Conflicts continue in Venezuela over the controversial results of the July 28 presidential elections.
Incumbent President Nicolas Maduro was declared the winner by the National Electoral Council (CNE), with a 7% lead over his main opponent, right-wing candidate Edmundo Gonzalez.
Although the elections were characterised by a series of irregularities — and to date no results have been published at the polling station level — the Supreme Tribunal of Justice validated Maduro’s victory.
In the days following the elections, protests took place in almost the entire country, in which 25 people were killed and many more were injured. More than 2000 people were arrested.
In light of these events, anger is growing among the population.
At the same time, more and more leftists, including former Bolivarian activists, are forming new coalitions and campaigns against the government, and statements with a decidedly leftist perspective have been published, characterising the government’s actions as state terrorism and dictatorial.
Michael Karrer spoke to Atenea Jiménez, a sociologist and founder of the National Network of Commune Activists and the Campesino University of Venezuela Argimiro Gabaldón, about the situation. Jiménez is also currently active in a network that is bringing together a wide range of leftist movements in Venezuela, whose central concern is defence of the constitution. The interview took place on August 30.
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On July 29, thousands of people took to the streets in response to the results announced by the CNE. The reaction of the Maduro government was ruthless. What is the particularity of the current mobilisations and the attitude of the government?
People did not only come out after the elections. The day before, there were those who went to electoral centres with mattresses to sleep there and tables to play [on] while spending the night. It was a popular initiative that had nothing to do with any of the candidates.
It seems the people intuitively said: “We are going to be on the lookout before the polling stations are opened and the possibility to vote is taken away from us.”
The demonstrations in the following days were basically a popular phenomenon. There was an unprecedented repression, including the persecution of electoral witnesses, polling centre officials and leaders of opposition parties.
In addition, they have persecuted relatives of activists and even young people who post on social media or receive a message [on their mobile phones]. They are detained without having been actually involved in activism.
Among the political prisoners there were approximately 100 minors, children and adolescents. This goes against the rights enshrined in the constitution.
In the face of this onslaught, various sectors of the country have said that this is outside the limits of democracy.
What happened was a popular avalanche from the neighbourhoods of Petare and Catia, in Caracas, and other parts of the country, by sectors that historically supported [former president Hugo] Chávez and Maduro.
Evidently, people came out to defend democracy and their vote and not be deprived of the possibility of electing [politicians], which is what is at stake.
Many left-wing militants joined Chávez’s project when he proclaimed a 21st-century socialism and found a platform for their political agenda in grassroots organisations such as the communal councils and communes. Was it a mistake to join Chavismo? How do you see today this relationship between grassroots organisation, government and state?
I come from the student movement that confronted neoliberalism in the Fourth Republic [prior to Chávez’s election in 1998]. At the time, student, community, cultural and environmentalist movements were fighting in the streets for democracy and for free and public education and health care.
When Chávez took the stage, almost all the popular and leftist movements saw that he represented an opportunity for a broad coalition. Although at the beginning Chávez did not claim to be a leftist or socialist, he put forward a nationalist proposal that represented a rupture with the existing, degraded and corrupt state of things.
Chávez tried to open doors of participation. But from the beginning there was an internal class struggle. Chávez was accompanied by sectors of the capitalist class, the middle classes, peasants and popular classes. It was a carnival of political and ideological positions.
In that first phase, we advanced considerably: we had important victories and were able to do valuable things in terms of organisation and the recovery of many social, political and human rights.
But the contradictions began to worsen. For example, for a long time, military sectors were against the construction of a popular communal alternative economy. Every time movements tried to push this forward, these sectors imprisoned community members and peasants, invaded their lands, and tried to manipulate the process so that the land would be awarded to other sectors.
It was a permanent dispute. So much so that the communes and the popular movements had more contradictions with sectors within Chavismo and the government, than with the right-wing opposition.
Then Maduro came and began to create movements tailored to his needs. At the community level, these structures were authoritarian, vertical and decided by the highly bureaucratised ruling party. They came into conflict with the communes, with their spokespeople elected in assembly, and with sectoral movements such as LGBTI, women and environmentalist movements.
When the government proposed creating the Local Supply and Production Committees (CLAP) — a totally vertical structure — we in the communes, the peasant movements and producers proposed direct and collective social property enterprises run by several communes to produce, plan and distribute directly with the communities.
But the government put a brake on us. Even public officials who at one time were movement activists, were co-opted as ministers and vice ministers, and later emerged as political policemen of the Maduro government.
This led not only to the weakening of the movement but also of society.
The fact that the left could not run a candidate [in the presidential election] was the result of a policy of eliminating everything that meant competition for Maduro.
You emphasised the spontaneous character of the current protests. Have the Venezuelan lefts played any role in this?
I believe that a good part of the people who voted against Maduro on July 28 have also voted against a way of doing politics on the left. Therefore, we are also in a process of self-criticism.
The Venezuelan people, in their diverse expressions, have been ahead of the left and, of course, also ahead of the right. Our people went to the streets alone and are in jail enduring the violence. The lefts have to accompany what the Venezuelan people have already started.
The lefts today are pushing forward on strengthening and defending democracy, sovereignty and the constitution. On the issue of human rights, there are people, lawyers, NGOs, different movements that are supporting victims and their families.
These are the elements that are being pursued, where popular and leftist movements are proposing different activities, taking into account the risks that exist, which are very many.
How can others support leftist forces from outside Venezuela?
By supporting the issue of human rights, divulging what is happening with the young people who are imprisoned, the children who are today in Venezuelan jails.
And by taking a stand against the Maduro government and its authoritarian drift so that together, in solidarity, we can defend democracy, sovereignty and the self-determination of our people, who wanted to exercise this through their vote and have not been able to.
As Chilean President [Gabriel] Boric said: it’s important for the lefts of the world to build a democratic left that moves further and further away from authoritarianism, that deepens popular and social processes in support of peoples’ demands.
It is necessary for the world to know what is really happening and for large international coalitions to be formed.
[Abridged and edited from a longer interview published at LINKS - International Journal of Socialist Renewal. Originally translated from Analyse und Kritik by Venezuelan Voices.]