Why was the voter turnout relatively low in the AN elections?
There are a number of different reasons. Many of the people support Chavez, but not the political parties. The PCV started two years ago to work with the organised popular movement. Last year, we said to the MVR that the popular organisations need to be represented at the round table of discussion and decision-making, but there is a typical vision of a strong ruling party that rules alone. This opinion is different to that of Chavez and most of the main leaders, however. The PCV ran in the elections for mayors and the AN, not with the parties, but in alliance with the social movements. It was important that we had a list of candidates including PCV members and members of the social movements. We had great success. We jumped from 50,000 to 150,000 votes. It changed the vision of our party. The PCV is an old, historic party, with a strong public image relating to our martyrs and our political prisoners, but a bit old-fashioned. This marks a new stage; these elections have allowed us to g
