MADURO’S NEOLIBERAL TURN?

William Serafino

MISIONVERDAD | February 17, 2023

The narrative about the Venezuelan government’s shift towards a neoliberal economic policy has been going on for some time now and has been promoted by the mainstream media. Presented as a bombastic slogan, as a general and extravagant yet blurry statement, this narrative is based on unconnected fragments of reality that lead to an incongruous and unreadable mosaic.

For those who propagate this narrative, the supposed neoliberalism of President Nicolás Maduro is defined by so many things at once that it is difficult to see where the central point that verifies his supposed ideological conversion really lies.

Understanding Maduro’s successful socialist economic strategy

Francisco Dominguez

Morning Star | August 2022

CHAVISTAS TO THE CORE: The 23 de Enero working-class neighbourhood in western Caracas, commemorates on July 28 2022 what would have been Hugo Chavez’s 68th birthday. January 23 1958 was the day dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez was overthrown

IN ITS intensely biased coverage of Venezuela during the hard years of 2014-21 the mainstream media wheeled in every imaginable academic pundit to “demonstrate” that the country’s economic woes were the result of President Nicolas Maduro overseeing Venezuela’s slide “into authoritarianism and economic collapse” (the Guardian, January 24 2019) and not of cruel US sanctions.

In 2019, the Economist for instance, in line with US policy, published a front cover with a clench-fisted Juan Guaido titled “the battle for Venezuela’s future,” positing “the world democracies are right to seek change.” Very rarely, if at all, the mainstream media or the activated pundits gave any significant weight to the well over 500 illegal and criminal unilateral coercive measures (aka sanctions) inflicted on Venezuela and its people by the US and its European and Latin American accomplices.

US economic warfare — the almost total blockade of its economy — led to a shrinking of 99 per cent of its revenues, with Venezuela living on 1 per cent of its pre-sanctions income.

US influence in Latin America is on the decline

Petro’s victory has meant the biggest setback for US influence on the continent

Jesus Inojosa

Últimas Noticias | August 14, 2022

The victory of Gustavo Petro in Colombia and his inauguration as President of the New Granada nation has set off alarms in the United States, where the possible end of the so-called “Washington influence” in Latin America is seen.

“It is time for a new international convention that accepts that the war on drugs has utterly failed, that it has left a million Latin Americans murdered, most of them Colombians, and that it leaves 70.000 North Americans dead from drug overdoses every year; none produced in Latin America”.

These words spoken by Petro During his inauguration speech this Sunday, he directly questions US policy in the neighboring country with the so-called “Plan Colombia”, which could mean the possibility of ending this agreement that has allowed the US to install no less than nine military bases in Colombian territory and guarantee the free action of officials of the DEA, the CIA and its Army, as well as the implementation of the extraterritoriality of its laws in this nation.

The Caribbean’s Rapprochement with Venezuela Tests U.S. Hegemony

The Caribbean’s economic difficulties and the ongoing energy crisis have pushed these countries closer to autocratic Venezuela’s sphere of influence

Leonardo Di Bonaventura-Altuve

National Interest | July 23, 2022

On July 5, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), which comprises twelve Anglophone Caribbean states plus Haiti and Suriname, held its forty-third Heads of Government Meeting, the community’s principal political organ. The meeting’s agenda focused on the recurring energy and food crises faced by these small states due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Specifically on the energy front, a unified CARICOM collectively asked for help from authoritarian Venezuela through PetroCaribe, a geo-economic tool created in 2005 by the late President Hugo Chávez to buy CARICOM’s loyalty by financing participants’ oil imports and increasing intra-bloc trade and investment. In exchange, the highly democratic CARICOM ignored Venezuela’s descent into authoritarianism and shielded the regime from condemnation in multilateral organizations like the Organization of American States (OAS).

After the 2014 global oil price slump, chronic fiscal mismanagement, and U.S. sanctions, the ability of President Nicolás Maduro to buy CARICOM’s support virtually disappeared. However, given CARICOM’s current urgency for cheap oil and leveling off in Venezuela’s oil production, PetroCaribe is likely to return from the dead. The re-marriage of CARICOM and Venezuela will likely hurt democracy prospects in the South American nation and, critically, continue to show the United States’ hegemonic decline in the hemisphere.

