Bolivarianism on the Ballot
Bolivarianism on the Ballot
Maduro re-election bulletin
Citizens of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela beat their boots to the ballot-boxes last Sunday, where they made their choice between the incumbent President Nicolás Maduro of the United Socialist Party and his many opponents—but particularly the former diplomat Edmundo González—and between them decided who will sit in their country’s executive chair for the next six years, starting 10 January 2025.
Obviously, Maduro won, with the National Electoral Council (CNE) reporting that he took 51.2% of the vote. That came paired with predictable claims from domestic opposition and international rivals of election fraud, which The Dissident regards as a new attempt from U.S. imperialists to arrange regime change in the Bolivarian Republic to gain control of its oil resources, as they attempted with a failed coup against Hugo Chávez in 2002, their recognition of the unelected Juan Guaidó as acting president in 2019, and the harsh sanctions imposed in the interim.
Given the presence of international election observers who found the elections to be fair, The Dissident dismisses claims of fraud as baseless. Those observers included a delegation from the National Lawyers Guild International Committee, which reported a fair and transparent process. They noted high levels of voter confidence and accessibility, with no significant issues at the polls. Despite these findings, however, the U.S.-backed opposition and Western media have refused to accept the results. The NLG condemned these challenges to the election’s legitimacy, attributing them to attempts by the U.S. and other entities to undermine Venezuelan democracy and national sovereignty.
Craig “Pasta” Jardula (of Pasta 2 Go) offered further details on Tuesday about the Venezuelan electoral process, reporting that its design—including extensive checks, audits, and public oversight—makes widespread cheating nearly impossible: doing so would have required predicting which 55% of the voting machines would be audited by the CNE and precisely which 5.5 million votes would be cross-verified with the machine. Moreover, Jardula argues that if fraud had occurred at the scale suggested, it would have been easily detected through real-time monitoring that would have resulted in demands from the opposition to audit specific machines. Therefore, he concludes that the election was fair, and that Maduro has been legitimately re-elected.
Nonetheless, the González campaign still claimed victory in the disputed presidential election, asserting that it had tally-sheets proving he received more than double Maduro’s votes—which they had somehow come into possession of despite the National Electoral Council being stacked with Maduro loyalists. Maybe they do have them, and maybe they came into possession those tally-sheets through foreign interventions targeting the country’s electoral process, with Gloria Guillo reporting for Covert Action that the Venezuelan government has accused the now-defunct Lima Group and right-wing politicians from several countries of attempting to distort its elections. Their efforts might well have included hacking the Bolivarian Republic’s voting system, as Maduro himself claimed, while CNE president Elvis Amoroso has called for an investigation into alleged attacks on the electoral transmission system, including reports of attacks on local polling stations.
But the opinions of election observers and potential foreign interference didn’t mean much to Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Panama, Peru, the Dominican Republic, and Uruguay, the governments of which questioned the election results and from which the Bolivarian Republic therefore withdrew its diplomatic staff the next day.
Two days following the election, protesters supporting the Venezuelan opposition remain galvanized, reportedly burning pharmacies and hospitals—driven in no small part by misinformation and media manipulation designed to discredit Venezuela’s electoral system and the legitimacy of its government. Alan MacLeod of Mint Press News calls it an attempted coup, and details false claims including a video misrepresenting stolen air-conditioning units as mishandled ballot boxes, an outdated clip showing the 2017 toppling of a Chávez statue (unsurprisingly retweeted by Elon Musk, whom we already know advocates for coups in Latin America), a widely circulated image falsely indicating a vote count exceeding 100% that was actually a data entry error, and—to top it off—a supposed protester photographed as though dead in the street who then departs on a scooter.
So, let me ask you: given the obvious media manipulation—and I think that last one in particular is pretty damning—do you think that I say it was obvious Maduro would win because of political corruption in Venezuela, or because of his comparable popularity there?
