Andean Group - March 2008 (ISSN 1741-4466)

President Hugo Chávez was appointed president of the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV) on 24 February. This is his new party designed to unify the different strands of Bolivarianism, which is already showing fissiparous tendencies.

Before taking over as president of the PSUV, Chávez devoted part of his regular weekly broadcast, Aló, Presidente, to an appeal for unity. He said that individual members should subordinate their egos to the collective good as only a united PSUV would win the regional elections for mayors and governors in November. Chávez was responding to a rancorous dispute between Luis Tascón, a deputy in the national assembly, and Diosdado Cabello, the governor of Miranda, which culminated in Tascón's expulsion from the PSUV. It is not clear, however, that Tascón, a radical who has been denouncing corruption, has been expelled. On 28 February Chávez was still speaking as though Tascón should be expelled from the party but had not been.

Tascón had denounced irregularities in the infrastructure ministry under Cabello's brother, José David (now head of the tax agency, Seniat), specifically the overpricing of 100 4WD cars and 200 minibuses in March 2007. Cabello did not mince his words in response. He accused Tascón of lying and of being "an instrument of imperialism". He also insisted Tascón be investigated for allegedly requesting a diplomatic passport for a Venezuelan banker accused of drug-trafficking. Another PSUV leader, Gerson Pérez, accused Tascón of planning to destabilise the country and create a revolutionary situation by planning to kill Chávez 's ex wife, Marí­a Isabel Rodrí­guez, who has become critical of her former husband.

The PSUV party coordinator, Jorge Rodrí­guez (who previously served as vice-president), said that the founding congress of the PSUV, which is meeting to discuss the party's principles and statutes, voted unanimously to eject Tascón.Tascón denies this. He claims that the decision was taken by Rodrí­guez and Cabello alone, despite neither of them having disciplinary powers. Tascón got no support from the president of the national assembly, Cilia Flores. She said he had been "self-excluded" from the PSUV for exposing Cabello to "public ridicule without proof". The opposition is backing Tascón and accusing the government of trying to cover up corruption.

Polo Patriótico

Assuming the spat does not knock it off-target, the PSUV will finish its deliberations on 2 March and elect a national committee of 281 members on 8 March. At this point, the party will be in a position to start the process of selecting candidates for governor and mayor and, significantly, re-launch Polo Patriótico, the constellation of leftist parties including the Movimiento V República and the Patria para Todos (PPT) which brought Chávez to power in 1998. Chávez floated the idea of reactivating Polo Patriótico in January in a bid to reach out to the PPT and the Partido Comunista de Venezuela which refused to be subsumed into the PSUV last year.

Crime: One of the government's key challenges in the coming months - which could determine the fate of PSUV candidates in the elections - is the issue of violent crime. Homicides were up 11% in 2007 on the previous year, to a high of 12,829. The government is adopting a twofold strategy, which consists of placing the blame on others and reforming the police. Chávez raised the issue last week when he claimed that Colombian paramilitaries were infiltrating Venezuela's barrios, selling cheap cocaine and supplying guns to local gangs.

• Tascón's list

Tascón became famous for publishing a list with the names of voters who signed a petition in favour of a recall referendum on Chávez 's mandate in 2004. The list was later allegedly used to bar those on it from holding positions in state institutions and companies or to prevent their promotion.