Venezuela

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Venezuela leads the way in hurricane relief efforts

By Jamier SaleSep 08, 2017


Barbuda: Damage caused by Irma

After Hurricane Harvey left thousands of homes underwater, Venezuela pledged $5 million to aid in relief through its oil company CitGo as well as providing free fuel for relief workers in the area.

First with Harvey and now with Irma, Venezuela has demonstrated the true meaning of solidarity with its response to the devastation left by the two historic tropical storms. The tiny island of Barbuda lay in ruins after enduring the category 5 hurricane with winds over 175 mph. It is reported that St. Martin is 95 percent destroyed, and more damage is expected on other islands as Irma continues its path of destruction.

Within 24 hours of speaking with officials from Barbuda, Venezuela began delivering urgently needed medical supplies, beds, and water to the hard-hit Caribbean island. They also provided two military cargo planes to be used to get supplies from neighboring countries.

As this is being written, Venezuela stands as the first, and to-date only, nation to provide this vital support needed for those in the wake of the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic. Cuba, with its legendary medical aid to many countries during disasters, is itself hunkering down as the monstrous hurricane approaches the island.

This spirit of solidarity that has been shown by Venezuela is a reflection of the humanitarian values of the Bolivarian Revolution. At the same time as the reactionary opposition is engaged in an economic war against the Venezuelan government and masses, with the support of the U.S. government, humanitarian support with no strings attached for those in need remains a high priority.

https://www.liberationnews.org/venezuel ... f-efforts/

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Where Is the Enemy? Inside Venezuela’s Border With Colombia
Posted by CO-ADMIN on SEPTEMBER 7, 2017
The enemy is reorganizing its ranks, organizing its paramilitary assets on the border and working on the economic loss of the population.
Marco Teruggi
A country moves beneath itself. We have seen it emerge for three months, then sink like a stone into the dark water.
It did not leave. It exists there, moves, reorganizes, accumulates forces for a new moment. The hypothesis is the following: it is concentrated in the State of Tachira, Venezuela and in the border axis, the rear zone that is in turn the point from which they launched and surely will launch new offensives as this scenario develops. They will wait for conditions to be right, or as the policy directs they will seek to create the necessary conditions.
In the first place, a temporary event. While in Caracas, the street offensive abruptly decreased after July 25 and simultaneously increased in Tachira, where they concentrated their strength which was previously deployed in several parts of the country. Those were days of frontal attacks, entire towns under siege led by four actors: the paramilitaries, the delinquents, members of the right wing — mainly the political party under the name, “Popular Will” — and the social base of the opposition.
All are assigned different tasks with a common plan, that of making impossible the realization of elections for the new National Constituent Assembly and of raising greater levels of violence, to make it impossible for the government to maintain public order and democratic freedom. They thought Tachira was the territory they could break and concentrated their attacks there.
In the second place, there is a developed offensive that has been managed for years. Paramilitary forces have been installed along the municipalities bordering Colombia. This was demonstrated in March of this year when the government disarmed one of their camps with nodules in the Tachira state economy and their smuggling of gasoline, food, medicines, Venezuelan bolivares (currency) and their primary markets for fruits and vegetables.
The latter was evidenced when armed groups prevented loaded trucks from leaving during that conflict. Their design for territorial control is born of an economic plan, war and reorganization of social life in those sectors with the power of arms.
Third, a border of thousands of miles. On the other side of the border are U.S. military bases, the Colombian Military Forces and the Colombian paramilitary cells. There is a connection between all: behind the arms and ammunition of the paramilitaries is not only smuggling of contraband, but also the U.S. plan that includes financing and design.
Perhaps the intervention announced by U.S. President Donald Trump has already begun through those irregular forces operating in the shadows, without uniforms, nor visible identification and not a word spoken in public. Is it the embryo of the irregular army that they need? Their development seems to be focused in that area, where they have money, levels of territorial roots, arms supplies and men from Colombia. How many thousands of paramilitaries exist in Colombia? What is their armed capacity? In the months of the conflict they showed their long arms and weapons of war.
Fourth, the characteristics of Tachira state. For the reasons mentioned, it could be the place where the attempt to create a scheme of “liberated territory” under the political control of the counterrevolution through the paramilitary wing and not in silence; rather with a public identity, an attempt to break the territorial unity of the state.
Do they have the material strength to take sustained action of this magnitude? During those three months of violence, they did not seem to have that force. Is it developing at the moment, in particular after the failure of the recent insurrection and with a possible electoral defeat in October? Do they have it, but haven’t yet shown it?
This is an army’s attempt by troops made up of poor Colombians and Venezuelans serving the interests of the United States, transnational corporations, the bourgeoisie and national oligarchies.
A paramilitary force that feeds on money and drugs, Hollywood’s depiction of Latin American culture, the misery that devours young people and makes them mercenaries in ranks of armed counterrevolutionary structures. They put their lives at the service of those who will then seek to keep the riches of the country. Because that is the debate of every age: who are those left with the wealth produced by society, and to whom will it be denied?
In the case of Venezuela, the dispute is all or nothing and it is happening today. And while the armed enemy has returned into the silent underground at the national level — not so at the border where clashes with the Bolivarian National Armed Forces are reported. Meanwhile, the main enemy in Washington has emerged with clarity and has openly given the word in public.
With military threats and economic sanctions, all weapons are on the table. Although, as Fernando Travieso postulates, there is another enemy behind the main enemy, who operates in anonymity and in the global crime of wealth at the cost of poverty: the oil companies, managed in turn by large families gathered in the Vanguard investment fund.
What plan do they have for regaining control of the wealth? The scheme could be as follows: lead the country into economic bankruptcy through default by means of the sanctions, a situation that would aggravate the current plight of the population, a picture that would be accompanied by the attempt to trigger looting that they would in turn try to convert into insurrectional assaults with terrorist methods of the paramilitary groups, beginning with an attempt to gain control of Tachira.
Such a plan could have a resolution in the nationwide gubernatorial elections in October, in which the right wing is uncertain of electoral results, or the plan could be an intermediate confrontation with the aim of producing chaos in the country. The plan contains various levels: a wearing down of your opponent, direct attacks and one of reconfiguring society. What would be the role of the paramilitary arm if the political right wing regained control?
They have limitations. One of them is that the violence deployed between April and July this year left the opposition leadership with little legitimacy. Another is that Chavismo is moving on the international chess board, particularly in its alliances with Russia and China.
This kind of analysis contemplates the enemy as an exclusively external force. Apart from the obvious case of the former Attorney General Luisa Ortega, the situation in which we are immersed suggests there is no clear cut division between Chavismo and those outside it.
Particularly, in studying the economic situation, as the overall wealth of the country has been diminishing, the popular classes have been watching their living conditions deteriorate week after week and month after month.
This economic picture favors the advance of the enemy as it allows him to gain positions on both the national and international stage. Why haven’t decisions been made in this area as they have been in the political arena?
Regarding imports, two questions remain: (1) What interests are at stake with companies who don’t produce results while the numbers, data and creditors are not opened to the public? (2) Why is the border is so difficult to seal even when it is formally closed?
That critical knot condenses the point of union between the external enemies of the revolution and its internal allies. Alliances that may be only economic, but inevitably have an impact on the political outcome.
We are now in the time of a new political initiative from Chavismo. At the same time, the enemy reorganizes its ranks, organizes its paramilitary assets on the border, works on the economic loss of the population and shuffles all possible cards. How long will this situation last? It is time to move forward. But when?

