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

high; pervasive links to the party system gave it structure, and also helped to concentrate efforts
in a limited range of arenas, especially electoral competition.
Much of the success of these agreements hinged on excluding the revolutionary Left.
Their parties were deliberately shut out of pacts and coalitions, although they did join in
consensual approval of the Constitution and were not excluded from elections until they declared
war on the system. Exclusion of the Left from pacts, coalitions, and policy-making was intended
to reassure business, Church, and military leaders and reconcile them to the new democracy.
The kind of incremental change embodied in the Pact of Punto Fijo and the Minimum Program of
Government obviously ruled out the Left’s agenda of radical transformation. The Left also
excluded itself. Frustrated by the shrinking outlook for major change at home and inspired by the
recent example of the Cuban Revolution, parties on the Left came to the conclusion that
revolution was not only necessary but also possible for Venezuela and moved quickly to armed
insurgency. The insurrection decisively consolidated the coalitions being put together by AD.
Military rule was still recent and discredited, and AD’s leaders played skillfully on domestic fears,
painting themselves as the only real hope for stability. They sought and obtained US support for
Venezuela as an alternative to Cuba, thus further reassuring local conservatives while isolating
diehard military groups who on several occasion attempted coups in the years just after 1958.
At this point it is appropriate to look more closely at the nature of the major political
parties. AD provided the model for political organizers that has managed to dominate the political
scene for half a century, providing seven of the nine presidents elected by popular vote. Still, as
we show in the next section, the party’s organization and electoral predominance decayed
together in the decade after 1958. Ideological and factional disputes also caused a series of
damaging splits (1960, 1962, 1967) which cut deeply into AD’s strength. These were mostly
repaired after 1968 as successful organizational and electoral campaigns underwrote the party’s
remarkable rebound.
Effective competition (especially from its tough, enduring rival COPEI) kept AD from
extending its previous hegemony unchallenged to the new generations of voters now entering the
electorate in large numbers. COPEI was founded in 1945 as a narrowly based, sectarian
opposition to the trienio regime. COPEI’s initial support was based on an appeal to politically
mobilized Catholics, and voters were concentrated in the traditionally Catholic Andean states.
But from these origins, COPEI has since grown into a genuinely national and clearly
nonconfessional party that competes effectively at every level.
AD and COPEI have much in common. Each is a multiclass party, drawing a varied
social base together around a central party leadership. Of all the parties that have challenged AD
for power, only COPEI has managed to build a durable and broadly popular base, drawing
elements from all across the social spectrum. Both parties also have permanent professional