Venezuelan Political Evolution: Constitutions, Laws, and Parties

Posted on Dec 13, 2024 in Law & Jurisprudence

The Constitutions of 1936 and 1947

In the foregoing, we have referred to the concepts and definitions of the Constitutional Charter. We emphasize the importance of implementing and enforcing it in intimate union and relationship with the rule of law. This arises out of a special event: the desire of rulers and the ruled for a government to achieve genuine popular representation in the republican-democratic system.

The Constitution of 1936

The constitution of 1936 reflects adherence to the law of the new rulers but does not correspond exactly to the aspirations of the people, nor is it totally democratic. On the other hand, its content reveals a reactionary lag because it accepts the use of armed force against popular demonstrations. It sets out undemocratic measures against political parties, especially paragraph 6 of article 32, which prohibits the doctrine and the Communist Party and the expulsion of its members without a court order. This provision is a clear manifestation of congressional obscurantist behavior (the same government of Gomez) who wanted to rise up and interfere with every popular movement in each community to organize political parties. Despite these negative aspects, it contains provisions favorable to workers as a means of appeasement.

In matters relating to elections, it provides that:

  1. The President of the Republic shall be elected for a five-year constitutional term.
  2. Direct and universal suffrage is not established.
  3. There is no presidential re-election or election of the president’s immediate family.
  4. The election of Members of Congress will be held by the municipal councils (elections of the second degree). Senators must be elected by the legislature, as members of municipal councils must be elected by the people.

The Constitution of 1947

Democracy is a system that moves daily toward perfectibility, and it will annex the improvement of constitutional norms. Thus, to the extent that the people in the transition period from 1936 to 1945 gained experience in their democratic rights and the practice of the democratic republican system, the drafting of laws improved as well. That is the reason why the 1947 constitution is more democratic than the letter of 1936. It is, in fact, the most democratic of all the fundamental laws of the twentieth century and has the nineteenth-century sense of the constitution of 1864. This charter, inspired by the socio-political postulates of political parties, presents the following relevant points:

  • Election by universal suffrage and direct ballot of the president of the republic and the representatives to the deliberative bodies (National Congress, Legislative Assemblies, and Municipal Councils).
  • Suffrage for all Venezuelans over 19 years of age.
  • It is essentially democratic because it establishes the democratic system as the sole and irrevocable system of government.
  • Congress fully guarantees all citizens, especially in labor issues (the right to strike, retirement, paid holidays, increased share of the profits of the company where you work, compensation to pay), part of the Venezuelan state (the home warranty, right to education, health care and medical issues, welfare, etc.).
  • Consecration of the female vote, which is established for the first time in a Venezuelan constitution.
  • The state governors are appointed by the President of the Republic.
  • The period of government is five years.

Important Laws and Decrees

The political transition period between 1936 and 1958 is a period during which there were many laws, all to benefit the national community and the social and economic development of the country. In each government, there was concern for the attention to numerous issues requiring specific legal regulations. They were treated with the enactment of legal instruments that came to solve specific problems; for that time, those laws were created. But other existing laws were also reviewed to suit the requirements of the dynamics of the Venezuelan state and its people. In the presidential years covered from 1936 to 1958, we have these laws (the most outstanding):

During the Presidency of López Contreras (1936-1941)

  • The Labor Act, the first one on this matter entered into force in the country.
  • The Hydrocarbon Law was reformed.
  • The Tariff Schedule Law was enacted.

During this administration, the following laws and decrees took effect:

  • 1936 Ordinance of Suspension of Constitutional Guarantees
  • 1936 New Hydrocarbon Law
  • Act to Prevent Contamination of Water by Oil (July 20, 1936)
  • Decree Establishing the Venezuelan Child Council (August 6, 1936)
  • Customs Tariff Law (October 20, 1936)
  • Decree Establishing the National Pedagogical Institute (November 30, 1936)
  • Decree Creating the Ministry of Health and Welfare (February 25, 1936)
  • Security Service Act (June 30, 1938)
  • Arms and Explosives Act (June 12, 1939)
  • Registration Act (June 31, 1940)
  • Compulsory Social Security Act (1940)
  • Act Establishing the Central Bank (1940)

During the Presidency of Medina Angarita (1941-1945)

The following laws and decrees were promulgated, as the most important for the country:

  • Currency Act (July 22, 1941)
  • Decree Legalizing the Democratic Action Party (September 1941)
  • Decree of Legalization of the Communist Party in Venezuela (September 10, 1944)
  • Law on Income Tax (July 10, 1941)
  • 1943 Hydrocarbons Law

