Democracy for whom?

The people of Venezuela have dealt another decisive blow against US domination in Latin America. On December 6, 2020, more than 6.2 million Venezuelans voted for a new National Assembly in what was Venezuela’s 25th election in the 21 years since the Bolivarian revolution began. Despite being under massive pressure from the US-led war on Venezuela and the Covid-19 pandemic, the people of Venezuela went to the polls and delivered the National Assembly back into the service of the Bolivarian revolution.

As reported by the National Electoral Council, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), which is the political party of the revolutionary government of Venezuela, won 69 percent of the votes – and 253 out of 277 seats in the assembly. The opposition party Acción Democrática, who received 7 percent of the votes and 11 seats followed in second place far behind. In total, there were 107 political parties represented in the election by more than 14,000 candidates. 98 of these political parties identify themselves as members of Venezuela’s opposition, meaning that they do not support the government of President Nicolás Maduro. Sectors of Venezuela’s pro-US, violent opposition, including the so called ‘interim President’, of Venezuela Juan Guaidó, boycotted the election.

Contrary to what has been reported in mainstream capitalist media, the international and national election observers confirmed that the December 6, 2020 National Assembly election was democratic, free and fair. Over 1500 international election observers witnessed the December 6 election. This included the Council of Latin American Electoral Experts and several former heads of state including Evo Morales of Bolivia, Rafael Correa of Ecuador, and Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero of Spain.

SURES, non-governmental human rights organization was appointed by the National Electoral Council (a branch of Venezuela’s government that oversees elections), as the National electoral observers. As SURES states in their final report, “it is necessary to conclude that the people who participated in the electoral process exercised their human right to vote universally, freely, informed, secretly, without any coercion and under conditions of equality”.

The International Observation Committee has also presented their findings, which included, “an increased citizen confidence in political organizations and candidates,” as reported by Venezuela Analysis.

It is not surprising, however, that none of this information graced the pages of the Washington Post, the New York Times, any major Canadian media, or the major Television networks in the US and Canada. The United States government and their allies, bent on maintaining their supremacy in Latin America, declared the Dec 6 elections in Venezuela ‘illegitimate’, before they even began.

Voter turnout was 31 percent, which is a victory considering the exceedingly difficult conditions imposed on Venezuela by the pandemic as well as US-led war, sanctions, and sabotage.

Excerpted: ‘Venezuela Elections: A Key Victory for Anti Imperialist Movement in Latin America’

Commondreams.org