The Quiet Revolution: Venezuelans experiment with participatory democracy

By Andrew Kennis

Members of the 13 de Abril communal council, located in the worker residential district 23 de Enero in Caracas, deliberate over and plan community development projects. (Photo courtesy of Sílvia Leindecker)

Communal councils are an effort to combat red tape and the corruption related to it. They are also the product of a long history of movement politics.

Selling goods to passersby on the street, Jenny Caraballo describes her local communal council. “Some of our members are homemakers who want their community to be pretty,” Caraballo says while trying to make eye contact with potential clients in 23 de Enero, a barrio popular that is one of many rough areas in Caracas, Venezuela.
The balmy weather southwest of Caracas, in the state of Táchira, does not stop Pedro Hernandez, 77, from playing chess with his retired friends in San Crist—bal’s city square. “Before, the government didn’t help the people,” he says. “Now they give us benefits. “Now there is culture, dance and programs free to the public and organized by our communal council.” Hernandez does his part by organizing chess tournaments.
And in the picturesque mountain town of Merida, Alidio Sosa says: “The councils are a symbol of how the old parties are dead and won’t ever come back—the parties of the past never concerned themselves with the community.”
Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s megalomaniac president who has spearheaded the country’s Bolivarian revolution and garnered so much attention, is not the only one shaking up the country’s political system. A community-based revolution is underway in Venezuela. Ordinary people all over are changing how their communities are governed.

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