[News] Venezuelan Elections See Clear Victory for the PSUV

[Anti-Imperialist News]

*Venezuelan Elections See Clear Victory for the PSUV Led by Nicolas 
Maduro & Their Allies*

Dec 12th 2013, by Francisco Dominguez- Venezuela Solidarity Campaign (UK)


/Despite right wing economic war in recent months, the candidates of 
'Chavismo' comfortably won Sunday's municipal elections, consolidating 
President Maduro's leadership, and further enhancing Venezuelan 
democracy, writes VSC Secretary Francisco Dominguez./
The 7 December 2013 municipal elections in Venezuela have produced a 
robust and convincing victory for /chavismo/: late last night the 
national electoral authority (CNE) announced that with 97.52 per cent of 
the votes processed, PSUV candidates won 210 mayoralties (76 per cent of 
the total) whilst candidates of the right wing (MUD coalition) were 
victorious in 53 (15.82 per cent). A total of about 76 mayoralties have 
to yet be adjudicated by the national electoral authority (CNE.)
The PSUV and allied candidates got 49.24 per cent of the popular vote, 
whilst the right wing candidates, got 42.72 per cent. Thus, the PSUV had 
an electoral victory by a healthy margin of 7 per cent. The electoral 
turnout was 59.82 per cent. This is high, since in Venezuela municipal 
elections tend to have low electoral turnouts.
Key sections of the MUD and the MUD's allies in the US saw the untimely 
death of President Hugo Chavez earlier this year as a window of 
opportunity to destabilise and oust the Bolivarian government. And they 
thought this opportunity increased when at the presidential election to 
replace president Chavez on 14 April 2013, Nicolas Maduro won by a 
slender 1.5 per cent.
To prepare the ground in the run-up to April they waged a massive and 
intense but groundless campaign to discredit the CNE (National Electoral 
Council.) Believing the moment was ripe, they unleashed a wave of 
violence prompted by their leader Henrique Capriles, who on April 15, on 
national TV called upon his supporters to come out into the streets to 
protest at the 'electoral fraud' and invited them  'to vent your anger'. 
The resulting violence led to the death of 11 people, and two children.
The false accusation of fraud was a charge used by Capriles and the MUD 
not to accept defeat and to not recognise the Maduro government. This 
position of non-recognition is a position supported by only one 
government in the world: the United States. Still today, Capriles and 
the MUD have yet to recognise the Maduro government and accept the 
election result of April 2013. US state agencies continue to fund with 
millions of dollars (of taxpayers money) the activities of Venezuela's 
right wing.
For the municipal elections of December 7, the MUD and its leader, 
Henrique Capriles, alongside sections of the world media, spread the 
fallacy that this election represented a plebiscite on President Nicolas 
Maduro - indeed, Henrique Capriles even called on president Maduro to 
resign if the PSUV lost the popular vote!
The MUD's 'plebiscite deception' was part of their destabilisation 
campaign against the legitimate, democratically elected, Bolivarian 
government.
In this worth noting at this point, that the Right's campaign of 
destabilisation had begun well before the 14 April 2013 presidential 
election and continues today, intensifying in recent months. It has 
involved discrediting the armed forces with the declared intention to 
sow internal divisions, sabotage of electricity plants, massive 
speculation on US dollars in the black market, deliberate creation of 
shortages of basic commodities such as milk, edible oil and toilette 
paper, the hoarding of electro domestics, and incredible retail commerce 
overcharging (usually by 100 per cent and 200 per cent, but which on 
some items could reach 1000 per cent or 2000 per cent, and with one 
trader overcharging as much as 12000 per cent!)
Such destabilisation efforts are all part of a well orchestrated 
campaign aimed at creating conditions such as those that led to the 
overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973. Right wing propaganda 
kept making ominous predictions that during October and November 
Venezuela would face 'total collapse'.
This is worth keeping in mind when noting that whilst having suffered 
another electoral defeat, the MUD has scored reasonably well in some 
urban centres, where the worst manifestations of the economic war have 
been felt.
However, whilst Opposition strategists counted on discontent resulting 
from the difficulties arising out of economic sabotage and ongoing 
destabilisation, President Maduro took speedy and effective measures to 
counter the economic war. He tightened the market on hard currency, 
thus substantially reducing black market speculation, and imposed limits 
on the outrageous overpricing being practiced by traders.
The President's countermeasures seem to both have proved rather popular 
and also deflated the opposition. In response to his measures, on 23 
November the MUD organised a poorly attended 'monster march' in only a 
few cities in Venezuela to oppose Maduro's measures, including a law 
putting a very reasonable ceiling of 30 per cent profit on non-food 
retail items and a substantial reduction of the price of rents to 
commercial establishments.
Thanks to the leadership of president Maduro and his government's 
effective measures, Venezuela had its 19th election in 14 years taking 
place peacefully, with civic consciousness by a calm and relaxed 
population, who, despite opposition efforts to discredit it, clearly 
trust the electoral authority. Indeed, this was yet another impeccably 
conducted electoral process, characterised, as every previous election 
since 1999, for its total transparency.
In this sense, thanks to Bolivarian politics, Venezuela's democracy, 
permanently under threat from sections of the right wing in cahoots with 
key US agencies, has had another boost,
Finally, in terms the nonsense about the 7 December 2013 election being 
a plebiscite on what the opposition claimed was an unpopular 
Government, the democratic verdict of the Venezuelan people's behaviour 
tells us exactly the opposite. After the death of Hugo Chavez, they 
elected a C/havista/ president, somebody recommended to them by Hugo 
Chavez himself, exactly one year ago on 8 Dec 2012, just before he went 
to Havana for his last cancer treatment. They have also given 
/chavismo/ a majority in the National Assembly (99 against 64), a 
majority of governors (20 out of total of 23), a majority of local 
legislatures (22 out of 23), and now a majority of mayoralties.
Venezuelan democracy is alive, vibrant and now stronger. At the victory 
rally President Maduro asserted that the economic war unleashed against 
Venezuela could not defeat the Bolivarian process. Maduro also called 
for a process of national dialogue with all the elected mayors, 
regardless of political allegiance. About the electoral victory, he 
said: "the people of Venezuela has told the word that the Bolivarian 
Revolution is as strong as ever."
Will Venezuela's right and their supporters and sponsors in the US ever 
respect the will of the people?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Source URL (retrieved on /13/12/2013 - 3:10am/):* 
http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/10240
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