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<font size="1"><a href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/15067">https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/15067</a>
</font><h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Two Chavista Blocs, Two Voices: Venezuelan Parliamentary Candidates Speak</h1>
<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time" dir="ltr">By Cira Pascual Marquina – December 4, 2020<br></div><div class="gmail-meta-data">
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<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div><p><em>We Interview two Chavista contestants for the upcoming National Assembly elections: Oliver Rivas, <a href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/tag/psuv">PSUV</a>-block candidate (ruling party), and Rafael Uzcátegui, <a href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/tag/apr">APR</a> candidate (leftist bloc representing an independent electoral option) for the December 6 National Assembly elections.</em></p>
<h2>Oliver Rivas, PSUV-block candidate</h2>
<p><em>Oliver Rivas is an organizer based in Caracas, and one of a handful of National Assembly <a href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/tag/psuv">PSUV</a>-bloc
candidates with deep roots in the popular movement. He is also a
founder and member of La Otra Escuela [The Other School], a Chavista
collective that offers political education to cadres with grassroots
work. In this VA interview, we talk about the impact of the blockade on
Venezuela’s economy and its participatory democracy. Rivas also
addresses popular Chavismo’s projects for the upcoming National
Assembly.</em></p>
<p><strong>What is at stake in the upcoming National Assembly elections?</strong></p>
<p>First, the very existence of the Venezuelan nation-state is at stake
in the upcoming elections. Of course, all countries on the periphery
struggle for their existence in the unequal power relationship that
exists between the Global North and the Global South. This is a global
class struggle, where the aggressor is the imperialist pole, represented
by NATO. They aim to recolonize our continent.</p>
<p>As such, the struggle in the upcoming elections is not with the
Venezuelan opposition, which merely reflects the White House’s
interests.</p>
<p>Second, in the upcoming elections, the possibility of continuing with
the process of institutional changes that began in 1998 is on the line.
Obviously, the revolution has suffered a process of stagnation, but it
goes forward on the basis of unified progressive and revolutionary
forces, with the latter assuming part of the direction.</p>
<p>The devastating force of the imperialist siege has targeted
Venezuela’s dependent, capitalist rentier economy. This slashed the
state revenues which were being distributed in a more just manner – the
Bolivarian Revolution had rolled back more than 500 years of
colonization. While it is true that there wasn’t a rupture or complete
transformation of Venezuela’s economic structure, Chávez developed
public policies that benefited the poor majorities and fostered
self-managed and productive initiatives and communal experiences.</p>
<p>For me and for La Otra Escuela what is at stake now is the
possibility of continuing to struggle for the Chavista project. For us,
it is obvious that a fascist and death-mongering regime controlled by
imperialism will not allow us to struggle for our goals in the economic
or political arenas.</p>
<p><strong>Beyond the devastating impact of the <a href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/tag/sanctions">blockade</a>, what has the government done right and wrong in recent years?</strong></p>
<p>The issue has to be evaluated, recognizing the very special
circumstances that we face in Venezuela. We cannot talk about “good” or
“bad” governance as if we lived in an idyllic world. This is a
government that has faced all sorts of obstacles, including a total
siege from the world’s main hegemonic power.</p>
<p>With this being so, if Venezuela has continued to be a sign of hope
for the peoples of the world, it is because of the rights we have
conquered and, later, because of the proposal of the commune as an
exercise in self-government. However, with the oil rent vanishing, there
is a process of dismantling some of these achievements, which threatens
the very existence of state institutions.</p>
<p>It is also true that there have been many errors. To give you one
example, there have been systematic and permanent errors in the forming
of political cadres with a revolutionary and socialist horizon. We are
also remiss in combating internal vices: deterrent measures are needed,
as well as methods and guidelines to promote austerity and revolutionary
dynamics in the parties of the <a href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/tag/gpp">Great Patriotic Pole</a>.</p>
<p>But the truth is that these problems cannot be blamed on one specific
sector of the Chavista leadership: if we do a self-critique, we will
find that these problems are also present in social movements and
organizations. A very rigorous analysis of this situation is required.</p>
<p>However, we know that there have been many errors. This is a
consumerist economy that is parasitical on oil rent. Private enterprises
