In the lead-up to the September 26 national Assembly elections, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called on workers to not allow the right-wing opposition to halt the advance of the Bolivarian revolution.
Chavez, who is also president of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), made the call on September 15 while addressing the Socialist Electrical Workers Front Braulio Criollo.
Faced with acts of sabotage in various electrical substations across the country, Chavez urged workers to not lower their guard.
He pointed out that, in recent years, local capitalists together with US imperialism had tried to sabotage Venezuela’s oil and food industry. Chavez said they are now trying to do the same thing in the electrical sector as part of the campaign to stop the revolutionary process.
“Together with the working class we must halt the sabotage”, Chavez said. “We are obliged to go on a victorious counteroffensive.”
He said Venezuela had been given the task of reviving the socialist project and that workers were playing a crucial role in this process of transformation.
Chavez said a PSUV victory in the National Assembly elections would open the possibility of deepening the Bolivarian revolution.
“After the triumph of September 26 comes the revolutionary offensive”, Chavez told the workers. “Things will not continue at the same pace. We want to win in order to deepen, to consolidate the revolution.
“This is not about state capitalism, and you, the workers, have an important role to play in implementing workers’ control.”
A survey conducted by the pollster GIS XXI estimated a 68% participation rate for the elections, Jesse Chacon, managing director of the polling firm and a former Chavez government minister, told state TV on September 15.
He said the poll indicated the alliance between the PSUV and the Venezuelan Communist Party (PCV) would obtain 52.6% of the votes at the national level against 47.4% for the opposition coalition.
When voter intentions are broken down on a seat-by-seat basis, the poll pointed towards the PSUV-PCV alliance winning two-thirds of the seats.
“The opposition will win in the states of Zulia, Tachira, Nueva Esparta and Miranda; the remaining 20 states will favor the PSUV-PCV alliance”, Chacon said.
Chavez warned that opposition groups were preparing to not recognise the results of the election and allege supposed fraud in order to destabilise the country.
“Capitalist sectors are preparing themselves to cry fraud and set the country alight … They can be certain that we will not allow this — and it will not just be the government, but also the people, the workers, civilians and soldiers that will line up to stop them setting the country alight.”
[Compiled from translations of reports published on Agencia Venezolana de Noticias, www.abn.info.ve ]