If you’re not sure why the majority of Venezuelans might prefer Maduro, it might help to learn more about his opposition. On that subject, Max Blumenthal of The Grayzone interviewed Anya Parampil—author of the book Corporate Coup: Venezuela and the End of U.S. Empire (2024)—a few days before the election for her insights into the opposition candidates and their ties to U.S. interests.
Blumenthal introduces González as a proxy candidate for Maria Corina Machado, whom Parampil describes (at ~2:13–8:25) as an extremist anti-Chavista figure who has been in the pocket of the U.S. government since Chávez’s election in 1998—and previously involved in the 2002 coup attempt against Chávez—who has received funding from the U.S. State Department and the (deservedly maligned) National Endowment for Democracy. Meanwhile, she portrays González as an elderly figure who previously served as a diplomat in the pre-revolution Venezuelan foreign ministry and was likely involved in U.S. operations in Central America during the 1980s. After the failure of the attempted coup to install Guaidó, most of the credible opposition fled the country, and so, she says (at ~7:54) that the elections “will be an opportunity for the Chavista camp there to demonstrate that they are stronger than ever […] in many ways, the Guaidó coup attempt made Chavismo and Maduro stronger than they would have been […] they were able to consolidate a lot of support.”
Parampil goes on to provide details (at ~14:31–18:42) on what she calls “the corporate coup” orchestrated by the U.S. to seize Venezuela’s public assets—particularly the state oil company CITGO—and on the successful plot undertaken by Jose Ignacio Hernandez, the so-called special prosecutor of the aforementioned Guaidó’s shadow regime, to facilitate the sale of CITGO’s assets to U.S. oil companies like Exxon Mobil against the interests of their fellow Venezuelans. She accuses the judges overseeing the CITGO case of corruption as they prepare to award the country’s assets to private American oil companies, ignoring the plight of both the CITGO workers and the Venezuelan children affected by the sanctions.
She also explains (at ~19:53–23:41) how the U.S. sanctions initially crippled Venezuela’s economy and caused mass migration—despite false claims that it was an unintended consequence—but highlights Maduro’s success in resisting U.S. interference, overcoming these economic challenges and aligning Venezuela with the emerging multipolar world order, including its potential admission to BRICS+. Accordingly, she portrays Maduro as a figure who has defied expectations and consolidated support by exposing the opposition’s extremism and willingness to promote war in Venezuela. Additionally, Parampil makes a point to detail (at ~26:49–28:02) how changes in U.S. policy under the Biden Administration—like this one offering work permits to Venezuelans seeking asylum—further encouraged out-migration north.
(Evidently, collapsing the Bolivarian Republic was a good enough reason to incur an immigration crisis.)
Highlighting the devastating impact of U.S. sanctions on Venezuela’s economy, Parampil cites (at ~37:20–39:42) a study by Francisco Rodriguez, a Maduro critic, demonstrating that sanctions directly caused a decline in Venezuela’s oil production, and thus argues that the sanctions were intentionally designed to cause suffering and economic collapse in Venezuela.
Before the results were announced, Carlos Garrido of The Midwestern Marx Institute—and apparently a signatory to declarations from some newfangled American Communist Party—appeared on Telesur to offer his own analysis of these pivotal elections.
Here, Garrido highlights the geopolitical implications of the elections, with Venezuela’s recent application to BRICS+ representing a shift towards a multipolar world order and away from American imperialism. As he sees it, a victory for Maduro would solidify Venezuela’s integration into the emerging multipolar world led by Russia, China, and Iran, bringing economic prosperity and rejecting Western hegemony. Accordingly, Garrido views the opposition as U.S. puppets trying for their last chance to sell out Venezuela’s resources to private American interests.
For that reason, Garrido criticizes (at ~2:37) the U.S. for interfering in Venezuela’s internal affairs and engaging in a propaganda campaign against the elections. He dismisses claims of electoral fraud as unfounded and highlights a tweet by Kamala Harris as an example of ambiguous statements from U.S. officials intended to leave the door open for future interventions, and accuses the U.S. of backing the opposition’s violent and terroristic tendencies.
