In an interview by Federico Fuentes for LINKS International Journal of Socialist Renewal ( https://links.org.au/ ) , Antonio González Plessmann breaks down the country’s July 28 presidential election and its fallout from an anti-capitalist perspective. Plessmann is an activist with Venezuelan left-wing human rights collective SurGentes ( https://surgentes.org.ve/ ).
*What is your assessment of the July 28 presidential election?* These elections took place within an exceptional context of political conflict with minimal constitutional and institutional mediation. Since 2016, the political class — which includes both the opposition and pro-Maduro sector — has resorted to operating outside the constitution and democratic framework. This has occurred amid the US’ unilateral coercive measures that have wreaked chaos on the economy and fuelled a political crisis. These elections failed to offer full political rights for parties, candidates or voters. The government restricted electoral options by using the courts to intervene into right-wing opposition parties and former left-wing allies, taking control of their leaderships and decision-making processes. The Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) is the most emblematic example of this on the left: denied the right to defend itself, the party’s electoral registration was usurped by a court and handed to a group of activists from the governing party posing as PCV members. As a result, no left-wing party was able to stand a candidate in the July 28 elections. Despite these obstacles, people felt an enormous need to vote and determine their country’s future. All polls indicated more than 70% of the population intended to vote. And turnout was indeed very high. The official turnout was 59%, but this does not take into account that more than 4 million voting age Venezuelans live outside the country and were prevented from voting. If we only count those that could vote, then turnout was more than 70%. Venezuelan people have a strong culture of electoral participation. This was particularly the case during Hugo Chávez’s presidency (1998-2013). During those years, the number of voting centres expanded, voter turnout increased (especially among the poorest sectors) and an automated voting system was created, with protocols for transparency and auditing processes of the highest quality and reliability. Under Chávez, elections were important moments of popular protagonism that channelled political conflict and determined the continuity of the process of change. Unfortunately, this changed under Nicolás Maduro, especially after 2017. On July 28, the majority of the population voted against Maduro. But this majority was not recognised by the heads of the National Electoral Council (CNE). Given the automated nature of the voting system, which includes numerous verification mechanisms, the CNE had to bypass certain audits, hide tally sheets, remove opposition observers for the tallying process, fake a cyber attack and refuse to publish booth-by-booth results — all in order to hide the actual result. The automated system did not fail; rather, CNE heads chose to bypass the system during the tallying, auditing and transparency phase. The majority did not vote in favour of the opposition’s program, but to punish Maduro. One argument in support of this thesis is that three weeks prior to the election, a national poll asked people whether they would vote for Chávez on July 28 if he was still alive: more than 50% answered “yes”. For almost a decade, Maduro has been forging a program and class alliance different from Chávez's, one that has severely impacted people’s lives. That is what the population voted against. Today, we have a weak government because everyone in Venezuela knows Maduro did not win. The government lacks legitimacy and therefore has to rely on force. It resorts to repression and institutional manoeuvres to cover up for the fact that it has ridden roughshod over popular sovereignty. Continue reading at https://links.org.au/what-happened-venezuelas-presidential-elections-interview-human-rights-activist-antonio-plessmann -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#31840): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/31840 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/108120933/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: marxmail+ow...@groups.io Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [arch...@mail-archive.com] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
