Opposition’s little man 'the candidate of imperialism'

I wrote the following article for the current issue of Green Left Weekly newspaper:

Venezuela: Opposition’s little man 'the candidate of imperialism' 

By Owen Richards

The International Consulting Services poll revealed that if the presidential elections were held tomorrow in Venezuela, 58.2% would vote for Hugo Chavez. Image from VTV. 

“The confrontation here isn’t between Chavez and this little man, it’s the bourgeoisie against the people, the empire against the country”, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on February 16.

Chavez was referring to his newly-nominated presidential opponent, Henrique Capriles Radonski. He was pointing to the class battle that lies behind the looming presidential elections scheduled for October 7.

Radonski, a 39-year-old lawyer and governor of Miranda state, won the endorsement of the right-wing Democratic Unity Forum (MUD) bloc on February 12. He won with 62% of 1.8 million votes in a primary process marked by allegations of irregularities. 

Henrique Capriles Radonski

The MUD used the National Electoral Commission (CNE) to run its primaries despite for years claiming the CNE is a fraudulent, corrupt tool of the Chavez government. The MUD's publicised participation figures were revealed to be mathematically improbable.

The MUD’s electoral council also burned all the cast ballots almost immediately after the conclusion of the day’s voting, despite the fact that several candidates wished to appeal vote counts.

However irregular the process, the selection of Radonski to go head-to-head with Chavez for the presidential sash opens the election campaign proper. The selection of a candidate must come as some relief to the perennially-divided right-wing bloc. 

But who is Radonski, and what does he stand for? 

In the MUD he is considered a moderate with a view to turn Venezuela down the road to a Brazil-style social-democratic capitalism. He calls himself a “progressive” of neither the left nor the right. 

In deference to the overwhelming popular enthusiasm for the revolution’s social missions that have benefited millions of Venezuela's poor, he feigns support. But Radonski opposes their being funded through oil revenues.

His campaign slogan, “there is a way” mimics vacuous political slogans from capitalist elections everywhere -- it provides little indication of his actual political stance.

Contrary his moderate credentials, Radonski is infamous for his role in leading a violent siege of the Cuban embassy during the April 2002 US-backed military coup. During the coup, Chavez -- the elected president -- was kidnapped before being returned to the presidency by a mass uprising of workers and soldiers.

Radonski is from one of Venezuela’s wealthiest families.

In response to Radonski’s nomination as the opposition’s candidate, Chavez welcomed him to the electoral race. But Chavez challenged him to come up with more than a slogan, and to “confront me with ideas”. 

Chavez characterised Radonski as “the candidate of imperialism, of the bourgeoisie's pro-coup sector”. 

He also attacked Radonski’s claimed support for the social missions while opposing their state funding through the state-owned oil company, PDVSA. He said Radonski would return the company to “the capitalists, the transnationals”.

The National Assembly's first vice-president Aristobulo Isturiz said Radonski “is toying with a retrogression. This candidate is the past, because he wants to take us back to neoliberalism”.

Isturiz said such moves would put Venezuela in the same situation as the European nations of today. He said Venezuela’s “indignados” (the name for members of the Spanish anti-neoliberal mass movement) fought and defeated neoliberalism.

Early indications are that the pro-revolution forces organised under the Chavez-led Great Patriotic Pole electoral alliance will comfortably return Chavez to the presidency. 

A study carried out by the International Consulting Services (ICS) indicated that if a poll were held now, 58.2% of Venezuela’s population would vote for Hugo Chavez against 35.4% for Radonski. 

The ICS also found in a January study that 53% of Venezuelans support Chavez’s socialist vision for the nation, with only 21% saying they believed capitalism was the best system to develop Venezuela. 

The Group of Social Investigation XXI (GIS XXI) found Chavez to have a popularity rating of 61.2%.

As the presidential battle continues to heat up, Chavez's United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), the biggest force in the electoral alliance, stepped up its activity. 

Chavez has dubbed the campaign the Carabobo campaign. This refers to the 1821 Battle of Carabobo that was decisive in winning Venezuelan independence from Spain. 

A huge rally of PSUV grassroots “patrollers” was held on February 17 to bring together and organise PSUV members for the political battle ahead. 

A mass campaign of door-knocking has already begun. By February 16, PSUV patrollers had visited a total of 417,000 homes in a first phase of house-to-house deployment. More than just soliciting support for Chavez, the patrollers discuss socialism and encourage participation in the revolution’s programs.

[Owen Richards maintains the blog Venezuela: Translating the Revolution.]

The challenges of 2011

By Rodolfo Sanz, Saturday, 15th of January, 2011

Translation by Owen Richards

The year just begun is one of the most difficult of the process of change initiated in 1999.  The year before a huge election, it will put the political consciousness of the majority of Venezuelans to the test.  Some challenges will appear on the horizon over the next few months that will be dialectically connected to the most important events of 2012. Here are some of them:

Economically, the main challenges are: One, to recover the path of economic growth.  The indicators allow for optimism.  Another, to reduce and control inflation—which is the worst tax  the poor can pay and reduces their capacity of consumption—turning all efforts toward combating poverty.  To reach greater levels of economic efficiency and effectiveness in state activities is also crucial this year—the superiority of the socialist state  over the capitalist private sector must be demonstrated in all spheres of the economic process.

In the social sphere, to continue the process of poverty reduction, which means strengthening the social missions, starting with the production of a poverty map that will enable us to attack poverty directly in its most obvious hiding places.  At the same time, it is necessary to complete the work of social inclusion begun in the education missions, providing permanent employment to all new graduates in their professions.