During the Revolutionary Government Board (1945-1948)

The following laws and decrees were passed and took effect:

  • Decree Organizing the Ministry of Transport and Communications (October 29, 1945)
  • Act Against Hoarding and Speculation (February 8, 1946)
  • Decree Establishing the National Stock Exchange of Work (June 4, 1946)
  • Decree for the Reopening of the University of Zulia (January 10, 1946)
  • Expropriation Law for Public Utility (1947)

During the Ten Years of Government (1948-1957)

  • An Act Establishing the National Agrarian Institute (1949)
  • Bank Act for Workers (January 25, 1951)
  • Decree on Compulsory Social Insurance Status (May 10, 1951)
  • Decree by which the Election Statute Takes Effect (April 19, 1951)
  • Flag Act, Shield, and National Anthem (February 17, 1954)
  • Education Act (July 25, 1955)
  • Forestry Law of Soils and Waters (August 27, 1955)

Suffrage and Elections

The constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela states, in relation to voting and elections:

In Venezuela, the exercise of suffrage is supported by applicable law. This right among Venezuelans is a practice of democratic nature, whose outstanding features are:

  • Universal: That is, everyone of legal voting age must comply with the duty of choosing unless the relevant law imposes restrictions.
  • Direct: It means that people, through the exercise of their vote, can choose freely and directly the candidate they want for president of the republic and equally those who must integrate the National Assembly and Legislative Councils.
  • Secret: This feature of our vote is an effective guarantee for the success of the election activity. This feature preserves the intent of the voter from any external forces or constraints that might upset their decision to pick a particular candidate.
  • Elections: Are the reason for the vote. They are activities with a particular legal period in the country.

Formation of Modern Political Parties

During the transition regime we have been studying, between the years 1936 to 1958, the Venezuelan people began to acquire political consciousness, a highly necessary medium for the preservation of civil liberties. It was influenced by the teachings and guidance of an ideological nature that many leaders, clearly popular, were planting in the minds of Venezuelans since the near death of Gomez in Maracay. That consciousness matured and strengthened in the first two years of the presidential term of General Eleazar López Contreras. During the regime of General Isaías Medina Angarita, excellent winds of freedom blew, which were used by political leaders of the time.

Political parties in Venezuela are children of liberty, and Venezuelans could start showing, freely and in public, their own ideological trends. It was the time when areas of the left and right were defined. Today the ideological camps are demarcated and defined in left, right, and center in some settings – left and center-right; expressions that have become popular in the political-social sphere.

Clarifying concepts, we explain:

  • The left is synonymous with revolutionary, advanced, and usually extreme.
  • The right is conservative and traditionalist.
  • The mixture of ideological positions, common in the present political parties, is seen as reformist positions within the revolutionary ideals (such as the position of socialism versus communism) and revolutionary positions in conservative or reactionary ideology.

What is a Political Party?

In current politics, political parties are groups that obey specific doctrinal points of view and aim at the direction of the active political work of the state. In a written sense, a political party is a core of an ideological or demagogic nature, whose action is inspired by a social program and is practiced by methods democratizing or not. Generally, it is thought that in developed countries there is no place for more than two parties or, at most, three. But in any case, the existence of political parties (two or more) is necessary for public health. It is therefore not desirable to have a one-party system, whether it is right or left. They are not something individual but arise from the need to solve the same problems afflicting modern society.

The political history of the country, in relation to political parties, presents three projection foci that formed the core of our political organizations:

  1. Communist-Marxist-Leninist ideologies fed and planned by a group of Venezuelans.
  2. The policy positions advocated by the Federation of Students in Venezuela.
  3. National Student Union.

Of these three important political aspects come the bases of the Venezuelan political parties (AD, COPEI, Convergence, Project Venezuela, UD, MAS, Causa R, PPT, MVR) that are of different ideological conjugates.

Treatment of Border Diplomatic Discussion

In the twenty years of transition under consideration, the political-territorial issue was not foreign to the concerns of various governments. This happened in the government of General López Contreras, who, after having ordered, through diplomatic channels, the study of the situation, agreed to the signing of a border treaty with the Republic of Colombia, led at that time by the illustrious President Eduardo Santos. With this legal instrument, the borders of Venezuela and Colombia were fixed once and for all, on April 5, 1941, in the city of Cúcuta.