Rebuilding the Bolivarian Revolution

[Judi Lynn]

Rebuilding the Bolivarian Revolution

The Right’s recent success in Venezuela shows how vital it is to reclaim and democratize Hugo Chávez’s project.

by Mike Gonzalez

The December elections to Venezuela’s National Assembly completely changed the balance of power within the chamber. Where once Chavistas had an absolute majority, this time 112 of the Assembly’s 167 seats were taken by members of a right-wing coalition, the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD).

They were the beneficiaries of an electoral system whose legitimacy their victory demonstrates, despite their repeated claims that Venezuela was a dictatorship.

The victory of the Right was not entirely unpredictable. The Maduro government had been privately discussing the possibility of defeat, though it is unlikely that they anticipated the scale of it. Yet the deeper issue was that President Hugo Chávez, who died in 2013, had won between 53 percent and 63 percent of the vote at every election and referendum from 1999 until his death.

His successor Nicolas Maduro won his presidential contest in 2013 by less than 1 percent over his right-wing rival Capriles Radonski. In just over two years that support, expressed electorally, fell again to around 36 percent.

In other words, many of those who had consistently backed Chávez had either supported MUD or simply not voted, despite knowing that what united the disparate elements of the MUD was their commitment to dismantling the social advances that had been undertaken under Chávez and rolling back the Bolivarian Revolution.

More:
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/03/venezuela-chavez-maduro-mud-elections/

[monicaangela]

1. There is a lot of meddling going on in Venezuela

And:

[COLGATE4]

2. Yeah. We've been hearing that a lot since Maduro

and his band of clowns proceeded to flush the Venezuelan economy down the toilet. Their only answer to anything is to find a scapegoat to blame, never to recognize their own incompetence.

[monicaangela]

3. I seem to recall a coup d, etat against Chavez

as well..

Also:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/apr/21/usa.venezuela


Their only answer appears to be the correct answer.

[COLGATE4]

4. That is undoubtedly what caused the distintegration of

the entire Venezuelan economy and the vast misery Venezuelan people are enduring. Fifteen years of Chavez and then the last few with Mini-Me had nothing to do with it. It's all the US' fault.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Just finished the first report from Amy Goodman, Democracy Now. It was excellent.

They bring up a point which has never been addressed here:

Why on earth does this government imagine it has the right to demand Venezuela's government which AUTOMATICALLY recounts 53% of the votes in EVERY election, feel it had the right to demand they recount every single vote last time, when the Republican Party fought like wild men to prevent recounts during the 2000 Presidential election, they never WERE adequately recounted, and George W. Bush took Al Gore to court to PREVENT RECOUNTS in Florida? To boot, we learn much too late that Al Gore, indeed, DID win the popular vote in Florida, IF the recount had been allowed to go through.

Damn!

Of course they've been interfering from the moment Hugo Chavez took office in 1999. Maybe even during the campaign prior to the first Presidential election, the way they did with Evo Morales, in Bolivia.

I really should calm down, a bit!

They are all so damned crooked, and they DO determine what our corporate "news" media tells us about the countries the military/political establishment doesn't like.

I will be watching the second of your videos a little later tonight. You've provided very helpful information. Thank you, monica angela.