are also parasitical and structurally corrupt, and this all got worse
after Chávez’s death. When that happened, there was a sort of rush to
control the oil revenues which, in turn, led to an enormous capital
flight.</p>
<p>Here the question is: Is this Maduro’s fault, or is it the logical
consequence of sectors conspiring internally to control the state and
the rent since the early days of the Bolivarian process?</p>
<p>With all these observations in mind, my evaluation of the government
and its policies is positive. To that, I would add that, in these times,
we should opt for collectively forging a program that – with a
socialist and communal logic, but also understanding the siege imposed
on us – will allow us to struggle for working people’s rights. This is a
pending task for the popular movement, as it is building a collective
direction. One of the things that characterizes us is that we have many
disperse struggles that are keeping us from coming together,
centralizing agendas, and building consensus on key issues, both
tactical and strategic.</p>
<p><strong>There is an institutional tendency to label any dissent
within Chavismo as “treason.” This discourse claims that, in the face of
the imperialist siege, loyalty to the government should take precedence
over any criticism. This attitude has generated friction between the
government and some sectors of the popular movement. How do you
understand this situation?</strong></p>
<p>The relationship between grassroots organizations and the government
has been historically tense. While Chavismo is a potent plebeian force
(as Álvaro García Linera would say), it also incorporated left,
center-left, and even conservative sectors with a traditional conception
of politics, and these elements still continue to have political,
institutional, and electoral force. Chavismo is not a monolithic block.</p>
<p>So, yes, it’s true: there is a tendency to identify any critical
position as treason. However, that is a sectarian attitude that Maduro
himself has criticized.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, generating a new set of practices – a different logic
within Chavismo – must come with a renovation. This change within
Chavismo would have to include the PSUV as a majority force, but also
other smaller parties and a plurality of popular forces, organizations,
movements, and communal and grassroots organizations</p>
<p>Going back to the relation between the government and the popular
forces, we should understand that it has been tense in some moments,
sometimes contradictory or conflictive, sometimes fluid, and sometimes
there has been strong cohesion. It hasn’t always been the same. However,
Chavismo is a force that has been able to advance in the conquest of
rights by maintaining its internal unity.</p>
<p>All this happens while struggling for the cohesion of the
nation-state, overcoming fascist attacks and waves of imperialist
recolonization. Despite the [internal] contradictions, Chavismo has been
able to close ranks in key moments. That is one of its main
characteristics.</p>
<p>I am personally hopeful that our big internal contradictions will be
solved. These are complex times and a difficult situation, and they
forced the state to withdraw from or abandon part of what had been
socially achieved. In so doing, it has delegated responsibilities to
self-governed social (and especially productive) initiatives. These
initiatives are going to be key to overcoming the dependent, exploitive,
speculative, and usurer circuit of the Venezuelan economy.</p>
<p>Also, new economic actors will establish themselves here on the basis
of the opening to private capital. This is taking place in a context
where the state can no longer be expected to act as the sole source for
revenue.</p>
<p>Faced with this situation, revolutionary forces must build a program
so that we can maneuver in this complex panorama. We must not yield on
fundamental issues, and we must build mechanisms to work together and
develop agendas. I would even say that we must collectively build a
popular and communal economic platform that won’t be tied to the
country’s capitalist, dependent, rentier structures.</p>
<p>Is it going to be a harmonious struggle? No, it’s going to be a
contradictory one. It will be sometimes violent and sometimes peaceful,
as the Bolivarian Revolution has been since its early days.</p>
<p><strong>In recent years there has been a decline in popular democracy
here. From your perspective, given the imperialist siege, is this
situation inevitable? Is it necessary to recover Chávez's participatory
and protagonistic democracy?</strong></p>
<p>I think it is necessary to recover the more ample expressions of
Chávez's participatory and protagonistic democracy. From a military
point of view, the imperialist siege put us on the defensive, and this
comes with a larger degree of disciplining. That, obviously, comes with
larger levels of social contention and, in some cases repression,
excesses, and abuse. Of course, it is not different from the rest of
Latin America, where repression is probably more intense.</p>
<p>However, there are also many cases of false positives in the world’s
mainstream media and distorted reports such as the one recently <a href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14575">released by Michelle Bachelet</a>.