Diego Sequera Discusses the Underpinnings of Venezuelan Election and Huge Maduro/Socialist Victory

Lowkey

MintPress News | November 30, 2021

The United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) is celebrating as, with almost all votes counted, they appear to have won 20 out of the country’s 23 states in Sunday’s regional “mega elections.” More than 70,000 candidates stood for one of 3,082 public positions, including local mayorships, councillors, regional legislators and state governors — the vast majority of candidates affiliated with opposition parties.

The landslide victory was watched over by international observers from 55 countries, including a delegation from the European Union, who praised the organizational capacity of the National Electoral Council, effectively endorsing the proceedings.

Five Reasons the Left Won in Venezuela

While much is made about the alleged lack of support for President Maduro (the millions of votes his party got will never be acknowledged by the U.S.), it’s less known that the opposition is deeply unpopular.

Leonardo Flores

MintPress News | November 23, 2021

For the first time in four years, every major opposition party in Venezuela participated in elections. For the fifth time in four years, the left won in a landslide. Voters elected 23 governors, 335 mayors, 253 state legislators, and 2,471 municipal councilors. The governing United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) won at least 19 of 23 governorships (one race remains too close to call) and the Caracas mayoralty in the November 21 “mega-elections.” Of the 335 mayoral races, the vote count has been completed in 322 of them, with PSUV and its coalition taking 205, opposition coalitions 96, and other parties 21. Over 70,000 candidates ran for these 3,082 offices, and 90% of the vote was counted and verified within hours of polls closing. Turnout was 42.2%, eleven points higher than last year’s parliamentary elections.

Here’s why chavismo, the movement behind Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution, won:

Maduro: we neutralized the terrorist attack against the CNE by police intelligence

Odry farnetano

Ultimas Noticias | November 14, 2021

“We have managed to neutralize, thanks to the country’s police intelligence, the terrorist attack claimed by the extreme right, to be carried out last Friday, November 12, which would have destroyed a good part of the electoral machines in order to prevent the development of the elections of 21- Nov »declared the first president, Nicolás Maduro this Sunday, from the Miraflores Palace.

“They have already been captured, convicted and confessed,” he said.

He explained that from the confessions, it could be determined that the orders and resources to carry out this plan came from Spain. «The plan, the money, everything was planned in Spain. The mastermind, is from the Leopoldo López gang, it is he who is behind all this, with his right-wing extremist groups.

Venezuelan President Calls for a World Free from Economic Domination of an Empire

RESUMEN | September 22, 2021

photo: @CancilleriaVE

The president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro expressed today that it is urgent for the world to consolidate the construction of a new order of peace, cooperation, dialogue, political, religious, as well as cultural diversity, multilateral and pluricentric, during the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly.

“We have to achieve a world without hegemonic empires, freed from the attempt of economic, financial, military and geopolitical domination of any empire, those which for centuries exploited the world with the old colonialism”, added the Venezuelan president.

New Drone Assassination Attempt on President Maduro—Former Deputy Freddy Guevara Detained

Daniela Jimenez 

Orinoco Tribune | July 12, 2021

This Monday, July 12, a sector of the Venezuelan right-wing leadership denounced the alleged persecution by the Bolivarian government of Juan Guaidó and Freddy Guevara. However, the performance ended quickly—in less than an hour—after the truth of the events in question was revealed.

Fabiana Rosales, Guaidó’s wife, had posted on her Twitter account that the authorities were “detaining deputy Freddy Guevara.” From Guevara’s account, a post apparently confirmed that “the Maduro dictatorship intended to arrest the deputy Freddy Guevara on the Francisco Fajardo highway.”

Maduro: more than 20 Colombian paramilitaries trained the Cota 905 gangs

Últimas Noticias | July 11, 2021

The President of the Republic, Nicolás Maduro, announced this Sunday that during the operation Gran Cacique Indio Guaicaipuro, Colombian military weapons were seized.

He also announced that 20 paramilitaries were at Cota 905, joining the military gangs. “More than 20 Colombian paramilitaries would be linked to the criminal structures operating on Cota 905,” he said.

He denounced that from Madrid, Spain the transfer of resources is handled by Leopoldo López to bring terrorism into Venezuela. “They are incurable nuclei of violence, hatred and terrorism, they receive all the support from Bogotá and the North.”