Venezuela: Peace Elections in Times of War
In Venezuela, there have been ongoing elections since Commander Hugo Chávez first won them in 1998. Counting from that year to today there have been 5 presidential elections, 7 parliamentary, 10 regional (gorbernadores) and 7 municipal elections, in addition 6 referendums and 3 constituents have been held, more than one electoral process per year. Surely no people, no country has had so many possibilities to decide what affects it.
Due to the revolutionary and anti-imperialist character of the Bolivarian process these electoral processes have been the object of unusual attention by the media, the corporations and the states that saw their interests endangered, consequently the Bolivarian governments have made an effort to demonstrate impartiality and electoral transparency and have invited qualified international observers to accompany these processes. Among others, the Jimy Carter Foundation, specialized in electoral audits and nothing suspicious of Chavista inclinations, should be highlighted.
The Venezuelan opposition and the U.S.-led imperialist coalition have repeatedly disqualified the electoral processes in Venezuela without ever presenting any substantive evidence. The strategy of the U.S. and its allies is the systematic disqualification of the Venezuelan electoral processes, its government and institutions. This strategy is integrated in turn into the economic war, the sabotage, the violence of the opposition, the eternal threat and the political and institutional campaigns to create the worst living conditions for the population.
The electoral consultations made by the Venezuelan government to its people have made the social organization assume the challenge of building an independent homeland, without social inequality where no one lacks housing, health, education and basic food. The Venezuelan people face the present and struggle for a future of anti-imperialism and social justice.
The elections in Venezuela have, therefore, the peculiarity of giving power to the people, that the people form part of the process and therefore warn that with their decisions they lead to the country, that they and they make Venezuela free.
That conscious and free people has become the protagonist, makes Venezuela and that is why it has also become the objective to be defeated by the U.S. empire and its allies, European and South American, colonialist and colonized countries. What do the bourgeoisies that want to return to their old state do?They try to asphyxiate Venezuela in order to create a social unrest that will allow destabilizing the country and overthrow the government. To do so, they do not hesitate to resort to the strangulation of international trade, to prevent or hinder the financing, the obtaining of medicines, they contribute to the increase of the interest on the payment of the debt to unpayable figures, they put political pressure on other governments to break their relations or to join the discredit of the government. All for the sake of publicizing Venezuela as a failed country that demands external intervention. In short, the interests of the empire demand the overthrow of the government in order to replace it with a similar one, regardless of what the popular will decides.
Between April and July 2017, the internal front of the imperialist war carried out an intense campaign to overthrow the Venezuelan government. This campaign, directed and financed from abroad, which caused more than 120 deaths and countless material damages, was complemented by the intensification of the economic war and propaganda. The political front in Latin America, the European Union and especially Spain, the different attempts to achieve a condemnation of the OAS and the attempts to organize a supposed international coalition of forces willing to intervene directly against Venezuela, known as the Lima Group. However, the essentially combined action of the US and Spain did not achieve a condemnation by the OAS that would have facilitated direct US intervention or the constitution of a consistent regional group that would allow a multinational coalition against Venezuela to be credible, thus highlighting the progressive deterioration of US hegemony.
At the end of July last year, the call for elections to the National Constituent Assembly (ANC) meant a change of phase in the war in Venezuela, despite the violence unleashed against this call that resulted in the death of a Chavista candidate, an agent of the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB), the death of 6 more people and a bomb attack against GNB and external pressure to disqualify the call and call for a boycott the ANC elections were a success in which 8.8 million voters participated. Subsequently, on October 15, regional elections (governors) were held with a participation of 61.14% of the electoral census and in December municipal elections were held with 9.3 million voters. It should be noted that despite the call for boycotts, international propaganda and violence, participation rates are similar to those of countries such as Mexico or Chile.
On this occasion the presidential elections of May 20, 2018 are held after the defeats of the electoral processes of 2017, but also after the call to the ANC the opposition has collapsed and has no possibility of popular support for their policies. It has no choice but to disqualify this process by joining the empire’s war propaganda. Calling for abstention in this way does not reveal their weakness and they will claim abstentions as their own votes.
Defeated the internal front and with the majority of the Venezuelan people choosing the peaceful way and supporting the electoral processes called by the government to the empire has no other way but to delegitimize the government and institutions and intensify external interference without ruling out military intervention. The government and institutions cannot be allowed to consolidate and create a channel to deal with war-induced crises. This strategy is developed in the document “Freedom-2” and in its update “Golpe Maestro” and counts on the collaboration of Colombia as a regional agent and Spain as an international agent.
In spite of all the media campaign to discredit the electoral process has 200 accredited international companions from different organizations and countries and all the countries of the world have been invited to observe this process without any restriction. However, within this media attack, the term “international community” is coined to refer to the small group of countries that lead this attack. Arbitrariness and cynicism are pillars of the action and propaganda of the Western empire. It is necessary to remember that the false information of the trio from the Azores about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq meant the death of more than 2.7 million people with some 5 million displaced, and the physical and cultural devastation of the region with incalculable suffering for the population. We cannot allow this logic to continue, we must confront the empire from internationalism defending the Bolivarian revolution for truth, justice and peace, supporting its institutions and the government that is legitimately elected in this call.
Internationalist Anti-imperialist Front.
They will not pass!
