Featured Articles - Political Developments

The September 18, 2008 Human Rights Watch report, “A Decade Under Chavez,” raises a few problems with regard to the protection of political rights in Venezuela, but the few places where it is on target are almost completely drowned in a sea of de-contextualization, trumped-up accusations, and a clear and obvious bias in favor of the opposition and against the government.

In recent weeks, external and internal pressure against Venezuela's Bolivarian revolution, has intensified dramatically.

A collective discussion is occurring throughout the revolutionary movement led by President Hugo Chavez following the defeat of the proposed constitutional reform proposals — that were intended to deepen the revolution to help open the way towards socialism — in the December 2 referendum.

The failed reform was the first defeat for the Bolivarian movement, after 12 national electoral contests, since Hugo Chávez was elected in 1998, and the first time that he and his movement had been forced to examine which way the process must go if it is to advance.

While we reflect on errors made, we should not lose sight of the unique opportunities posed by this turn of events. Sunday's referendum defeat marks a critical juncture in the Bolivarian Revolution: with the most direct, state-led path to socialism effectively blocked, Chávez will have no other alternative than to rely on the mobilization of the popular revolutionary masses.

As the struggle to deepen Venezuela's revolution through the framework of the pending constitutional reforms intensifies, so too does the battle to create the new United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). The simultaneous campaign for constitutional reforms and the formation of the PSUV means the two are intricately connected.

Who are "the students," and what do they represent? In recent days, it has become clear that these student mobilizations have been, in fact, largely directed and supported by sectors of the opposition, all in an effort to provoke, in Chávez's own words, a "soft coup" against the revolutionary government.

A detailed examination of the arguments used to criticize the Chavez government's decision not to renew RCTV's broadcast license. Do any of these arguments have merit? A few might, but the bottom line is that they end up defending the privileges of the country's elite.

In recent years, mainstream media outlets have seized on the State Department's Human Rights report to paint a picture of Venezuela under Orwellian levels of government control, where freedom of the press and the right of association are rarely respected.

Venezuela’s presidential recall referendum was one of Latin America’s most historic electoral events of the past twenty five years. The vote contributes to the future direction of other progressive projects throughout the world because Chavez and his Bolivarian Project have, despite their flaws, opened the door for a progressive alternative to neo-liberal globalization.