Domestic policy,

Chávez's domestic policy relies heavily on the "Bolivarian Missions," a series of campaigns aimed at radically altering the economic and cultural landscape of Venezuela. Most of those were launched in 2003 and 2004:

Mission Robinson
Launched July 2003, Mission Robinson was billed as a campaign aimed at providing free reading, writing and arithmetic lessons to the more than 1.5 million Venezuelan adults who were illiterate before the 1999 election.
Mission Guaicaipuro
Initiated October 12, 2003, Mission Guaicaipuro sought to protect the livelihood, religion, land, culture, and rights of Venezuela's indigenous peoples.
Mission Sucre
Launched late 2003, Mission Sucre had the stated intent of providing free higher education to the two million adult Venezuelans who had not completed their elementary-level education.
Mission Ribas
Announced in November 2003, Mission Ribas bore the promise of providing remedial education and diplomas for Venezuela's five million high school dropouts.
On the first anniversary of Mission Robinson's establishment, Chávez stated in Caracas's Teresa Carreño theater to an audience of 50,000 formerly illiterate Venezuelans, "in a year, we have graduated 1,250,000 Venezuelans." Nevertheless, there were also significant setbacks.

The "Bolivarian Missions" have entailed the launching of government anti-poverty initiatives, the construction of thousands of free medical clinics for the poor,the institution of educational campaigns that have reportedly made more than one million adult Venezuelans literate, and the enactment of food and housing subsidies. The infant mortality rate fell by 18.2% between 1998 and 2006. The government earmarked 44.6% of the 2007 budget for social investment, with 1999-2007 averaging 12.8% of GDP. The Gini coefficient has fallen from 48.7 in 1998 to 42 in 2007 (claims that the Gini has risen were based on data from two different (non-comparable) statistical series). During the Chávez Presidency, poverty and extreme poverty have gone down strongly: poverty fell from 59.4% in 1999 to 30.2% in 2006 and extreme poverty went down from 21.7% to 9.9% in the same period. Even critics like Instituto Real Elcano from Spain acknowledge these achievements although they cast doubts on the sustainability of these policies.

The Missions have overseen widespread experimentation in what Chávez supporters term citizen- and worker-managed governance, as well as the granting of thousands of free land titles, reportedly to formerly landless poor and indigenous communities. Several allegedly unused estates and factories have been expropriated to provide this land.

In March 2006 the Communal Council Law was approved, whereby communities that decide to organize themselves into a council can be given official state recognition and access to federal funds and loans for community projects. This skips the local and state governments that are perceived as corrupt.

The Chavez government also passed a number of laws protecting the rights of the indigenous people of Venezuela, including laws that recognize indigenous rights over the land they traditionally occupied, their rights to prior consultation concerning the exploitation of their natural resources, their rights to manage their own education system based on intercultural and bilingual principles, and a law providing that three native representatives shall sit in the National Assembly, as well as representation in municipal and regional assemblies in regions with a native population.

In September 2007, speaking at the inauguration of the school year, Chavez announced a new curricular programme to be adopted by both public and private schools, which would "promote values of cooperation and solidarity". While promising he would make education his top priority and increase funding, he spoke of his vision of the future of education, based around "learning to create, to live together, to value and to reflect."


Labor policy
Chávez has had a combative relationship with the nation's largest trade union confederation, the Confederación de Trabajadores de Venezuela (CTV), which is historically aligned with the Acción Democrática (AD) party. During the December 2000 local elections, Chávez placed a referendum measure on the ballot that would mandate state-monitored elections within unions. The measure, which was condemned by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) as undue interference in internal union matters, passed by a large margin on a very low electoral turnout. In the ensuing CTV elections, Carlos Ortega declared his victory and remained in office as CTV president, while chavista (pro-Chávez) candidates declared fraud.

The Unión Nacional de Trabajadores (UNT—"National Union of Workers"), a new pro-Chávez union federation, formed in response and has been growing in membership; it seeks to ultimately supplant the CTV. Several chavista unions have withdrawn from the CTV because of their strident anti-Chávez activism, and have instead affiliated with the UNT. In 2003, Chávez chose to send UNT, rather than CTV, representatives to an annual ILO meeting.

Further augmenting state involvement in Venezuela's economy, Chávez nationalized Venepal, a formerly closed paper and cardboard manufacturing firm, on January 19, 2005. Workers had occupied the factory floor and restarted production, but following a failed deal with management and amidst management threats to liquidate the firm's equipment, Chávez ordered the nationalization, extended a line of credit to the workers, and ordered that the Venezuelan educational missions purchase more paper products from the company.

Under Chávez, Venezuela has also instituted worker-run "co-management" initiatives in which workers' councils play a key role in the management of a plant or factory. In experimental co-managed enterprises, such as the state-owned Alcasa factory, workers develop budgets and elect both managers and departmental delegates who work together with company executives on technical issues related to production.