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2017/09/ ... -colombia/

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Venezuela Suspends Trade In U.S. Dollars

By Irina Slav - Sep 14, 2017, 10:00 AM CDT
Venezuela
Venezuela has told oil traders it will no longer accept or offer U.S. dollars in payment for crude oil and fuels, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing sources familiar with the developments. As a result, traders have started converting dollars into euros, and PDVSA’s foreign partners operating in the country may have to switch to euros as well.

At the same time, Reuters reports, Venezuela yesterday suspended the sale of U.S. currency through its Dicom auction system that President Nicolas Maduro said the government will use to switch from dollars to a basket of other currencies.

The decision comes on the heels of fresh U.S. sanctions that effectively aim to tie Caracas’ hands with the issue and sale of new debt, which increases the danger of it defaulting on existing loans. As a counter move, Caracas is moving to a combination of yuans, Russian rubles, and euros to cushion itself against the sanctions. PDVSA, according to the plan, will do half its oil and fuel trades in currencies other than the greenback.

Venezuela’s Energy Minister Eulogio del Pino said PDVSA is about to start invoicing oil sales to India in rupees, and to China in yuans. Although Russia was not mentioned, an official from the energy ministry said the state oil company does hope to sell Russia oil for rubles.

According to a source from the financial industry who spoke to Argus Media, Maduro’s plan to cut off the ties between Venezuela’s oil industry and the greenback is doomed. According to him, while Venezuela’s clients in India and China could benefit from the invoices in rupees and yuans, Venezuela may well lose money in the conversion to dollars, in which it announces PDVSA’s revenues.

