On Sunday, May 25, Venezuelans will go to the polls for the third time this year, after having held two public consultations. On this occasion, they will elect their governors and their deputies to the national and regional assemblies. Our correspondent Cha Dafol helps us understand the context of these elections.
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00:00And on Sunday, May 25th, Venezuelans will go to the polls for the third time this year
00:05after having held two public consultations.
00:08On this occasion, they will elect their governors and their deputies to the national and regional assemblies.
00:14Our correspondent, Chala Fall, helps us understand the context of these elections.
00:23Three days after the last public consultation and less than a month before the next legislative and gubernatorial elections.
00:30Peace continues to reign in the streets of Caracas.
00:32In the 23 de Enero Parish, as in the other neighborhoods of the city,
00:37the campaign has started in an atmosphere of respect for democracy.
00:44We have in revolution a slogan that our revolution is peaceful
00:47and that each one of the processes that will advance in the consolidation of the revolution
00:52and of the people's power is chosen through the vote.
00:56Nothing imposed, everything consulted with the people.
01:00In the 25 years of the revolutionary process,
01:08Venezuelans have been called to vote no less than 32 times.
01:12More than a number, this phenomenon, incomparable with neighboring democracies,
01:18demonstrates the empowerment of the people and the formation of a political conscience.
01:22Commander Chavez educated us to participate.
01:28So the people define every day what they want to do, how they want to do it,
01:32either in an assembly of citizens or in open elections such as the elections of a communal council,
01:38of a commune, but also in elections such as the one we are going to have in the next few days.
01:42The efforts of the extreme right to discredit the electoral system, with wide repercussions in the international media,
01:57do not seem to have affected the people's confidence in the institutions.
02:04Historically, the Venezuelan people have trusted the National Electoral Council,
02:08of course, since the arrival of the Bolivarian Revolution and we have an automated, audited, and auditable electoral system.
02:14Then that matrix of opinion that the Venezuelan electoral system is fraudulent falls under its own weight
02:19because we have more than 20 elections in which the results have always been accepted by the Venezuelan people.
02:23According to lawyer and historian Douglas Kerales, this growing participation of the people in political decisions
02:36is a reflection of the Constitution voted in 1999 and the transformations generated by the arrival of Commander Chavez to power.
02:48Contrasting it with the bourgeois liberal democracy.
02:53A representative character that marked the era from 1958 to 1998.
03:10Really, the qualitative advance in terms of the development of the participation of the people
03:15to express themselves in the great national issues is abysmal.
03:19In the face of innumerous attempts to destabilize Venezuelan democracy,
03:30which also include the illegal economic blockade of the United States against the country,
03:34the electoral practice becomes an act of popular resistance.
03:38Through elections and political mobilization,
03:41national sovereignty is consolidated against any form of interference.
03:45Shada Fol, from Caracas, Venezuela, for Telesur.