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

party’s vote and of growing abstentions; and 4. the relation between votes and representation in
Congress.
Electoral fragmentation comes in many forms. One obvious element is the sheer growth
in the number of candidates and parties seeking office. Three candidates competed for the
presidency in 1958, twenty-three in 1988; eight parties presented legislative slates in the first
election, compared to seventy-eight thirty years later. Although these numbers are impressive,
they need to be treated with care. Although a growing number and variety of groups have sought
the presidency, only AD and COPEI have won it. Moreover, these two parties have never
combined for less than half the total vote, with that low level coming only at the high-water marks
of electoral dispersion, in 1963 and 1968. Since 1968, their joint domination has expanded to
account for over 90 percent of the presidential vote during the 1980s (Table 5).
With respect to legislative elections, despite the fact that almost ten times more parties
competed in 1988 than thirty years earlier, the number gaining at least one deputy increased only
from four to eleven over the same period. That high point was reached in 1973 and has not
increased since, although the composition of the group of winners has changed substantially.
This result is all the more impressive given Venezuela’s generous proportional representation
system, which allocates additional seats by national electoral quotient after results are decided
within states and territories. The data in Tables 3 and 4 affirm the long-term trend of controlled
fragmentation and gradually consolidated domination by AD and COPEI.
Throughout the thirty years of modern democratic politics, AD has never yielded its
position as the single biggest party in either house of congress. COPEI has gradually risen to a
consistent second place, even in elections where its presidential candidate won strongly as was
the case in 1978. The rest of the votes (and seats) have been divided among parties that rarely
survived more than a decade (two electoral periods in Venezuela) with any significant strength.
Of all the parties that have arisen thus far to challenge AD, COPEI, and the pattern of joint
domination, only MAS has resisted the trend. Candidates from MAS have now competed
successfully in four elections, holding their own in the first three and growing strongly in votes and
seats in 1988. We suggest below that recent electoral reforms favor continued gradual growth for
MAS, especially in legislative elections and in votes at the subnational level.
The evolution of competition warrants separate attention. The decade after 1958 was
marked by steady decline for AD, uninterrupted growth for COPEI, and the rise and fall of a
number of electoral phenomena. Although elections became more competitive in these years,
this competition lacked coherence or enduring structure. Growing dispersion of the vote raised
fears about fragmentation and possible atomization of the party system. The 1968 elections were
the high-water mark of electoral dispersion in Venezuela. Nine major parties (and countless
minor groups) competed for public office, with none gaining more than 30 percent of the total