Andean Group - August 2012 (ISSN 1741-4466)

President Hugo Chávez has long touted his ruling umbrella Partido Unido Socialista de Venezuela (PSUV) as the very epitome of participative democracy. The president’s flowery rhetoric fails to mask the whiff of autocracy, however. For all their talk of popular power, Chávez and the senior PSUV hierarchy closely control every aspect of the PSUV, right down to the choice of candidates for town halls and municipalities. This top-down iron control has rankled this year, with more vocal opposition than usual.

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