The Radical Cause (, LCR), stylized as La Causa Я, is a minor

left-wing Left-wing politics describes the range of Ideology#Political ideologies, political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy either as a whole or of certain social ...

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology, ...

Venezuela Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...

, and today part of the Venezuelan opposition to president

Nicolás Maduro Nicolás Maduro Moros (; born 23 November 1962) is a Venezuelan politician and former union leader serving as the 53rd president of Venezuela since 2013. Previously, he was the 24th Vice President of Venezuela, vice president from 2012 to 20 ...

. At its peak in the early 1990s, the party came within touching distance of winning the 1993 presidential elections. However, the party split in 1997 when a number of members left to form Patria Para Todos, now part of the pro-government Great Patriotic Pole (GPP) electoral

alliance An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or sovereign state, states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not an explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an a ...

. LCR has now lost much of its national profile, but retains some influence in its home region of Guayana.

History

Early history

LCR was founded in 1971 by :es:Alfredo Maneiro, an intellectual and former guerrilla who had been expelled from the

Communist Party of Venezuela The Communist Party of Venezuela (, PCV) is a communist party in Venezuela. Founded in 1931, it is the oldest active political party in Venezuela, and was the country's main leftist party until it fractured into rival factions in 1971. The P ...

. The new revolutionary socialist party grew quickly, benefiting from the collapse of the Communist Party. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the party focused on organizing factory workers in the Guayana region of Bolivar state through the so-called Matanceros Movement, as well as workers on the west side of Caracas, Catia, Caracas and Catia. The party gained control of the leadership of the SUTISS metalworkers' union at SIDOR, the largest steel company in Venezuela. Maneiro's premature death, caused by a heart attack in 1982, left the party's leadership in the hands of the young labor activists he had trained.

Electoral challenges

With the 1989 introduction of elections for local and regional offices, LCR had its first opportunity to compete electorally with a chance of success. In December 1988, LCR sent three deputies to the

Venezuelan Chamber of Deputies The Chamber of Deputies () was the lower house of Venezuela's legislative under its 1961 constitution; the Venezuelan Senate was the upper house. Under the 1999 constitution, the bicameral system was replaced by the unicameral National Assembly ...

. In 1989, one of LCR's leaders, Andrés Velásquez, became the first Venezuelan elected governor who did not belong to either of the two major political parties ( Accion Democratica and COPEI), winning the Bolívar governorship on the LCR ticket. In the 1992 local elections, Aristóbulo Istúriz was elected mayor of Caracas for LCR, where he initiated processes of citizen participation which, although canceled after his term ended in 1995, would later influence the

Bolivarian Revolution The Bolivarian Revolution is a social revolution and ongoing political process in Venezuela that was started by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, the founder of the Fifth Republic Movement and later the United Socialist Party of Venezuela ...

. In the 1993 presidential elections, the party nominated Andrés Velásquez as its candidate. Velásquez finished in fourth place with 22%, according to the official results, close to winning candidate Rafael Caldera's 30.5%. However, Velásquez and his party alleged that

electoral fraud Electoral fraud, sometimes referred to as election manipulation, voter fraud, or vote rigging, involves illegal interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the vote share of a favored candidate, depressing the vote share o ...

had taken place and that he had actually come in second place. Francisco Arias Cárdenas, one of the main co-conspirators in

Hugo Chávez Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (; ; 28 July 1954 – 5 March 2013) was a Venezuelan politician, Bolivarian Revolution, revolutionary, and Officer (armed forces), military officer who served as the 52nd president of Venezuela from 1999 until De ...

's 1992 coup attempt, later joined LCR and was elected Governor of

Zulia State Zulia State (, ; Wayuu language, Wayuu: ''Mma’ipakat Suuria'') is one of the States of Venezuela, 23 states of Venezuela. The state capital is Maracaibo. As of the 2011 census, it has a population of 3,704,404, the largest population among Vene ...

Split

In 1997, the party split into two factions, a radical faction led by Pablo Medina, Aristóbulo Istúriz and Alí Rodríguez Araque and a moderate faction led by Andrés Velásquez. The radical faction, which was favored by a majority of party members, left to found a new party Patria Para Todos (PPT) and went on to support

's candidacy for the presidency the following year. After losing a majority of its members, LCR's influence was diminished. It retained its name, moderated its radical ideology, and later went into opposition to the Chávez government. The party remained strongly opposed to the Chávez government, joining the Coordinadora Democrática in 2002, supporting

Manuel Rosales Manuel Antonio Rosales Guerrero (born 12 December 1952, in Santa Bárbara del Zulia) is a Venezuelan educator and politician, current governor of Zulia. He was the most prominent Venezuelan opposition candidate in the 2006 Venezuelan presiden ...

in the 2006 presidential elections, and opposing the 2007 proposed constitutional reform. The party won four seats in the

2000 Venezuelan general election General elections were held in Venezuela on 30 July 2000, the first under the country's newly adopted 1999 constitution. Incumbent President Hugo Chávez ran for election for a full six-year term under the new constitution. He was challenged by ...

, but lost them all four years later. In the 2008 Venezuelan regional elections, held on November 23, Andrés Velásquez narrowly failed in his bid to win the Bolívar State governorship once again, due to splits within the opposition. LCR's Victor Fuenmayor was elected mayor of the state's second largest city,

Ciudad Bolívar Ciudad Bolívar (; Spanish for "Bolivar City"), formerly known as Angostura and St. Thomas de Guyana, is the capital of Venezuela's southeastern Bolívar, Venezuela, Bolívar State. It lies at the spot where the Orinoco River narrows to about ...

, the party's best result in the election. The party earned less than 1% of the nationwide vote for the various governorships.

External links

La Causa Я website

La Causa Я Twitter

References