In fact, Bachelet’s report was developed through interviews carried out
during the pandemic. The process was too arbitrary to be scientifically
rigorous.</p>
<p>Additionally, there have been cases of internal sabotage: agents have
been paid to generate problematic situations. Of course, there is
nothing surprising about this. We are under siege and the enemy is
willing to use any means against us, from the sanctions and the blockade
to infiltrations and paramilitary interference, including the <a href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/tag/operation-gedeon">recent operation</a> in which the opposition’s fascist leadership hired US “security” contractors to topple Nicolás Maduro.</p>
<p>However, there have been important advances in this sense during the
revolution. The National Bolivarian Police was created to break with the
corrupt police mafias that participated (and probably still
participate) in coups and coup attempts. Under the principle of
conscious discipline and gender equity, the police was reorganized, with
education being at the core of that process.</p>
<p>Of course, this process was not free of contradictions. It cannot be
idealized. Also, in the current material reality, violence has become
one of the pathways for survival for police forces. That is the
immediate cause of the current excesses. The situation of general
collapse, corruption, decomposition, and deterioration of the
institutions and the society as a whole leads to the destruction of the
Venezuelan nation-state. And that is not accidental.</p>
<p>When faced with this reality, what is revolutionary Chavismo doing?
We fight against it because we know that our very existence is on the
line. Deterioration is not a state policy.</p>
<p><strong>You are participating in the popular debates taking place in
the context of the National Assembly campaign. With this experience,
what program would you promote if elected? As a representative who comes
from the ranks of the popular movement, how would you concur and differ
with the official line?</strong></p>
<p>From our collective [La Otra Escuela] and in coordination with other
organizations such as the Continental Platform of Social Movements, we
have developed programmatic goals ranging from building communes across
the territory and the integral transformation of the habitat, to the
construction of a non-capitalist, solidarious economy.</p>
<p>We are going to continue defending that program at the National
Assembly. We will do so in conditions that we know are adverse:
confronting private enterprises won’t be easy at a time when they, and
not the state, have the necessary resources to keep economic activity
going. However, it is precisely now, in these difficult times, that
popular productive projects that are not dependent on the rent can
emerge. These are contradictory times, but tactical opportunities are
opening up.</p>
<p>To give you an example, while it is true that the <a href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15020">Anti-blockade Law</a> favors
private initiative, it is also the case that it allows for the
participation of the state and organized popular power. In other words,
there is an open battlefield. We must enter it from an on-the-ground
perspective. This is not about theory or propaganda.</p>
<p>We understand the National Assembly as a platform from which to
promote laws boosting the communal economy. In this regard, President
Maduro has already proposed two laws that would foster the creation of
communal cities.</p>
<p>Additionally, there is a plan for ten legislative projects. These
have been developed through a process of popular consultation, carried
out both with digital mechanisms and in public meetings.</p>
<p>In fact, as we speak, I’m just arriving from one such event in the
working-class El Valle barrio. In those events, we encounter a high
level of dissatisfaction due to the problems people face with lack of
public services and low wages. These are wages and services that the
blockade and capitalist speculation have destroyed. Nonetheless, debate
initiatives and proposals are blooming. We have discovered that in
conditions of siege, communal and other forms of small and family
production are not only an ideal – they offer real solutions to working
people.</p>
<p>To give you one example, Colgate Palmolive sabotaged the production
of cleaning and personal hygiene goods. Now, we can find small
initiatives and even home production of these goods in every block of
every city. There is huge potential here. Cuba succeeded and we will
succeed too… through our work, and through mutual cooperation with other
countries!</p>
<p>We also have to promote a law for protecting the working class. The
text must outline some minimal standards for coexistence in the
transition to a mixed economy. The truth is that a mixed economy is the
guiding logic of the 1999 Constitution, so the current state of affairs
is not a departure from our origins.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, in the current circumstances, we must develop mechanisms
for the social control of the economy in general, and of commerce in
particular. There is a high level of impunity in the economy. Large
capitalist cartels generated this situation and it has developed into a
widespread speculative economy which destroyed workers’ wages. This
happened along with the dollarization of the economy, which generated
all sorts of distortions and illegal activity.</p>
<p>Cuba went through its Special Period, but they took the right
measures to survive and resist. The Cuban people struggled for their
right to exist and stay afloat in the world, and they did so with a
non-capitalist horizon. We are going to do the same… and if that means
an internal ideological debate with the conservative sectors along with a
wider battle of ideas, so be it.</p>
<p>In conclusion, we hope that the upcoming National Assembly will be
not only a body for turning popular initiatives and proposals into
legislation, but also a kind of megaphone to make our struggles visible
on a national level.</p>
<h2>Rafael Uzcátegui, APR candidate</h2>
<p><em>Rafael Uzcátegui is a historical figure in Venezuela’s popular movement who was key to the forming of the <a href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/tag/apr">Popular Revolutionary Alternative</a> [APR].
