Venezuela: The Life and Times of the Party System - Political ...

typically shared among representatives of various parties. Competition within a single group thus
replaced older patterns of parallel and conflicting organizations.
The consensus sought through pacts and coalitions was both substantive and
procedural. 1 Key political forces essentially agreed to disagree—setting difficult and potentially
explosive issues aside to concentrate on more manageable areas where limited ‘technical’
solutions could be found. Program restriction was central to the process and its basic outlines
were enshrined in a second formal agreement, the Minimum Program of Government. This
Minimum Program embraced a development model based on foreign and local private capital,
subsidies to the private sector, principles of compensation for any land reform, and a generally
cautious approach to economic and social reform. Pacts and agreements were also intended to
defuse potential oppositions: the military got amnesties, better equipment, and salary upgrades;
the Catholic Church got improved legal status, public subsidies, consultation on educational
reform, and a general sense of security derived from COPEI’s participation in coalition
governments after 1958. Opposition from both Right and Left was defeated, the first through
successful purges in the officer corps and defeat of military coups, and the latter through
marginalization and defeat of the continent’s first big guerrilla insurrection after the Cuban
Revolution. 2
To the party elites who created it after 1958, democracy was both a goal in itself and a
means to other unspecified ends: an open-ended set of arrangements founded on common ways
of defining ‘politics’ and appropriate political action. But of course elites are not all there is to
politics. Without followers, and especially without mediating structures to organize and mobilize
the population, elites are helpless—mere claimants to power and legitimacy. It is important,
therefore, to acknowledge the depth and scope of popular support for democracy. With rare
exceptions, mass publics followed party leaders, resisting calls to revolution put to them by leftist
parties whose mass base had long ago been taken by AD. Mercier states that,
Looked at from a purely class point of view, it could be said that, throughout the
years 1960-63, the working class and peasantry were defending a moderate
government against assault from political groups composed, for the most part, of
intellectuals, students, career politicians, and people who had come down in the
world (1969, 106).
After 1958, barriers to participation dropped and active political involvement was
encouraged and facilitated. Registering to vote is easy in Venezuela and voting is not only
convenient but also obligatory. A vigorous and widespread associational life made participation
1 For details on Venezuelan pacts and their larger significance, see Levine (1973, 1985, and
1988).
2 For discussions of the meaning of the guerrilla movement and the impact of its defeat on
political life, in addition to the sources cited above, see Levine (1978). For general comments,
see Crowley (1989).