Reaching the proposed goals in the area of housing appears as an unavoidable challenge, above all as this problem has been taken on directly by President Hugo Chavez.  Great determination, courage, and a sense of urgency will be required to reach these goals.

Politically, there are several challenges.  The first is turning the PSUV into a political tool for building socialism.  The PSUV should not just be an electoral machine, but the political vanguard of society, able to focus the people's social action towards the big goals of the revolution.  The second has to do with the construction of a large, inclusive Patriotic Pole, in which elements and sectors can converge, including those that don't identify with socialism, but with a clear national identity, those with an unquestionable democratic profile and all lovers of progress and social peace.  The third challenge in this field involves defeating the destabilising strategy led by the opposition forces from within the National Assembly, supported by their external allies.  Popular power plays a decisive role in this task, providing critical support for the parliamentary politics of the Bolivarian revolution.

The forces for change have built up enough power to tackle these challenges, some of which will continue to be around for the next few years.  This year it becomes necessary to unleash all this power, understood as the capacity for self-transformation of the revolutionary protagonists and the transformation of the multiple determinations of reality.

In 2011 and 2012 we will witness the end of a cycle of the Bolivarian revolution.  Hence, events of these two years will be united by a dialectical, causal link.  Hence the importance of understanding—without falling into determinism—that to a certain extent what happens in 2012 will depend on what we are able to do in 2011.  There is no time to lose.

http://diarioveaonline.com/

PSUV: Six strategic lines

Translation by Owen Richards
 

The following is an abridgement of an article from http://www.inass.gob.ve/ providing an outline of the six "strategic lines" discussed this month by the national leadership of the Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) for 2011 to 2012.

Prensa YVKE—Commander Hugo Chavez, president of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), held a meeting last Saturday with the National Directorate of the party at Miraflores Palace to debate the strategic lines of political action for 2011 to 2012.

[...]

He said the document contains ideas for tackling the tasks of 2011 and 2012, in regard to the political continuity of the Bolivarian revolution.

"The next two years will be crucial for the Bolivarian revolution.  So it must be taken up by the militants and the leadership of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV)", Chavez said, convoking the great socialist meeting for January 3 and 4, where six great strategic "lines of political action" will be discussed.

[…]

1.  On capitalist culture and socialist militancy

The leader of the Bolivarian revolution said that the first, and the most central of the document, is the transition from the capitalist political culture to a socialist militancy.

"This first line is the essence of the battle.  Changing customs and culture.  It's the greatest of all the challenges to a revolution.  It must be developed starting with conscience and values.  Here we must make a really big effort.  This capitalist culture of egoism, of individualism.  This must be combated and removed from our values", he said.

2.  Convert the PSUV machinery into a movement-party, that is to say, to the daily service of the people.  To satisfy human needs.

The second line will be to convert the machinery of the PSUV into a movement-party, at the service of the popular struggles to satisfy  human needs, and not only to contest elections.

"This is very important becausethe MVR (Fifth Republican Movement) ended up an electoral machine.  It is a dangerous diversion, because the MVR estranged itself from the daily struggles of the people.  We cannot allow this to happen with the PSUV.  We must attack this right away", he emphasized.

3.  Convert the party into a powerful and permanent medium of propaganda and communication

Chavez emphasized that the third line is to convert the party into a powerful means of propaganda and communication, which includes the use of non-traditional means of dissemination.

As such, he raised the distribution of flyers with accurate information, communicating by word of mouth in public places and, for example, that the Official Gazette be turned into a free nationally-distributed newspaper.  He pointed out that this official document contains information on the national interest that is not read daily by the people.

"This is fundamental.  Sometimes I authorise some housing resources and nobody knows.  Sometimes things come out in the Official Gazette and nobody knows.  We should turn this Official Gazette into a newspaper.  When they recover lands in Apure, the party has to publicise it", he said.

He explained that it is necessary for the party, together with the national government, to prepare the population—through propaganda and communication— "before something's going to happen.  This is to prepare opinion.  Because sometimes we leave this field of battle all alone.  And the enemy attacks it and we don't respond.  As if it's not important."

4.  Pass from the inertia of the machinery to lead the people's struggle

The fourth line, according to Chavez, deals with passing from the inertia of the machinery to deal with the struggle of the people, an aspect closely linked to the second strategic point.

"It's the same self-critical wave which combines a series of proposals that will see soon", he said.

5.  Building the great Patriotic Pole, an audacious policy of reunification

The fifth line is the building of the great Patriotic Pole, as an audacious policy of reunification and repolarisation.

On this topic, Chavez put out a call to the patriotic and nationalist currents and movements to join together in a great patriotic poll.

"I'm calling on all currents and movements.  The more critical the better.  The call goes out to all sectors of the national life.  Without sectarianism.  We shall cover ourselves with humility.  I say this to all party militants.  The party cannot adopt an authoritarian posture.  This party is an open system of unification and empowerment.  Here there are two paths: this one that we're going down (socialism), or to turn back, which would be a catastrophe that takes us back to the past", he warned.

6.  The PSUV to hit the streets, go on the charge, to victory

The sixth and final line of the document of political action calls on the PSUV to hit the streets,  "which is like a call to battle".

Chavez said that it's possible that during the debate other positions will surface, because the document is a first draft, prepared with a deep revolutionary self-criticism.

[…]

Another document will be added  to these lines of action to consolidate the official launch of the second strategic map of the Bolivarian revolution.

"We're working on it, it has a lot to do with these (political action lines).  But it includes the strategic field more broadly , both national and international, and covers the short, medium and long term. Strategic map; tactical window", he said.

[...]