For Social Democracy (), PODEMOS, () is a

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 ...

. In the 2005 legislative elections the party won 15 out of 165 seats in the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repr ...

History

The party is led by

Ismael García Ismael García (born in 1954) is a Venezuelan politician. He was the leader of PODEMOS, a socialist party which won the second most seats in the National Assembly of Venezuela in the 2005 election. Although the party formerly supported the prog ...

and

Didalco Bolívar Didalco Bolívar is a Venezuelan politician, and was Governor of Aragua State from 1995 to 2008. His first three election victories (1995, 1998, 2000) were as a representative of the Movement for Socialism. In the 2004 elections he represented ...

. It once supported president

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 ...

, but refused to join the new United Socialist Party (PSUV) created by the president in 2007, and opposed Chávez's proposals in the 2007 constitutional referendum. Since then, it broke with Chávez and became the only opposition voice in the Parliament. Hugo Chávez accused García of "raising the flags of the right." PODEMOS is a member of

COPPPAL The Permanent Conference of Political Parties of Latin America and the Caribbean (; , COPPPAL) is an international organization of political parties in Latin America and the Caribbean. It was created at the behest of the Institutional Revolutiona ...

, and used to be a consultative member of

Socialist International The Socialist International (SI) is a political international or worldwide organisation of political parties which seek to establish democratic socialism, consisting mostly of Social democracy, social democratic political parties and Labour mov ...

br>MEMBER PARTIES of the SOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL
accessed 10 June 2012 In 2012, the party split and the anti-Chávez faction supporting Ismael García joined the anti-Chávez faction of

Fatherland for All Fatherland for All (''Patria Para Todos'', PPT) is a leftist political party in Venezuela. It was founded on September 27, 1997 by members of The Radical Cause party led by Pablo Medina, Aristóbulo Istúriz and Alí Rodríguez Araque. In 19 ...

, creating

Progressive Advance Progressive Advance () is an anti- Chavista progressive political party in Venezuela, founded by former members of For Social Democracy (PODEMOS), Fatherland for All and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela The United Socialist Party o ...

, a centre-left party in opposition to the

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive (government), execu ...

. The leadership of PODEMOS was then taken by the pro-Chávez Didalco Bolívar. Under Bolívar's leadership, the party left the

Democratic Unity Roundtable The Democratic Unity Roundtable (, MUD) was a catch-all electoral coalition of Venezuelan political parties formed in January 2008 to unify the opposition to President Hugo Chávez's United Socialist Party of Venezuela in the 2010 Venezue ...

and joined the PSUV-led

Great Patriotic Pole The Simón Bolívar Great Patriotic Pole (, GPPSB), or just the Great Patriotic Pole (, GPP), is a left-wing socialist and Chavista electoral alliance/ popular front of Venezuelan political parties created in 2012 to support the re-election of ...

. The party's youth wing is called the Unión de Jovenes Podemos.

Notes

2003 establishments in Venezuela Intervened political parties in Venezuela Organizations of the Bolivarian Revolution Political parties established in 2003 Political parties in Venezuela Social democratic parties in Venezuela {{Venezuela-party-stub