<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
<div id="print-page"><b><big><big>Venezuelan Elections See Clear
Victory for the PSUV Led by Nicolas Maduro & Their Allies</big></big></b>
<p class="print-submitted">Dec 12th 2013, by Francisco Dominguez-
Venezuela Solidarity Campaign (UK)</p>
<div id="sidebox"> <br>
</div>
<div class="print-content">
<div><em>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.</em></div>
<div> </div>
<div>The 7 December 2013 municipal elections in Venezuela have produced
a robust and convincing victory for <em>chavismo</em>: 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.)</div>
<div> </div>
<div>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.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>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.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>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.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>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.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>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!</div>
<div> </div>
<div>The MUD's 'plebiscite deception' was part of their destabilisation
campaign against the legitimate, democratically elected, Bolivarian
government. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>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!)</div>
<div> </div>
<div>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'.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>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.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>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.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>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.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>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.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>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, </div>
<div> </div>
<div>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<em>havista</em> 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 <em>chavismo</em> 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.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>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."</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Will Venezuela’s right and their supporters and sponsors in the US
ever respect the will of the people?</div>
</div>
<hr class="print-hr">
<div class="print-source_url"><strong>Source URL (retrieved on <em>13/12/2013
- 3:10am</em>):</strong> <a
href="http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/10240">http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/10240</a></div>
</div>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.freedomarchives.org">www.freedomarchives.org</a>
</div>
</body>
</html>