After December 15, 1999: Venezuela’s New Contsitution Seen as Integral to Grassroots Social Movement

In Bolivarian Circles and other pro-government political study groups, people read and study the 1999 constitution (see December 15, 1999). According to supporters of the Chavez government, the constitution becomes an integral part of a grassroots movement to advance Chavez’s social agenda. “It is a political project towards which pro-Chavez Venezuelans want to move the society,” says Gregory Wilpert, a former US Fulbright scholar in Venezuela. By contrast, notes Wilpert, few in the general population ever read the country’s previous constitution, drafted in 1966. Roland Denis, a veteran political organizer in the barrios of Caracas and former Vice-Minister for local planning, similarly describes the significance of the 1999 constitution: “[Chavez’s] leadership was and is undisputed, but his ideas would not have been enough to bring together the movement. The constitution fills this gap. It is a political program and simultaneously serves the purpose of providing a framework for the process. This constitution is not simply a dead text. It reflects values and principles. Perhaps not enough, perhaps one will have to reform it, maybe later one will not need it anymore for the revolutionary process. But at the moment it has the function of Mao’s Little Red Book: It represents the demands and goals of the grassroots movement.” [Venezuela Analysis, 8/27/2003]