To counteract this imperialist interference, Garrido emphasizes (at ~8:06) the importance of international solidarity and activism in supporting Venezuela’s struggle against American imperialism, arguing that the interests of the American working class are intertwined with those of the Bolivarian Revolution, as they face the same capitalist forces. He therefore calls for support for the Chavista government not out of morality, but out of a concrete realization of shared interests, warning (at ~11:50) that a defeat of the Bolivarian Revolution would mean the end of Venezuela as a free and sovereign entity, returning it to the status of a U.S. neo-colony, in which the opposition’s proposed model would benefit only a small clique while the majority of Venezuelans continue struggling. Accordingly, Garrido reemphasizes (at ~14:35) the importance of international support for Venezuela in the face of U.S. sanctions and hybrid warfare, with the country’s upcoming acceptance into BRICS+ for enabling it to weather the economic storm and defend itself from U.S. attacks with alliances based on principles of multipolarity and mutually beneficial bilateral relations.
The day after the election, Ajamu Baraka of The Black Agenda Report appeared on The Kim Iversen Show to offer his own perspective as an on-the-ground election observer, echoing and expanding on the aforementioned report of the delegation from the National Lawyers Guild International Committee, while also commenting on U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s criticism of the results.
Baraka argues (at ~1:34) that the Venezuelan electoral system is transparent and secure, describing various measures in place to ensure the integrity of the vote, such as biometric voter verification, paper ballot backups, and audits. He suggests that the U.S. government’s claimed irregularities lack evidence and represent a broader effort to undermine Venezuela’s socialist experiment.
Discussing the polarization between supporters of the Venezuelan government and the opposition, Baraka notes (at ~6:54) that while the opposition is vocal in rejecting the election results, many government supporters understand the choice as one between maintaining their independence or becoming a U.S. puppet. He also touches (at ~7:21) on the potential for violence from the opposition like that it committed in the past.
Baraka also describes (at ~10:16) the impact of U.S. sanctions on Venezuela, which he reminds us are illegal under international law. He argues that the sanctions aim to undermine Venezuela’s socialist development and create economic hardship for the people, potentially driving them to reject the government. Baraka naturally links the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border to these sanctions. But regardless of the domestic consequences, Baraka tells us (at ~22:27), “Both [Democrats and Republicans] represent two sectors of the ruling class, of the elite. They are united, though, in their commitment to maintaining U.S. hegemony. So no, there will be no fundamental change in policies.” Therefore, under the current American duopoly, imperialist hostility toward Venezuela and other countries in the region looks likely to continue.
If coup attempts plus illegal sanctions and consequent declines in national oil production (with the combination causing oil revenue to sink from $50 billion in 2012 to $743 million in 2020) represent the kind of treatment that everyday Venezuelans receive from Maduro’s geopolitical rivals for the sake of their president—plus, as the aforementioned Guillo reports, the seizure of Citgo assets worth $32–40 billion, of sovereign funds held by the New York Federal Reserve Bank estimated at $3–5 billion, and of $1 billion in Venezuelan gold in the UK—then to me it seems most likely for the best that those rivals have so far seen their hopes dashed.
Meanwhile, Guillo also tells us how Maduro introduced the Economic Recovery Program in August 2018 to address Venezuela’s economic issues. Key measures included stimulating and diversifying national production, leading to 60,000 new brands, and achieving 96% food sovereignty, reducing the need for food imports. It also increased tax collection by 105% to support social investments, encouraged non-traditional exports, and provided support for one million Venezuelan entrepreneurs. By the first quarter of 2024, the economy had grown by 7%, marking 12 consecutive quarters of growth, while the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) projected Venezuela's GDP growth at 4%, leading the region. The country also recorded its lowest inflation rate in 39 years, at 1% for June 2024, compared to 96.7% in June 2018, and its currency (the bolívar, of course) maintained the most stable dollar price in 13 years, thanks to a new exchange market. This stability has strengthened the population’s income and consumption capacity.
