In the Venezuelan parliamentary elections, December 4, 2005, two
decisive elements for the coming period of the Bolivarian and
anti-imperialist process of this country have emerged.A commentary on the parliamentary elections in Venezuela
The first one concerns the necessity of anti-imperialist self-defence against US interventionist plans. This will be the most important factor in the coming year until the presidential elections to be held at the end of 2006. The withdrawal of the pro-imperialist opposition parties (AD, COPEI, Primero Justicia, Proyecto Venezuela) from the elections for the national assembly is a alarming signal indicating that the USA are preparing plans to hinder a second mandate for the Bolivarian president Hugo Chávez in 2006. North American imperialism has shown several times its intention to get rid of Chávez by any means, being the most important symbol of a transformation process spreading under the flag of Bolivarianism all over Latin America. The political radicalisation of Venezuela´s President, following an openly anti-imperialist strategy and proclaiming the necessity of a new political system of popular power, which Chávez calls “socialism of the XXI century”, represents a concrete challenge to US imperialism and a destabilizing element for the US hegemony in the region. The reaction of the USA is nothing new: for its continental impact also revolutionary Cuba has been accused to “export revolution” in the 60ties and 70 ties. To this main preoccupation of the USA – the spreading of an alternative political project backed by the Latin-American poor classes – we have to add that Venezuela also represents an obstacle for North American immediate plans of economical domination (ALCA) as it occurred during the IV Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata, Argentine, November 2005.
Since his election to the presidency in 1998, Chavez has clearly won all successive electoral competitions and the USA are aware that also his re-election to the presidency is highly probable. The main problem for them is that international observers have always affirmed the transparency and legitimacy of all previous electoral results. Consequently, the first step in the new US offensive is the de-legitimation of the Venezuelan democratic electoral system pressuring the pro-imperialist bourgeois opposition to withdraw from the parliamentary competition. In the coming months we will possibly assist to an acceleration in the imperialist diplomatic and media campaign against Chavez and the USA will try to present to the international community documents “proving” that in Venezuela the democratic institutions are being undermined and the basic liberties restricted (Thomas Shannon, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs), similar to the campaign about the so called “weapons of mass destruction in Iraq” when they prepared the war. This could be the starting point of a diplomatic escalation by the USA aiming at isolating the Bolivarian Republic in the international institutions they control. The USA could also use their power to pressure for an embargo similar to the one applied to Cuba. This politics will obviously imply the risk for the USA of an interruption of oil export by the Venezuelan government. Anyway, we cannot foresee at now which concrete way the current imperialist escalation will follow. In any case, it is important that all the Bolivarian and anti-imperialist forces are fully aware that the USA are still able to control an imperial alliance composed of the political elites of the majority of the nations, including the European ones. In this way they have the capacity to impose their international politics without significant opposition within the international community. Not even the “critical” position against the war on Iraq of Germany, France, Russia and China produced any concrete action such as to impose a statement of the United Nations Security Council condemning the US unilateral aggression against Iraq.
The other key element revealed by the Venezuela’s parliamentary elections is the low electoral participation (25%). Even if this fact is not exceptional in the history of parliamentary elections in Venezuela, as well as in other countries including the USA, and it is not an evidence of the lack of support for the Bolivarian process by the people, it is nonetheless a clear indicator of the necessity to deepen the Bolivarian process building a new institutional system based on popular power and socialism. The bourgeois democratic institutions have an elitist character excluding popular participation. They are alienated from the popular dynamics, and even the best representatives at the head of this institutions cannot change their character. In his famous speech (El salto adelante) on November 12, 2004, Chávez pointed out this problem, appealing for a participative democracy as a new institutional system. Yet, the necessary transformation of the old institutions will probably not be realised in the remaining period of Chavez’s mandate. Nevertheless, in the campaign for the re-election of Chávez this will surely be one of the most important questions, particularly for the poor classes. What the different Bolivarian political forces will propose for the future of the Bolivarian process in order to overcome the old institutional system will be decisive in the coming period of electoral mobilization. Instead of an electoral campaign based on the figure of one candidate – as it has become usual in our “democracies” of North-American style – the Venezuelan people needs a campaign where the different forces clearly define their proposals for the future of the revolutionary process. Thus, the Venezuelan revolutionaries not only have to fight for a new mandate of Hugo Chávez, but for a mandate clearly engaged to the transition towards a new State of popular power. In this sense, the 2006 elections should be the last traditional ones, and the first ones characterized by the participative character of a new democracy where the people can express its interests and define the line of the next period of Bolivarian mandate. To implement participative democracy a popular revolutionary government that represents and expresses the organised Bolivarian people is necessary. Revolutionary democracy must unite elements of participative and representative democracy in one strategy of popular power and of socialism of the XXI century.
From the point of view of anti-imperialist internationalism we consider as our principal task the defence of the Bolivarian process in a way that its international impact leads to superior levels of coordination between all anti-imperialist and anti-Yankee resistances. We are aware that imperialism always will be superior in propaganda, economical and military means to the popular resistance and we know that the US Empire is supported by a strong inter-imperialist alliance. But every aggressions against the emerging processes of national and social liberation will undermine its political hegemony and strengthen the most consequent and revolutionary forces inside the peoples in struggle. However this requires, that revolutionaries are capable to oppose a common political and organisational strategy to the imperialist politics in order to respond to the dynamics of the international confrontation between oppressed peoples and classes against the imperialist empire leaded by the USA.
Anti-imperialist Camp
December 2005