Venezuela’s central bank has currency reserves of about US$9.8 billion. This fall, Caracas has pending loan payments of about US$4 billion.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

http://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/ ... llars.html

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Travelling Through the Heart of Afro-Venezuela

Australian solidarity activist Coral Wynter describes her trip to Venezuela's historic African heritage region of Barlovento as part of Venezuelanalysis' August 2017 international delegation.


Afro-Venezuelan dancers

https://venezuelanalysis.com/3CeZ

Having spent our first few days in Caracas, we travelled to Higu
rote, the capital of Brion municipality, in Miranda state, which is part of the coastal region known as Barlovento – a centre of African culture in Venezuela.
Surrounded by beautiful beaches and lagoons, Higurote was named after the indigenous leader Igorot.
The early Spanish colonisers established huge estates here and grew cocoa using slaves brought over from Central Africa.
The slaves were mainly from the Bantu, Kingdom of Loango and Yoruba peoples. In Venezuela, their cultures merged to create the famous drumming culture of Barlovento.
We were there for two days as part of the Venezuela Analysis international solidarity delegation visit that took place at the end of August. The aim of the delegation was to get firsthand experience of the gains and challenges facing Venezuela’s pro-poor Bolivarian Revolution.
We were met by a member of a local community council, which are grassroots participatory bodies found across Venezuela, in which neighbours organise to deal with local problems.
He showed us around a museum called “Chavez Walked Here”. The museum consists of a series of murals painted on the wall of a bridge. The late former socialist President Hugo Chavez visited Barlovento 14 times – it was one of his favourite places to visit and talk to the communities.
We also visited the local Sucre Mission, which provides university education in each of Venezuela’s 335 municipalities, and a centre dedicated to Che Guevara.
We then toured the Acevedo gas plant, where they work with the state oil company, PDVSA, to distribute very cheap gas cylinders to communities.
The gas plant has developed a new type of canister that is safer in the salty coastal air and is less likely to rust.
Our next stop was the cocoa factory, Oderi-El Cimarrón. The name El Cimarrón is a reference to the term used to describe black slaves who managed to escape. It was always used as a derogatory term here, but they have proudly reclaimed it.
The production of cocoa was partially nationalised by Chavez. However, there are still many small independent producers that coexist with state factories. We were taken on a tour through the factory and afterwards enjoyed a hot chocolate drink, the best I have ever tasted.
The next factory we visited was Plátano Argelia Laya where they process plantains.
It was named after a black woman, Argelia Laya, who was born in Rio Chico in 1926. She had been a member of the Venezuelan Communist Party, and was the first black woman activist in Venezuela to demand equal rights for women, including the right to have children out of wedlock, abortion, safe pregnancy, maternity leave and child care.
The factory made jam from plantains. The lid for the jars previously had to be imported, so they changed the mold and managed to find a local source. They have also diversified their production and now make a sweet jelly and a chilli sauce, all from plantains.
The liquid expelled from plantains during the process can be used for fertiliser. This has meant that they are able to barter the fertiliser for plantains from local growers.
Workers from the factory explained that it is often difficult to repair equipment or obtain replacement parts. For example, when an electric cord for a piece of machinery went missing, they found it would cost $200,000 to buy a new one from the United States. In the end, they got a computer cable from China for $300 and adapted it.
There are 2500 recipes for plantains, one of which local women use to make pastelon de plátano, a kind of sweet plantain lasagne, to sell in the street.
The plantain processing plant has been so successful that they are now building a new factory next door, three times larger than the original one, to supply the whole of the Caribbean.
Our final visit was to nearby Rio Chico, where we listened to an orchestra of very young children play some classical Venezuelan music. The orchestra is part of the world-famous El Sistema prgram, which supplies expensive musical instruments for free to children all over Venezuela.
We were also treated to some African drumming and singing.
It was a great experience, topped off by an afternoon lying in the warm waters of Buche Beach, off the Caribbean, following a relaxing boat ride through the lakes to the open seas.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/13408

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Why Doesn't the Venezuelan Government Talk About the Communes Any More?

