What’s at stake in the Venezuelan elections

By Manuel E. Yepe

HAVANA – A document published in September 2012 by the press office of the Council on Foreign Relations of the United States, identified as Contingency Planning Memorandum No. 16, signed by Prof. Patrick D. Duddy of Duke University, a former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela, reveals the options considered by Washington about the next presidential elections in Venezuela.

“If Chavez is reelected in a process judged acceptably free and fair, the United States should seek to reset the bilateral relationship with an eye toward the eventual renewal of high-level communication on areas of mutual interest,” it said. “If the election results appear fraudulent or apparently legitimate results are nullified, the United States should encourage international pressure to restore democracy and suspend bilateral business as usual until a legitimate government is restored.”

In the light of the evidence derived from the many polls that forecast an overwhelming Chávez victory and from former President Jimmy Carter, who – after an on-site examination of the materials set up to control the efficiency of the balloting – expressed his admiration over the transparency that will rule the election, everything indicates that Washington is preparing some sort of big manipulation with regard to this electoral event and a deceitful script to justify an aggression against Venezuela.

To the majority of Venezuelans, the government of Hugo Chávez has meant the recovery of national dignity. A nation prostrate by despair and the indolence of a social system designed to protect the rich and repress the poor welcomed Chávez as its savior and guide toward the construction of a country with well-being for all.

Chávez demonstrated to that nation the value of unity and solidarity as tools to move ahead, taking advantage of the wealth of a country blessed by Nature. He said Venezuela should occupy the place it deserves in the world community of nations, a place it should take without haughtiness or contempt for other, less-privileged countries, but as a paladin of solidarity.

The Bolivarian government’s economic achievements since it came to power have been great.

By recovering the nation’s oil wealth and consolidating its energy sovereignty, Venezuela has shown itself to be a great oil and energy world power, with confirmed reserves that place it among the principal nations of the world.

The Hydrocarbons Act of 2006, the recovery in 2007 of control over all the operations of the Orinoco Oil Belt – the world’s largest reservoir of hydrocarbons – and the measures of fiscal justice issued by Chávez have meant prodigious revenues that are now being reverted to the people.

Beyond the numbers and the economy, what one most admires in Chávez is the consistency his government has shown in maintaining its vocation for inclusion and plurality, despite the hostile actions with which the Empire responds to every revolutionary measure for the good of the people or Latin American solidarity that affects its hegemony or the interests of the remnants of the oligarchy, the Empire’s unconditional allies.

Venezuela today enjoys the lowest indices of unemployment, general poverty, extreme poverty, infant mortality and maternal mortality in all of its history.

When one realizes that so many economic and social achievements have been achieved amid constant threats, political pressure, blackmail and slanderous media campaigns, one’s admiration for Chávez’s political talent and the revolutionary determination of the Venezuelan people grows.

And when one also realizes that the Bolivarian leader has taken part on the field of international relations in transcendental events that have brought great prestige to his nation, one understands why Chávez represents the recovery of an identity for Venezuela and the Bolivarian role that she has to play in this continent.

The candidate of oligarchy and imperialism who will face Chávez recently made some promises about retaining the social missions, in a desperate effort to gain a few popular votes. What alternative model to neoliberalism would he advocate? Because in the entire world – developed and underdeveloped – the first thing capitalism does when there’s a crisis is precisely to slash public expenditures for social purposes.

It is clear that the Latin American and Caribbean peoples fully trust the Venezuelan people and their ability to thwart efforts to steal their future and the continent’s. They understand what Hugo Chávez represents for the cause of democracy, socialism and the well-being of people worldwide.

And that’s what Venezuelans will demonstrate on Sunday, October 7.