The APR is a leftist and Chavista electoral bloc that represents an
independent and plural option in the December 6 National Assembly
elections. Uzcátegui was the longstanding Secretary-General of <a href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/tag/ppt">Patria Para Todos</a> [PPT] before Venezuela’s Supreme Court [TSJ] <a href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14976">intervened</a> in
the party, replacing its original leadership. In this interview,
Uzcátegui talks about the APR’s revolutionary project, while analyzing
the government’s “neoliberal” turn.</em></p>
<p><strong>What is the APR and why is this group of popular Chavista
parties and movements not joining forces with the PSUV (as they did
previously under the aegis of the Patriotic Pole) to flip the National
Assembly in favor of Chavismo?</strong></p>
<p>A regrouping of popular forces is underway within Chavismo, which
aims to build a revolutionary alternative. There are dozens of
organizations in the APR, from old and consolidated parties such as the <a href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/tag/pcv">Communist Party</a> [PCV]
and the majority of the PPT [a party that grew out of the working class
and popular struggles in the 70s and 80s] to communal and regional
organizations and social movements.</p>
<p>Some of them had grown apart from the PSUV and the government which –
through its liberal economic policies and its tendency to disregard
other voices from within – has alienated many. Others had critical
constructive positions from within the Patriotic Pole, and their voices
were not heard either.</p>
<p>In any case, and beyond any critical position that we may have on
particular policies and practices, what separates us from Nicolás
Maduro’s project is our political vision. We aim to reaffirm a left
revolutionary initiative rooted in Chávez’s radical project. The Maduro
government has turned away from that. Ours is a left Chavista project…
and when we identify with Chavismo, we are talking about a <a href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/tag/chavez-radical">radical Chávez</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Can you be more precise regarding the APR’s identification
with a “radical Chávez”? Are we talking about the Chávez of the commune,
about the Chávez that moved towards limiting capital’s logic, or about
the Chávez that nationalized means of production?</strong></p>
<p>We defend a Chávez that understood capitalism’s catastrophic
tendencies and actively opposed its logic both in his discourse and in
action. We stand by the Chávez that understood contradictions but had a
strategic objective: socialism. We are talking about the Chávez of the “<a href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/tag/strike-helm">Strike at the helm</a>” [2012 speech], about the man who called-out his cabinet and insisted on an urgent change of course toward the left.</p>
<p>This was the Chávez that understood popular power as the force that
is charged with building the revolution – by communes, workers’ and <em>campesino</em> organizations…
In other words, we identify with the Chávez committed to the people
that work and struggle, the Chávez that understood the people’s needs
and desires and projected a better future instead of the grey-on-grey
“pragmatic” politics that characterizes Maduro’s government.</p>
<p><strong>Can you characterize Maduro’s government for us with more
precision, understanding also that Venezuela is under a harsh blockade?</strong></p>
<p>The sanctions are criminal, and they have a real impact on our
economy. However, when a country is under siege, the solution cannot be
to turn away from society and opt for a project of a few. What is
happening is that the sanctions have become a pretext to abandon the
socialist project and the perfect excuse to foster the creation of a
“revolutionary bourgeoisie,” as they like to identify their kin!</p>
<p>If you look at the government spokespeople’s discourse (and their
actions), you will see that for them the subject of change is no longer
workers, the poor men and women from the <em>barrio</em> and from the <em>campo</em>.
As they see it, the people who will build the future are the
bourgeoisie, in a process of rapid capitalist expansion fostered by laws
eliminating workers’ rights and privileging opaque privatizations and
investments.</p>
<p>A sector of Chavismo in government became rich. They are millionaires
locked here because of the sanctions, and they are not satisfied with
that. Now they want to be bourgeois, so they are looking for an openly
neoliberal solution.</p>
<p>To give you an example, yesterday I learned that casinos are
operating again [they were prohibited during Chávez’s government].