Is Venezuela’s government still supporting the commune movement?
By Jennifer Castillo - Prensa Corriente Revolucionaria Bolívar y Zamora
Oct 6th 2017 at 1.01pm



The communes are not part of official government discourses. Nor are the two fundamental bodies created in recent years: the Presidential Council for the People’s Government of Communes and the National Communal Parliament. What are these bodies? What situation are they in? Why are they not named, and what will the National Constituent Assembly say with respect to this? Below is an interview with Jennifer Castillo, a commune activist and militant with the Revolutionary Bolivar and Zamora Current in Tachira.
What are the Presidential Council for the People’s Government of Communes and the National Communal Parliament?
The Presidential Council is the voice of the bloc of communes in each state, it is [the body] which advance, carries out, plans, controls and communicates the vision for a communal economy in each geographical area. The Presidential Council and the National Communal Parliament are not two different things but rather the unity of what is a big commune, self-government. These bodies have to be at the same level as the ministries. The Presidential Council should meet with ministers to develop government plans, something which has not been done. There were two attempts and then there was no progression.
These structures have given us a lot of benefits. One of them is the feeling of camaraderie that one communard activist feels for the other. When I talk about benefits, I’m referring to what one commune can do for another, for example, the exchange of crops, the solidarity economy. A commune that produces one crop can exchange with another. The exchange of knowledge, which is the driving force that the Communal Parliament needs through debate with the grassroots, trough open open assemblies, it legislates, that is the Communal Parliament.
In that same vein, we are creating rules for the functioning of a great communal company. These will be taken to all states, to all communes, to all communal councils, so that they can be debated until we have a document to orientate the norms of this system, the great communal transport system.
How would you describe the current situation of these bodies? Why do they not appear in the public agenda?
The current situation is full of disillusionment, there is not the same support [from the government], or the same enthusiasm as when we began the Presidential Council [in 2014]. There are a lot of projects, but they don’t go anywhere. The national executive was supposed to meet with us once a month but that has been forgotten. Likewise, parallel structures have been created alongside the Presidential Council, such as the Homeland Congress. But where are the communes? Because the communes are the fundamental nucleus where all communal councils are, where all sectors that live in a community are: campesinos, workers, sex and gender diverse groups, they are all present in the communes. At this moment, everything is visible except the communes.
They won’t put us in the public arena because of power interests. We believe that there should not be a parallel structure to that of the communes, because the commune has everything to solve the problems of the community. What has happened is that they have not been given sufficient value by state institutions. What keeps us committed to this struggle is because we recognize each other as communards in our own territories, we do not need institutional recognition.
The public agenda of Chavismo with all its structure should put its ear to the ground and listen: there are the communes, although it has been incredibly difficult to manage at a local level because of the lack of institutional support.
The National Communal Parliament for its part has been deployed much more. It is organized through networks which have traveled throughout nine states in the country and maintained permanent debate. It has collected signatures against the interference of the United States in internal affairs of the country. We have been to the foreign ministry in support of our homeland, we have been to marches.
What challenges do you see for the commune movement within the framework of the National Constituent Assembly? What should appear in the new Constitution?
One of the principle challenges will be to manage to restructure the communal movement through the national effort which we are carrying out to restructure the communes and the communal councils, and to help with their development plans and to accompany them in their struggles.
The National Constituent Assembly [ANC] must serve [the people] by establishing the sixth power, which is popular power, and in particular communal power. The commune movement has carried out debates over what should be established in the constitution, and one of its chapters must establish the responsibilities, rights and functions … of each body so it has the power to act. Furthermore, we have proposed that the communes receive a percentage of GDP which is destined to production in communal territories, so that the communes become self-sustainable in time.
We also believe that the capacity of each organization to defend its territory should be stipulated. We’re talking about the Bolivarian communal militia, and taking preventative measures because the militia is what will defend us when we need it. Likewise, the defense of sport, recreation, study, culture and environmental protections. The commune should protect the rivers, the nature within its territory.
All of this is a challenge for us in the commune movement, and it should be in the new constitution through the ANC. The twenty-four delegates that represent the communes have the challenge of raising these proposals that have emerged from the heart of the commune movement, so that they are in unison with the worker and campesino sectors, because all of these sectors are present within the communes.

Translated by Rachael Boothroyd Rojas for Venezuelanalysis.

posting.php?mode=reply&f=5&t=24

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Venezuela to allocate 72.5% to social investment for 2018


Rodríguez (c) said that the law will be debated within the ANC. | Photo: City Caracas
Posted 14 October 2017

"Nothing will stop our country in its development ... here is also the economic and social peace of the nation," said the Venezuelan president.

The Venezuelan government's budget will allocate 72.5 percent of resources to social investment, confirmed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Friday after submitting the proposal to the National Constituent Assembly (ANC).

During the signing of the first collective contract of the health sector, Maduro indicated that these resources will be to guarantee the attention in housing, health, education, recreation and food of the Venezuelan people next year.

"Nothing will stop our country in its development ... here is also the economic and social peace of the nation," said the head of state from the Presidential Palace of Miraflores in Caracas (capital).

Earlier, Vice-President for the Economic Area, Ramón Lobo, and the Vice President of Planning, Ricardo Menéndez, delivered the 2018 Nation Budget Law to the ANC President, Delcy Rodríguez .

