanctioned social property.

However, internal barriers to change persist within the party. Last month, a state police squad forcibly evicted more than sixty small farmers and workers from the National Lands Institute (INTI) who were demarcating idle and under-used private lands for re-distribution in the Portuguesa state. The state police fell under the responsibility of the the governor, who is a member of the PSUV national directorate.

Chávez said on Sunday, "The party should be a strong articulator of the workers' movement, the students, the small farmers, women, the indigenous people, and all the social movements."

In his weekly presidential op-ed column, which is published on Sundays and titled "Chávez's Lines," Chávez spoke of the importance of the workers' movement for the construction of Socialism in Venezuela.

"There cannot be institutional or governing practices that contradict our pro-worker definition," Chávez said. "There cannot be a relationship of tutelage with respect to the workers… It is not the state, nor the government, nor the PSUV whose duty it is to organize and lead the workers; it is the workers themselves who must assume this historic responsibility."

A commission of national party leaders has been formed to carry out a new membership drive for the next five weekends. The party will issue membership cards and update its membership registry.

In addition, the commission has been tasked with organizing more socialist battalions at the local level, which will come together in a national congress of the PSUV in August to discuss the organizational structure and future direction of the party.

Also, the party plans to found an editorial foundation to spur the ideological formation of its members.

Chávez called for the creation of the PSUV after his re-election to a second presidential term in 2006, with the purpose of bringing together all the existing leftist parties that supported his presidency into one party whose leadership is democratically elected by the membership base.

Last year, 2.5 million PSUV members went to the polls to choose the party's candidates for the mayoral and gubernatorial elections, making the PSUV the only political party to comply with Venezuela's constitutional requirement that party leaders and candidates for office be elected democratically within the party.