Obviously, casinos are places where money laundering is the goal. On top
of that, opaque privatizations are the order of the day. Add to that
the <a href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14092">Orinoco Mining Arc</a>,
which is the opening of one-sixth of our territory to the most
predatory mining practices, and you get the picture. We have shifted
from a rentier economy based on oil extraction to a rentier economy
based on gold exploitation that liquidates nature to privilege a
dangerous speculative economy.</p>
<p>The composition of the political direction has changed. Its leaders
are no longer the young revolutionary soldiers that rose up against the
rule of the few in 1992 [a failed military insurrection led by Chávez].
Now they are millionaires that aspire to be bourgeois with the word
“revolutionary” as an epithet.</p>
<p><strong>Are you saying that it is the same people in power, but that their class condition has changed?</strong></p>
<p>There was a mutation in the leadership of the process, and it took us
a while to understand this. Its character has changed, and with this
change came a transformation in policies.</p>
<p>There is a blockade, yes. Trump (and any representative of imperial
interests) is against all expressions of popular sovereignty. However,
the sanctions became an excuse to open the path to a new logic, which is
expressed in the “revolutionary bourgeoisie.”</p>
<p>Mind you, the term [revolutionary bourgeoisie] was coined by
[Agriculture Minister Wilmar] Castro Soteldo – a retired officer of the
Armed Forces who participated in the November 27, 1992 uprising. There
was a broad popular rejection of Castro Soteldo’s words, but Nicolás
Maduro later said that whoever criticized his ministers was criticizing
the president himself.</p>
<p>The Bolivarian Process mutated… it took us a while to understand
this, but now, for the forces of the APR, this is clear. It took quite a
few years for the left to understand that the Soviet Union had mutated
into a non-socialist project, and in some people’s minds the Soviet
Union is still alive and well! Something similar happened with China,
which has become the first capitalist commercial power in the world, and
some take it as a positive example. Well, the same is happening here:
the project is changing!</p>
<p>This is a new situation, and as such, we have to organize politics in a new way.</p>
<p><strong>When you talk about this shift, it brings to mind something that you said in a <a href="http://ciudadccs.info/2020/05/14/el-drama-de-la-izquierda-es-el-drama-del-pais-su-dependencia/">Ciudad CCS interview</a> a
few months ago. You observed that we are going through the collapse of
the social pact based on the distribution of the oil rent. The end of
that social pact has brought about a social (and economic) crisis. Can
you talk to us about this shift?</strong></p>
<p>The global pandemic has brought about a new, tighter world order. In
Venezuela, a new order is emerging as well, and it is indeed the end of a
social contract that lasted two decades.</p>
<p>Of course, the collapse of the old order and the emergence of the new
one comes with a huge crisis. Every day there are dozens of protests
and mobilizations throughout Venezuela, and they are not promoted by the
right. They are workers demanding living wages, <em>barrio</em> dwellers demanding water, electricity and gas, <em>campesinos</em> demanding access to fuel, etc.</p>
<p>Interestingly, all this happens while the formal right is politically
cornered by its own catastrophic mistakes. It has no legitimacy among
the people. The popular masses demand their rights, while the government
demands that they make sacrifices. All the while, no government
representative is making sacrifices as happened, for instance, in Cuba
during the harshest years of the blockade.</p>
<p><strong>How is the APR campaign coming along?</strong></p>
<p>The APR is a left Chavista alternative that recognizes the mutation
of the process. That is why we decided to become an electoral
alternative. However, the electoral proposal is not the beginning or the
end. The union of diverse autonomous Chavista and left organizations
had been brewing for a while.</p>
<p>Today the campaign is in the territory, in the <em>barrios</em> and in the <em>campo</em>.
It is growing strong while it is silenced by both public and private
media. To give you an example, the official media gives voice to the
right-wing alternatives, but the APR is being ignored and hidden.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, we are convinced that on December 6, a new, strong force
will emerge. This is not too different from the months prior to <a href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/6001">Chavez’s 1992 military rebellion</a>.