"We will ensure that in the next few hours this budget bill will be forwarded to the respective committees and will be duly known at the next session of the National Constituent Assembly," said Rodríguez.

For his part, Menendez said that the budget will also prioritize the economic stability of the nation, in response to the sanctions applied to Venezuela by the United States.

"It is about breaking moorings, generating all the new basement from the technological point of view, generating a transformation from the point of view of the productive model that allows us to develop sovereignty as an authentic vision of our country," he explained.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/Venezuel ... -0005.html

Google translator

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Venezuelan socialists claim victory as opposition cries foul
By FABIOLA SANCHEZ AND CHRISTINE ARMARIO, ASSOCIATED PRESS CARACAS, Venezuela — Oct 16, 2017, 8:32 AM ET


Voters wait in line to cast their ballots outside a polling station in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, Oct. 15, 2017. Elections could tilt a majority of the states’ 23 governorships back into opposition control for the first time in nearly two decades of socialist party rule, though the government says the newly elected governors will be subordinate to a pro-government assembly. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)more +

Pro-government candidates have swept to an unforeseen victory in Venezuelan gubernatorial races according to official results that have quickly been challenged by the country's opposition.

Tibisay Lucena, president of the government-stacked National Electoral Council, announced late Sunday that the socialist party had won 17 of 22 races in which the outcomes were considered irreversible, with one other race too close to call. It was a dramatic contrast to pre-election polls that projected widespread victories for the opposition.

The council said 61 percent of the nation's 18 million voters participated, a rate far higher than many people had anticipated in a country where many have grown disenchanted and apathetic.

Gerardo Blyde, an opposition leader, said the official results were fraudulent.

"Neither the Venezuelan people nor the world buy that story," he said.

An hour before results were announced, the opposition's command centers had been filled with smiles and jubilation. Leader Ramon Guillermo Aveledo told a room filled with journalists and supporters that while he couldn't share the preliminary results, they showed a victory of "historic dimensions" for the Venezuelan people.

Independent pollsters also had projected that opposition candidates would win a majority, if not nearly all offices at a time when the country's economy is plummeting at depression-era rates, inflation is in triple digits and crime is rampant.

"There is a wide disparity between the poll numbers and the results which show that these elections were not free and fair and don't reflect the will of the people," said Michael Shifter, president of the U.S.-based Inter-American Dialogue.

The opposition called for an audit and urged Venezuelans to mobilize on the streets Monday in support.

Maduro said he had "absolute faith" in the official results but would ask the constitutional assembly to request an audit in order to extinguish any doubts.

"A triumphant victory for Chavismo!" he proclaimed, referring to the movement founded by his predecessor and mentor, Hugo Chavez.

The disputed result threatened to heighten an already sometimes-violent standoff between the government and opposition. Four months of anti-government protests that began in April left at least 120 people dead, mostly young men in their 20s and 30s.

The regional elections were originally scheduled to take place last December, but the electoral council postponed the vote after polls indicated socialist candidates were widely slated to lose. They were repeatedly delayed again for a variety of reasons.

In August, a new pro-government assembly was installed to rewrite the constitution following an election boycotted by the opposition and challenged as manipulated by some voting experts.

The new assembly quickly removed the nation's independent chief prosecutor, declared itself superior to all other branches of government and set the delayed gubernatorial elections for October.

While many Venezuelans express anger at the government, many too say they are frustrated with opposition leaders they perceive as disorganized. Some have said they are skeptical that any change could happen at the ballot box, given accusations the electoral council is tilted toward the ruling party.

Meanwhile, pro-government candidates like Hector Rodriguez waged strong campaigns, trading the polarizing red shirts identified with the socialist party for neutral colors. Rodriguez promised to resolve the daily problems of Venezuelans and heal the divisions that have come to define the nation.

It was a message that resounded with voters like Sergio Camargo, a private security guard.

"I hope that after this vote, the people against the government of President Nicolas Maduro are more sensible and let him govern," he said before getting on a bus to vote Sunday.

The electoral council did not allow the opposition to remove several candidates who lost in a September primary, despite an electoral law permitting political parties to substitute contenders up until 10 days before the vote. Less than three days before voting, the council also announced it was moving more than 200 voting centers, predominantly in opposition strongholds.

Council officials defended the relocations as a security measure in areas where violent protests took place in July.

Opposition-arranged buses transported voters to the new sites, some of which were nearly an hour away.

Susana Unda, a homemaker who voted for Carlos Ocariz, the opposition's candidate in populous Miranda state surrounding Venezuela's capital, used her truck to transport voters whose polling sites were relocated.

