Chávez held a massive rally (and I mean massive, like this earlier one) on the Avenida Bolívar to officially swear in his electoral battalions and platoons. The MVR—his electoral coalition—claims to have millions of militants on the ground, and Chávez claims that there exist currently more than 44 thousand platoons and 11 thousand battalions fighting for the "10 million votes" (or "10 million down their throats" in the friendly phrase). 

Slightly worrying, however, is his call for the formation in 2007 of a unitary party of the Bolivarian Revolution. My worry is less about centralization: this could occur (and has in some sectors) without the formal mechanism of a party. What worries me more is the fact that Chavismo has always been a sort of anti-party reaction to the power sharing agreement—established between AD and COPEI in the 1958 Pact of Punto Fijo—which effectively insulated the government from the popular masses.

The MVR—Fifth Republic Movement—that supports Chávez electorally, is not a party (the erroneous Wikipedia post notwithstanding), but rather a loose coalition of (occasionally very disparate) elements. What happens, unfortunately, when a party system collapses, is that the dirtbags and opportunists need to go somewhere, and the ranks of the MVR swelled as a result (to be clear: I’m not peddling that tripe about party system collapse being bad, just pointing out a negative side-effect).

To counter this, the MVR has remained just that, a coalition, and when it was necessary, there would be a direct intervention from the MBR-200 (The Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement 200, founded by Chávez and his co-conspirators within the armed forces in 1982, and which was responsible for the 1992 coup attempt). Primary elections have also slowed the petrification of the MVR. But as it stands, many young activists already see the MVR as a bastion of lifetime politicians, always potentially corrupt and corruptible, and making this into a party would just make things worse.