Federico Fuentes
A sea of red greeted Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on September 1, as tens of thousands of his supporters — sporting the chosen colour of the Bolivarian revolution — mobilised in a demonstration of the force behind the "Bolivarian hurricane" that is seeking to win Chavez's re-election on December 3.
Speaking of the presidential race, Chavez declared "Here there are only two candidates — Hugo Chavez and George Diablo [Devil] Bush. This is an election on whether we want to continue to be an independent republic or return to being a North American colony."
Chavez had just returned from an international diplomatic tour seeking to build support for Venezuela's campaign for a seat on the UN Security Council, as well as building alliances with other Third World countries. Noting the support he had received everywhere he went he proclaimed:
"For the first time in history, Venezuela is occupying a privileged position in the world, a position of respect... because we defend with a clear voice the interests of the countries of the Third World and the sovereignty of the peoples."
While all the polls are showing Chavez has a tremendous lead among the 28 presidential candidates — 60-70% of voters surveyed support his re-election — he told the September 1 rally the Venezuelan people have "three months of battle ahead, another great battle to open the road towards the socialist Venezuela of the 21 century".
Chavez and his supporters have set themselves the ambitious target of obtaining 10 million votes in the December election, by far the highest vote ever for a Venezuelan president. In order to obtain this result, rather than relying on the currently existing party structures, Chavez has called for the formation of local "platoons" of the "Miranda Campaign Command" across the whole country.
The name "Miranda Cmpaign" is derived from Francisco de Miranda, who is regarded as the forerunner to Simon Bolivar, the leader of Venezuela's 1813 war of independence from Spain.
The local Miranda campaign commands are to be organised on the basis of 10 participants for each polling booth. They are aimed at bringing together the real grassroots leaders of the Bolivarian revolution. Each member — the aim is to directly involve 200,000 Chavez supporters — will be assigned the role of convincing 10 others to vote for Chavez.
Alongside the Miranda commands will be the organisation of different social sectors such as workers, peasants, women, indigenous people and small business owners.
The target of 10 million votes goes beyond a crushing victory of the pro-revolution forces and is aimed at consolidating the active involvement of the working people, as well as raising their ideological support for Chavez's call for the building of the "new socialism of the 21st century".
As part of the ideological battle, Chavez announced in his September 1 speech the initial outlines of what has been called the Simon Bolivar National Project. He announced that the seven key lines of the project are "a new socialist ethic"; a "new socialist productive model"; a "revolutionary protagonist democracy", where the "power of the people" is to be the highest authority; "supreme social happiness"; a "new internal geopolitics" focused on development in the countryside and endogenous development; a "new international geopolitics based on a multipolar world"; and making Venezuela a global energy power.
Chavez also announced that he would initiate a recall referendum half way through his next term asking whether he should remain president, along with asking if people support a proposal to amend the constitution to eliminate the current limits on presidential terms — currently limited to two.
Venezuela's constitution allows for the use of recall referenda to remove any elected public official. In 2004, the right-wing opposition tried to oust Chavez through such a referendum, but Chavez defeated this, winning 60% of the votes (just over 6 million votes).
The September 2 Caracas Diario Vea reported that it had uncovered information about a plot involving the right-wing opposition figures. Named Plan Alcatraz, the plot aims to raise demands on the National Electoral Council (CNE) that the plotters know will be rejected in order to then build street protests against alleged electoral fraud, including the occupation of offices of the CNE.
Alongside the planned street actions, Colombian right-wing paramilitaries would be let loose to carry out terrorist acts along the border and in the central regions of Venezuela.
The main opposition candidate, Manuel Rosales, has been assigned a key role within this conspiracy of leading the street demonstrations. Rosales only recently returned to Venezuela from Miami where he met with US government representatives.
Plan Alcatraz would be dependent on Rosales withdrawing his candidacy, something he has so far rejected.