"I was born in a democracy and I want to die in a democracy," she said.

Government supporters said the count is proof that the movement started by Chavez remains alive and well, despite Maduro's low approval ratings.

"The cradle of the revolution doesn't surrender," said Argenis Chavez, the late president's brother and declared winner of the race in Barinas state, where Hugo Chavez spent his early years.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wir ... y-50502152

Flat out propaganda. It really is mostly fake news. The complete absence of the class nature of political conflict inevitably results in a pack of lies.

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Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution wins 17 of 22 state governorships
With 95.8% of all votes counted, it was confirmed that the Bolivarian Revolution had won 17 state governorships, while opposition parties had secured five

Author: TELESUR | internet@granma.cu
october 16, 2017 09:10:56


Sunday, October 15, saw the 22nd elections to be held in the past 18 years of Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela. Photo: AVN

CARACAS.– The Bolivarian Revolution won 17 of 22 state governorships following the regional elections held this Sunday, October 15, according to the President of the National Electoral Council (CNE), Tibisay Lucena, on announcing the preliminary election results.

With 95.8% of all votes counted, providing irreversible results for 22 of the country’s 23 states, it was confirmed that the Bolivarian Revolution had won 17 state governorships, while opposition parties had secured five. An irreversible result is yet to be announced for the one remaining state of Bolívar.

According to the CNE president, 61.14% of the electorate came out to vote, compared to the 53.94% turnout of the regional elections of 2012.

Chavista forces triumphed in Miranda state, where the opposition has historically obtained a majority of votes. Residents of this state were severely affected by the violent protests that occurred between April and July, resulting in more than 100 dead.

On learning the results, Venezuelans celebrated the strengthening of their democracy, following an election day that developed in complete normality.

“This has been the largest turnout in recent years, it is historic, much higher than when we elected governors in December 2012,” stressed the head of the Chavista Zamora 200 Campaign Command, Jorge Rodríguez.

A total of 18,099,391 Venezuelans were entitled to vote in 13,559 polling stations throughout the country, with 30,274 voting machines. Residents of the Capital District did not participate in the elections as Caracas is a jurisdiction with a Metropolitan mayoralty, rather than a governorship.

http://en.granma.cu/mundo/2017-10-16/ve ... ernorships

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Two opposition candidates recognize results in Venezuela


Henri Falcon, candidate of the Lara state, acknowledged his defeat and said "we must have gallantry to recognize adversity in the truth." | Photo: n

Published 16 October 2017

by Atilio Borón

The opposition candidate for state Tachira (west), Laidy Gomez, acknowledged his electoral triumph while Henri Falcon accepted his defeat in Lara.

Opposition candidates in the regional elections held last Sunday in Venezuela, Henri Falcon and Laidy Gomez, acknowledged the results issued by the National Electoral Council (CNE), which announced the first bulletin of the day with 95.8 percent cent of the minutes counted.

The opposition candidate for the state Táchira (west), Laidy Gómez, said she waited to have the minutes issued by the electoral body to take over the results.

"I recognize the evidence that I have in hand and I am recognizing that in the Táchira the people spoke," said Gómez.

On the other hand, the opposition candidate who aspired to the re-election by the state Lara (West), Henri Falcón, made a press conference Monday to recognize the results of the electoral day , where he obtained the defeat before the candidate candidate Carmen Meléndez.

"Responsibly I say: we lost, that's the simple thing and we have to accept that because we also have to be gallant to recognize adversity in the truth," Falcón said.

The president of the CNE, Tibisay Lucena, indicated that 17 of the 22 governorships were won by the candidates of the Bolivarian Revolution while five were obtained by the opposition. The official result is still awaited by the Bolivar state (south), which had no irreversible tendency for that moment.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/Dos-cand ... -0052.html

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Chavismo Is Alive and Well – a First Analysis of the Regional Elections
By: Mision Verdad


Venezuelan citizens wait in line at a polling station during a nationwide election for new governors in Caracas, Venezuela. | Photo: Reuters

Published 16 October 2017

Chavismo won an important victory in the regional elections of October 15.

These regional elections took place after having been preceded by a cycle of violence promoted by anti-Chavista forces both inside and outside Venezuela. After four months of violence from April to July and efforts by Venezuela’s political opposition to boycott the elections to the National Constituent Assembly at the end of July, Chavismo’s forces managed to turn the conflict to an electoral one. The narrative that a “dictatorship” exists in Venezuela was undone by the United Democratic Table (MUD) opposition alliance’s participation in these regional elections.