The uprising was clandestine while our proposal is public (though
hidden by the media), but the elections – as did the military rebellion –
will likely change the course of things.</p>
<p>The APR’s revolutionary forces are alive and well. We have more than
500 candidates and they are working the streets to build a new majority.</p>
<p>On the other end of the spectrum, the PSUV’s campaign looks much like
a campaign of the old AD [Acción Democrática, the most important
Venezuelan political party during much of the 20th century].</p>
<p>Nicolás Maduro’s son’s campaign, a National Assembly candidate, has
become a permanent giveaway event. He is giving away TVs, bonuses
[economic incentives], construction materials, etc. Why? Because Nicolás
Maduro Guerra [President Maduro’s son] has no virtues of his own. He is
not the expression of any popular movement. He is a sort of prince with
a “destiny.”</p>
<p><strong>Some believe that in recent years there has been a process of curtailing popular democracy. Can you talk about this?</strong></p>
<p>We are going through a process of judicialization of politics. Most
parties have been intervened by the Supreme Court [TSJ]. In the case of
the PPT, the TSJ <a href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14976">imposed</a> an
ad hoc direction that would toe the PSUV’s line. In other words, they
removed the elected direction and they imposed a junta that didn’t
represent the majority of the party.</p>
<p>Additionally, the National Electoral Power [CNE] is not allowing any left parties to register, while they <em>are</em> registering parties associated with the right.</p>
<p>The state is actively intervening in the political life of the
Venezuelan left. Not only do they prevent internal union elections –
keeping the proletarian forces from representing themselves – and have
put a hold on university elections, which is a right granted by law, but
now the state is intervening in political parties!</p>
<p>This is not Russia in 1919 when – in the midst of a civil war – Lenin
banned all parties but the Bolsheviks. Here we have a Constitution that
grants us the right to organize but the courts are liquidating this
prerogative. There is a tendency toward the judicialization of politics,
and we are concerned.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, the APR is an ample alliance with many Chavista and left
organizations within. It includes the PCV, which is the only party
that, due to its long history and international relations, is allowed to
freely exist. And so, since the official [i.e. intervened] PPT became
an appendix of the PSUV, the APR will have to be represented by the PCV
in the ballot.</p>
<p><strong>In addition to displacing the US-backed right that now
controls the National Assembly, what is the importance of the upcoming
parliament’s composition?</strong></p>
<p>The outgoing National Assembly, with a majority representation of the
right-wing, gave up its prerogatives by turning itself into a body with
the sole objective of overthrowing Venezuela’s democratically-elected
president. In so doing, they lost face with the people and missed their
opportunity to influence the direction of the country according to their
interests and ideology.</p>
<p>The next parliament will have to hold a public debate about the
national budget (which has been drafted in silence over the past four
years), oversee economic transactions and public policies, legislate,
etc. The new Assembly will also choose new Supreme Court members, the
Public Defender, the Attorney General, the General Comptroller, the
National Electoral Council, and the Venezuelan Central Bank board.</p>
<p>Additionally, the APR’s objective in the legislative body is to work
for the people by bringing the Constitution back to life. Issues such as
a living wage and the right to organize are guaranteed by the
Constitution, and we will work to reinstate them. Finally, we will also
“dust off” Chávez’s <a href="https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/7091">Homeland Plan</a> [2012] which gives strategic coordinates to bring the Venezuelan people out of the current crisis.</p>
<p><strong>Briefly, what is the APR’s program?</strong></p>
<p>It is time to overcome the personalist alliance between President
Maduro and the Armed Forces. The structure of the government needs a
counterweight from the people to ensure the continuity of the
revolution.</p>
<p>Our program is socialism, and to move in that direction we have the
Constitution as the cornerstone and Chávez’s Homeland Plan as a roadmap.
All this must be done, again, without messianism, collectively, with
the <em>pueblo</em>. The APR is going to be neither a destructive force
nor a “yes man” organization. Instead, we will work to turn the National
Assembly into a deliberative space for popular power.</p>
<p>We are calling the people to vote for the APR to bring legitimacy,
autonomy, and popular sovereignty back to the National Assembly.</p>
<p>However, we are not promising miracles. We don’t promise that the new
National Assembly will bring an end to all the need to make queues [as
the right did in the 2015 elections], and we won’t use the criminal
actions of the national and international right as a cover for all
political and economic ills. We will promote “house cleaning” so that
the limited resources can be channeled towards the people. All those who
use their power to become millionaires and use institutions to
consolidate their class condition must go.</p>
<p>We are going to the National Assembly not just for empty talk. We are
going there to turn it into a revolutionary instrument and to break the
imperialist yoke. That cannot be done by turning one’s back to the
people, as has happened under the excuse of the sanctions. Imperialism
can only be defeated with the <em>pueblo</em>.</p>
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