We therefore extend our hearty congratulations to President Maduro and the brave people of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in their struggle against U.S. imperialism on behalf of the worldwide working class, and encourage them in their resistance against the attempted coup from the American regime change apparatus.
Of course, some may accuse us of bias, since we certainly have our ideological commitments. As many of you know by now, the success of Bolivarian socialism, or Bolivarianism—and, by extension, of Maduro against his U.S.-backed opponents—is a cause that we at Radio Free Pizza hold dear. Back in March, we suggested that the late Chávez’s Bolivarianism—with its emphasis on direct citizen engagement through popular votes and referendums, on economic independence and self-sufficiency, and on national sovereignty—could provide inspiration for the 21st-century socialism with American characteristics (“Libertarian Communism”) that we1 daydream2 about3 around4 here5. Accordingly, we proposed that our historically inevitable Leisure Party regime should focus on rebuilding the U.S.’s domestic manufacturing industry with worker-owned companies and on establishing a joint-stock state-owned enterprise (“AmericaNOC”) to extract, refine, and market the country’s plentiful endowment of petroleum before returning its gains to the citizens of the United People’s Commonwealths of America.
Given the aforementioned ideological commitments, it will come as no surprise to longtime devotees that Caleb Maupin—one of the primary influences thus far on our project to articulate this “Libertarian Communism”—spent some time not two weeks ago discussing the prospects for U.S. relations with Venezuela under a potential second Trump Administration, and the legacy of Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, highlighting the late president’s efforts to improve the lives of Venezuelans through social programs, infrastructure development, and the use of oil revenues.
Commenting on the then-recent assassination attempt of former U.S. President Donald Trump and on Maduro’s response—in which he wished Trump good health—Maupin suggests (along the same lines as The Dissident, covered above) that both have become targets of the same regime change apparatus that acts in the service of the ultra-rich haute bourgeoisie who support globalism. He discusses (at ~36:37) the obstacles faced by Venezuela under the Maduro administration due to economic sanctions and the drop in oil prices, as well as U.S. attempts to overthrow the Venezuelan government—either by attempting to assassinate Maduro via drone in 2018 or by attempting to install Guaidó afterward. Despite these challenges, or because of them, he celebrates the triumphant legacy of Chávez’s Bolivarian Revolution and Maduro’s ongoing resistance to U.S. imperialism.
Despite the controversies and challenges posed by imperialism via U.S. interference and economic sanctions, the recent election in Venezuela underscores the resilience and continued support for Bolivarian socialism under Maduro. Supported by U.S. interests, the opposition failed to gain significant traction, due in part to their perceived extremism and the harmful impacts of the sanctions imposed by their U.S. backers on everyday Venezuelans. This outcome reflects the strength of the Bolivarian Revolution’s ideals of national sovereignty, economic independence, and direct citizen engagement.
For us here at Radio Free Pizza, these events reaffirm our belief in the potential of a similar model—one we envision as “Libertarian Communism” for the U.S., emphasizing local governance, worker-owned enterprises, and national self-sufficiency. The Venezuelan experience, as complicated and challenging as it is, provides us with valuable lessons for those committed to building a more just and equitable society, free from the overreach of external powers and of the exploitative interference of the globalist faction of the American ruling class. Accordingly, we hope that the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela will continue withstanding its attempts to impose regime change through its latest attempted coup.
Hahaha! They spent too long on top, got complacent while their targets figured out their tactics.
What has become of Coups Are US? Wasn't that long ago when Elliot Abrams and John Negroponte could coup 2 Latin American governments in a week, be back in DC by Friday night. Alllen Dulles must be driving Satan nuts with all his bitching and moaning..