Venezuela is also suffering a cycle of political and economic sanctions under the auspices of the White House arguing the absence of democratic guarantees in Venezuela. The Organization of American States (OAS), clearly managed by the United States, also uses the same argument and on various occasions has held activities questioning the regional elections’ legitimacy, even omitting to note that the opposition political parties are taking part in them.

On Sunday, Oct. 15, President Nicolas Maduro criticized the corporate media silence on the elections and the governments and politicians who have cast doubt on the legitimacy of Venezuela’s democracy by trying to hide the elections and their results. He pointed out the dangers of insisting on calling Venezuela and outlaw anti-democratic State, concluding “Venezuela has shown the world we live in a full democracy."

Despite these influences, the institutional stability Chavismo has achieved in Venezuela enabled the authorities to organize these elections and to corral into that political framework the forces inside and outside Venezuela that have tried to undermine the stability of Venezuela’s institutions by pushing the country into the beginnings of a civil war.

The results

61.14 percent of eligible voters participated in the elections. For this type of election that figure is considered to represent a high level of participation, superior to similar elections in other countries like Colombia, Chile, Argentina or Mexico, or in other parts of the world, for example the United States, France or Germany.

Nationally, Chavismo received 54 percent of the total vote, reestablishing the pattern for other more prominent elections to public office. For their part, the MUD won 45 percent of the votes. Chavismo wont 75 percent of the state governorships, 17 out of a total of 23. The MUD won 5 governorships with just one state, Bolivar, still to be called.

However, this solid victory also has a strong symbolic meaning, for example historically pro-opposition states like Lara, Miranda y Amazonas, usually opposition trampolines in maneuvers for Presidential elections, were won by Chavista candidates by a good margin. From the perspective of governorships supposedly serving as an alternative political model to Chavismo, in effect the MUD opposition yesterday lost three states crucial to their presidential aspirations. Opposition leaders like Henri Falcon and Henrique Capriles have lost ground and now lack a power base from which to launch more important political campaigns.

In terms of the national vote, leaving out the results yet to be announced from the state of Bolivar, Chavismo got more than 5.2 million votes, a number that will increase once 100 percent of the voting returns are in, while the MUD got a rounded up figure of 4.5 million.

Some comparisons are worth noting in relation to that statistic. The MUD dropped almost 3 million votes in comparison with their best ever result in the parliamentary elections of 2015 of more than 7 million votes. Whereas Chavismo, intimidated and blockaded by the United States, its regional allies and some European countries managed to maintain and recover its political capital in a very adverse moment.

Chavismo’s victory can be gauged not just by the number of governorships it won and the votes it got but by the electoral decline of the MUD, who had hoped to capitalize on the economic discontent they have helped to foment, it should be noted, from the legislature they control and via the U.S. financial sanctions they demanded.


Political factors affecting the results

A quick review offers some outstanding factors that explain the Chavista victory. Among the most relevant are:

- in a situation of economic adversity Chavismo set up safety net systems of food support which reached a great many people. The Local Supply and Production Committees (CLAP) have been key in protecting broad sectors of the population, containing the spread of the price and supply chaos used to attack Venezuela’s economy. In August, the percentage of the population covered by the CLAPs increased by 58 percent, reaching 9 million families.

- Venezuela’s State policy to make its social programs more efficient and better focused, known as the Patriotic Card, has been effective in organizing socially vulnerable parts of the population. While the MUD’s electoral campaign, given the current bad economic situation, offered no concrete solutions, which directly affected their electoral support.

- Chavismo’ electoral organization and its election campaign, offering solutions to the main demands of the population, worked well together. Many voters saw Chavismo as the political force best able to take on the major tasks and challenges facing the regional governments.

- The Trump Administration’s sanctions and the open intervention by the U.S. government gave more cohesion to the Chavistas and significantly increased the role of national defense, security, independence and sovereignty as ideals able to mobilize support for Chavismo. Even Datanalisis, one of the most influential opposition aligned polling companies, acknowledged that approval of President Maduro had increased by almost 6 percent by the end of September.

- The MUD’s violence and their leadership’s frequent visits overseas, calling for sanctions against Venezuela, worked in a similar way. Chavismo articulated a campaign advocating political peace and rejecting foreign intervention, which thus polarized the political scene between those trying to destroy the country and those seeking peaceful solutions to the country’s problems.

- By setting aside narrow administrative or local regional electoral issues, Chavismo managed to make the central political argument turn on the choice between political stability and order or anarchy and ungovernability.

- Chavismo went into these regional elections with both new regional leaderships and also already well consolidated leaders too. So their candidates in large part looked fresh and new, while, for the opposition, the mixture of little known leaders and discredited mayors and political machines yielded poor results and were a direct cause of big losses in some states.

