ABSTRACT
Sustaining high levels of voter participation proved to be problematic in the longer term. Abstention rates began to accelerate at the end of the 1970s and rose sharply in the 1980s. The rise in abstention inverted the traditionally high placement of Venezuela within tables of international participation rates. The economic values of the Venezuelan population strongly influenced their notion of what a democratic system should embody. A major contradiction emerged in the political attitudes of the Venezuelan electorate. Abstention recorded in 1993 was higher than that registered in the newly democratised regimes of Eastern Europe and Latin America. The Supreme Electoral Council, Consejo Supremo Electoral (CSE), the state body charged with administering elections, sought to justify declining participation rates through reference to international abstention trends. Minor parties may have been negatively affected by popular hostility to the traditional parties, which translated into alienation from political parties in general.
