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href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/13221">https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/13221</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">What Is at Stake Is the Fate of
Venezuela’s Revolutionary Democratic Experiment</h1>
<div id="reader-credits" class="credits">By Reinaldo Iturriza
& Federico Fuentes – Green Left Weekly , July 6th 2017</div>
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<p>Revolutionary activist and sociologist <strong><em>Reinaldo
Iturriza</em></strong>has spent many years working
with popular movements in Venezuela and writing on the
rise of Chavismo as a political movement of the poor.
He also served as Minister for the Communes and Social
Movements, and then Minister for Culture in President
Nicolas Maduro’s cabinet between 2013 and 2016.</p>
<p>Together with activists from a range of grassroots
revolutionary organisations and social movements, he
is standing as a candidate for the Popular Constituent
Platform in the July 30 elections for a Constituent
Assembly that will seek to find a political way out of
the current turmoil gripping Venezuela through the
drafting of a new constitution.</p>
<p><em>Green Left Weekly</em>’s <strong><em>Federico
Fuentes</em></strong> interviewed Iturriza to gets
his views on the current challenges facing Chavismo
and the proposed Constituent Assembly.</p>
<p><strong>***</strong></p>
<p><strong>How would you characterise the current
political and economic situation in Venezuela?</strong></p>
<p>The political and economic situation in Venezuela
today is the most difficult one we have faced since
1999, the year in which Hugo Chavez assumed the
presidency. This situation is occurring within a
global economic context, which of course partially
explains what is happening: the drop in the prices of
raw materials, and in Venezuela’ case the fall in oil
prices.</p>
<p>But there are many other important factors, because
what is at stake is not simply control over
Venezuela’s natural resources, but the meaning, the
reach, the influence even of Venezuela’s revolutionary
democratic experiment.</p>
<p>What is at stake is Chavismo’s political capital, and
that explains why, together with the brutal attacks on
the economy and the new wave of street violence that
began on April 1, we have seen attacks on the republic
being made in the name of Chavez, such as [what]
Attorney General [Luisa Ortega] has done, as well as
some ex-ministers, almost all of whom are conspiring
with the right to overthrow the constitutional
president, Nicolas Maduro.</p>
<p>This anti-Chavismo has not been able to, and will not
be able to convert itself into a viable political
reference point for the majority of the population.
Its class origins and the content of its governing
program, which is neoliberal and radically
anti-people, impede this. That is why its efforts have
been centred on demobilising the people, demobilising
and demoralising. </p>
<p>The boycott against the national economy, which
economist Pasqualina Curcio has explained very well in
her book <em><a
href="http://www.15yultimo.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/THE-VISIBLE-HAND-OF-THE-MARKET.-ECONOMIC-WARFARE-IN-VENEZUELA.-PASQUALINA-CURCIO-C.pdf">The
Invisible Hand of the Market</a></em>, seeks to
not only create discontent, but to demoralise what is
a very politicized populace.</p>
<p>Anti-Chavista violence, that contrary to what the
immense majority of the media say has left a trail of
deaths in which a majority of the victims have been
people who were not participating in any protest, has
been aimed against public infrastructure in general:
schools, hospitals, popular markets, food shortage
deposits, electricity infrastructure, public
transport, government institutions, etc.</p>
<p>It has also expressed itself in the form of hate
crimes (lynchings in public places of people
“suspected” of being Chavista) and attacks on military
bases. This has produced an important degradation of
public life.</p>
<p>Lastly, the discourse according to which Nicolas
Maduro has “betrayed the legacy of Chavez” clearly
seeks to sow confusion, disorientation or at the very
minimum doubt in the minds of the people. The most
rancid sector of the anti-Chavista political class has
even gone as far as to express its “concern” for the
legacy of Chavez. The objective is to defeat Chavismo
by attacking its material, spiritual and symbolic
bases.</p>
<p><strong>What has been the response of grassroots
Chavismo and the people in general to this
situation?</strong></p>
<p>The issue that has had the most lasting effects, and
is without a doubt the principal concern of the
majority of the population, is the whole range of
brutal aggressions that have been carried out against
the economy, the induced shortages and inflation as a
consequence of the manipulation of the illegal
exchange rate that has occurred.</p>
<p>The political correlative of these aggressions has
been a popular retreat from public spaces, from spaces
for participation. In general, Chavismo continues to
be the principal political force in the country. The
principal political minority, to be more precise.</p>
<p>Grassroots Chavismo, the most militant sector, has
been particularly hit hard materially, it is sitting
back, waiting, and much like the majority of the
population shares a generalised rejection towards the
political class, but continues to support Maduro.</p>
<p><strong>The government has proposed elections for a
Constituent Assembly. As a candidate in these
elections, how do you view the proposal and what
fundamental task must the Constituent Assembly
confront?</strong></p>
<p>I agree with the political arguments that President
Maduro has made in explaining his call for a
Constituent Assembly. He is attempting to find a
political way out of a conflict that everyday seems to
be heading in the direction of a resolution by force.</p>
<p>The express, public objective of the anti-Chavista
political class is to generate a situation of
ungovernability. The president is trying to create
some minimal conditions in which it can govern in
peace. He is not interested in perpetuating himself in
power, as the right-wing propaganda campaign claims.</p>
<p><strong>What can you tell us about the Popular
Constituent Platform?</strong></p>
<p>The platform is a space in which some of the
movements and organisations that in 2011 participated
in Chavez’s initiative to create a Great Patriotic
Pole have come together. These include the Urban Poor
Movements (Movimientos de Pobladores), the Bolivar and
Zamora Revolutionary Current (CRBZ, Corriente
Revolucionaria Bolívar y Zamora), the National Network
of Commune Activists (Red Nacional de Comuneros), and
comrades from feminist, sex-gender diversity, and
student movements, among others.</p>
<p>Beyond the immediate issue of the elections, we
believe it is strategically important to combine
efforts in the construction of reference points for
popular unity. This phenomenon of a retreat from
politics that I referred to before is in part caused
by a severe crisis of political mediation.</p>
<p>The most advanced initiatives in popular
organisation, of popular self-government, are not
necessary the result of the work of the party. In
fact, in many places, the party bureaucracy puts
obstacles in the way of these initiatives.</p>
<p>So we have these dispersed experiences throughout the
country, but lack the necessary connections between
them. And achieving basic levels of connections and
unity is vital for guaranteeing the continuity of the
revolutionary process.</p>
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<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
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