- Chavismo as a political identity is also a factor to take into account. It has solid bastions in the country’s interior. Its revolutionary forces won by large margins, paradoxically in some of the states worst hit by the economic crisis. This is only explicable by the high level of community political consciousness. In the context of the economic intimidation by the business and commercial sectors allied with the MUD, Chavismo has operated on the very simple logic of opposing their efforts at extortion. As a result, Chavista supporters voted by way of punishing the people promoting the economic warfare associated with the MUD.

- The violence from April through July, which caused 147 deaths and incalculable damage to public and private property, along with the street terrorism and paramilitary style violence, traumatized Venezuela’s society splitting the opposition itself into those for the violence and those against it.

- An electoral paradox resulted by which there were opposition supporters who did not vote for the MUD because they saw it as violent. But also significant sectors of the opposition who had fervently believed in the overthrow of Chavismo felt frustrated when the MUD decided to participate in the elections. Both groups, especially the second, expressed disenchantment with the MUD leadership which they regarded as treacherous, erratic and incoherent. Electoral abstention worked against the MUD.

- The still fresh images of the violence and terrorism that almost sunk Venezuela into chaos between April and July, leaving over 100 people dead, created an electoral climate outside committed opposition followers unfavorable for the MUD in terms of electoral support. The MUD’s failure to bring about the overthrow of the government strengthened perceptions of Chavismo as representing order and stability. In times of stress, insecurity about the future and continuing turbulence those perceptions attracted support among the population.

- Part of the electorate rejected the Trump Administration’s overall measures of economic suffocation which the MUD leadership has consistently demanded. When it came to the vote, most people were opposed to that economic intervention which only complicated their lives for the worse.

- The loss of MUD bastions like the states of Lara, Miranda and Amazonas, indicates that regional governments under the MUD are not regarded as being effective or in tune with the population’s expectations. The perception that the MUD is an organization associated with broken promises damaged electoral support even among its followers, not just in the three states mentioned, but in many others too. The MUD is not well regarded in terms of regional government.

- The MUD’s rhetoric, monotonously focused on condemning President Maduro’s government as a “dictatorship”, failed. That rhetoric did not mobilize support because it focused on attacking Chavismo. But in regional elections it is essential to offer effective responses to popular demands and that was absent from the MUD’s campaign, which was demagogic across the board offering few responses to the populations immediate demands.

Translated by Les Blough of Axis of Logic.

https://www.telesurtv.net/english/opini ... -0023.html

Latin America Leftists Congratulate Venezuelan Socialists on Election Win

Published 16 October 2017 (20 hours 0 minutes ago)

by Jean Ziegler and Sofia Monsalve
“Congratulations Venezuela for democracy won over intervention and conspiracy," Bolivia's President wrote.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has received praise from across Latin America for Sunday's regional election where Socialists won 75 percent of the posts.

“Congratulations Venezuela for democracy won over intervention and conspiracy. The people defend their sovereignty, dignity and natural resources,” Bolivian President Evo Morales tweeted in light of Maduro's socialist party, or PSUV, winning at least 17 out of 22 governorships

Morales' sentiment was shared by the heads of state of Cuba and Nicaragua.

Cuban President Raul Castro stated that Venezuela has provided the world with another “big lesson on peace, democratic vocation, courage and dignity.” He went on to note that the spirit of Chavez lives on, that “he and Fidel would be very proud of the victory” and the people of Venezuela can “always count on Cuba's support and solidairty.”

Meanwhile, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega released a statement congratulating Venezuelan families and the people for Sunday's victory. He characterized the win as a “heroic victory” given the “cruel economic, political, communication and cultural wars” waged against the Venezuelan people.


Latin America's former presidents also expressed their support, including Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa who tweeted: “Venezuela experienced a celebration of democracy. The Bolivarian Revolution amply won the gubernatorial elections.”

The ex-President of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, released a public statement referring to Sunday's election as a “victory against the criminal attack campaigns orchestrated by the United States against a democratic people who seek dialogue and peace.”

During a speech on election night, Maduro thanked his colleagues for expressing their support for the peaceful, well-organized election.

International guests observing the vote also praised the electoral process for its transparency. The Argentine journalist Pedro Bregier said he and his colleagues had seen no irregularities in the western state of Zulia, an observation echoed by his colleagues around the country.

The Ecuadorean representative of the Council of Electoral Experts of Latin America, CEELA, Alfredo Arevalo said: "It is one of the best electoral processes, audited many times by all parties and political actors."

https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/ ... -0020.html