Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200
Encyclopedia
The Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200 (Movimiento Bolivariano Revolucionario 200 or MBR-200) was the political and social movement
Social movement
Social movements are a type of group action. They are large informal groupings of individuals or organizations focused on specific political or social issues, in other words, on carrying out, resisting or undoing a social change....

 that current Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...

n president Hugo Chávez
Hugo Chávez
Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías is the 56th and current President of Venezuela, having held that position since 1999. He was formerly the leader of the Fifth Republic Movement political party from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when he became the leader of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela...

 founded in 1982. It eventually planned and executed the February 4, 1992 attempted coup. The movement later evolved into the Movement for the Fifth Republic (MVR), set up in July 1997 to support Hugo Chávez
Hugo Chávez
Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías is the 56th and current President of Venezuela, having held that position since 1999. He was formerly the leader of the Fifth Republic Movement political party from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when he became the leader of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela...

' candidacy in the Venezuelan presidential election, 1998
Venezuelan presidential election, 1998
In the Venezuelan presidential election of 1998, Hugo Chávez was elected to his first term as President of Venezuela with the largest percentage of the popular vote in four decades...

. The move to electoral politics took several years of intense internal debate, as many felt that the elections might be fixed to prevent an MBR-200 candidate winning. It took a nationwide survey conducted by the movement to show that it might gain enough electoral support to make victory hard to deny.

Foundation

The movement's first members were Chávez and his fellow military officers Felipe Acosta Carles and Jesús Urdaneta Hernández. On 17 December, 1982, as Chávez biographer Richard Gott
Richard Gott
Richard Willoughby Gott is a British journalist and historian, who has written extensively on Latin America...

 reports, the three
revolutionary officers swore an oath underneath the great tree at Samán de Güere, near Maracay, repeating the words of the pledge that Simón Bolívar
Simón Bolívar
Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Yeiter, commonly known as Simón Bolívar was a Venezuelan military and political leader...

 had made in Rome in 1805, when he swore to devote his life to the liberation of Venezuela from Spanish yoke: "I swear before you, and I swear before the God of my fathers, that I will not allow my arm to relax, nor my soul to rest, until I have broken the chains that oppress us..."
Gott further explains that the suffix "200" was added to the group's name the following year, in 1983, on the 200th anniversary of South American liberator Simon Bolívar
Simón Bolívar
Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Yeiter, commonly known as Simón Bolívar was a Venezuelan military and political leader...

's birth.

The movement began "more as a political study circle than as a subversive conspiracy," but soon its members "began thinking in terms of some kind of coup d'état." Chávez and his friends soon recruited more members, including Francisco Arias Cárdenas
Francisco Arias Cárdenas
Francisco Javier Arias Cárdenas is a Venezuelan politician and career military officer. He participated in Hugo Chávez' unsuccessful February 1992 coup attempt, being pardoned in 1994 by Rafael Caldera, along with the other conspirators...

, in March 1985.

As Hugo Chávez himself explained in a speech at the University of Havana
University of Havana
The University of Havana or UH is a university located in the Vedado district of Havana, Cuba. Founded in 1728, the University of Havana is the oldest university in Cuba, and one of the first to be founded in the Americas...

 in Cuba on December 14, 1994;

"Nosotros tuvimos la osadía de fundar un movimiento dentro de las filas del ejército nacional de Venezuela, hastiados de tanta corrupción, y nos juramos dedicarle la vida a la construcción de un movimiento revolucionario y a la lucha revolucionaria en Venezuela, ahora, en el ámbito latinoamericano. Eso comenzamos a hacerlo el año bicentenario del nacimiento de Bolívar."


"We had the audacity to found a movement within the ranks of the Army of Venezuela. We were tired of the corruption, and we swore to dedicate our lives to the creation of a revolutionary movement and to the revolutionary struggle in Venezuela, straight away, within Latin America. We started doing this the year of the bicentenary of the birth of Bolívar".

Chávez' participation in the 1998 election

For a number of years after his 1994 release from prison, Chávez maintained a position against participation in elections, believing them a fixed game which merely legitimated the established order. This led to a split with his colleague Francisco Arias Cárdenas
Francisco Arias Cárdenas
Francisco Javier Arias Cárdenas is a Venezuelan politician and career military officer. He participated in Hugo Chávez' unsuccessful February 1992 coup attempt, being pardoned in 1994 by Rafael Caldera, along with the other conspirators...

, who left the MBR-200. In the early years after his release, Chávez considered the possibility of another coup attempt, but with the prospects appearing slim, some advisers, notably Luis Miquilena
Luis Miquilena
Luis Manuel Miquilena Hernández is a Venezuelan politician. He was born on July 29, 1919 in Santa Ana de Coro, Falcón State. He was involved in politics in the 1940s, and again after the 1958 restoration of democracy, but retired from politics in 1964 until the early 1990s, pursuing a career in...

, urged him to reconsider his scepticism of the elections, arguing that Chávez could potentially win so convincingly that the establishment would not be able to deny him victory. To find out whether this was the case, Chávez set up teams of psychologists, sociologists, university professors and students to carry out a survey. With their support, grassroots members of the Bolivarian movement polled tens of thousands of people across the country. The results showed that 70% of respondents supported Chávez running for the presidency - and 57% said they would vote for him. Support for the electoral route was strengthened when Arias Cárdenas, as a candidate for Radical Cause
Radical Cause
The Radical Cause is a working class political party in Venezuela, part of the Venezuelan opposition to president Hugo Chavez...

, won the Governorship of Zulia
Zulia
Zulia State is one of the 23 states of Venezuela. The state capital is Maracaibo. In June 30, 2010, it had an estimated population of 3,821,068, giving it the largest population among Venezuela's states. It is located in the northwestern part of the country...

 State in the December 1995 regional elections. Despite this, the MBR-200 remained divided over electoral participation, and spent a year debating the issue in local, regional and national assemblies. A national congress on 19 April 1997 took from 9 am until 2 am the next day to reach a conclusion, ultimately deciding to launch Chávez' candidacy for the Venezuelan presidential election, 1998
Venezuelan presidential election, 1998
In the Venezuelan presidential election of 1998, Hugo Chávez was elected to his first term as President of Venezuela with the largest percentage of the popular vote in four decades...

. Some members of the movement resigned in protest, holding too much at stake. In July 1997 Chávez registered the new Fifth Republic Movement
Fifth Republic Movement
The Fifth Republic Movement was a left-wing, Socialist political party in Venezuela. It was founded in July 1997, following a national congress of the Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200, to support the candidacy of Hugo Chávez, the current President of Venezuela, in the Venezuelan presidential...

 with the National Electoral Council (the name had to be changed as Venezuelan law did not permit parties to use Simon Bolivar
Simón Bolívar
Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Yeiter, commonly known as Simón Bolívar was a Venezuelan military and political leader...

's name). The international media took little interest, citing opinion polls showing 8% support for Chávez.

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