Politics Rule Everyday Govt in Venezuela A sea of marchers in red and yellow T-shirts flowed through the capital's main downtown boulevard, paralyzing traffic while state TV cameras stood ready to record every second. The crowd had come out to show their support for the late President Hugo Chavez and his successor Nicolas Maduro, but they weren't student activists or community organizers. The march had been launched by state-run telecommunications company CANTV, and the hundreds of employees were heading for the presidential palace to "deliver" the company's 2012 dividends to Maduro, Venezuela's acting leader and the official candidate to replace Chavez. "We want this political project to continue," said customer support supervisor Maya Leon. We're all Chavistas here. Former government workers and experts said Monday's event was only the latest example of changes a decade in the making. The late leader transformed this country's enormous state industries into political arms of the government, they said, with partisan loyalties trumping technical competence in hiring and ministries turning out thousands of civil servants for election year rallies. State companies such as oil producer PDVSA and the manager of Caracas' subway system used to be known around the world for their professionalism. In recent years, many of those companies have seen service and revenue deteriorate as political cadres rather than engineers were brought in to run everything from oil exploration to mass transit. Public safety nonprofit groups say the same politicization has crippled efforts to fix Venezuela's super-violent prisons or lower one of the world's highest homicide rates, with the government refusing to work with opposition governors or mayors on any public safety plan. Vicente Gonzalez de la Vega, a Central Venezuela University law professor, said he remembers when the capital's 37-mile-long subway network was considered Latin America's most modern, and drew engineers from around the world to study it. Power outages began hitting the system more frequently and trains were often delayed, as Chavez grew suspicious of the autonomous state company that ran the transport system. New stations and rail lines were left unbuilt, despite booming ridership. Tensions exploded in 2010 when passengers upset about the system took over a subway train, resulting in 33 arrests. "We used to say there were two cities, one above, and one below that was more decent, more efficient," de la Vega said. But this has become a hyper-politicized city. And we've seen the effects. To Chavez supporters, politicization has merely meant awakening needed class consciousness in a federal bureaucracy that employs about a tenth of all Venezuelans. They also deny it's hurt government services or bottom lines. "Before, a housewife didn't talk about politics because she said, 'I'm just a housewife,'" said Eduardo Saman, a former Chavez commerce minister. An athlete was just surrounded by sports and didn't talk about politics. One of the great achievements of President Chavez was to elevate the level of political consciousness in general terms. Now, we have technicians who at the same time have the ability to come up with political solutions to problems. Now they're conscious in their work. Politics and technical capacity should not be separated.