Caracas - Wild celebrations have broken out here as the National Electoral Council (CNE) has announced that left-wing incumbent Hugo Chavez has won the Venezuelan presidential elections with a vote of over 60%.

In pouring rain, thousands of cheering supporters have flocked to the Miraflores presidential palace to applaud the president, who has spoken to the people from the balcony of the palace.

CNE president Lucena Tibisay announced at 10pm that, with around 78% of the vote counted, Chavez had received 5,936,000 votes (61.4%), to right-wing opposition candidate Manuel Rosales’s 3,715,000 (38%). The total registered electorate in Venezuela is around 16 million.

The crowds around Miraflores, dressed in their red T-shirts and caps, waved Venezuelan flags and cheered loudly as the president spoke of a great victory for the Venezuelan people and for socialism of the 21st century.

The president himself sounded hoarse at the end of a long and exhausting campaign, which has taken him and his “Red Hurricane” across the length and breadth of the country, visiting every regional city several times at least.

Chants of “Uh, ah, Chavez no se va!” (“Uh, ah, Chavez will not go!”) rang out through the night. Chavez repeated, “Libertad, libertad, libertad!” (“Liberty, Liberty, Liberty!”), and stressed that the result was a victory for socialism, for the Bolivarian revolution, and for love of the people.

Turnout was 62 per cent, according to an official bulletin of results, making Chavez's lead insurmountable.

Minutes after the results were announced, Chavez appeared on the balcony of the presidential palace singing the national anthem. He pledged to deepen his effort to transform Venezuela into a socialist society.

"Long live the socialist revolution! Destiny has been written," Chavez shouted to thousands of flag-waving supporters wearing red shirts and braving a pouring rain.

"That new era has begun," he said, raising a hand in the air. "We have shown that Venezuela is red! … No one should fear socialism … Socialism is human. Socialism is love," Chavez said. "Down with imperialism! We need a new world!"

The win gives Chavez more time to spend Venezuela's oil wealth on social programs and spread his anti-U.S. message among leaders across Latin America.

Chávez not Bush!

Venezuela's challenge to the empire

Venezuela’s socialist President Hugo Chavez spoke for people the world over at the United Nations General Assembly in September when he attacked US imperialism’s attempt to dominate the world and subjugate its people. Referring to US President George Bush’s speech the day before, Chavez said:

“The imperialists see extremists all around. No, it’s not that we are extremists. What is happening is that the world is waking up and people everywhere are rising up.

"I have the impression Mr Imperialist Dictator that you will live the rest of your days as if in a nightmare, because no matter where you look we will be rising up against US imperialism.”

During the brutal war waged by Israel against Lebanon and the Occupied Palestinian Territories over July-August, Chavez stood in solidarity with the victims of Israel’s vicious US-backed campaign.

More than 1000 civilians were slaughtered during the invasion of Lebanon. Israel is “killing innocent children and whole families”, Chavez said in an Al Jazeera interview on August 4, the day after Venezuela had withdrawn its ambassador to Israel in protest.

Since his election in 1998, Chavez has called for Third World economic and political unity against imperialism, starting in Latin America.

Venezuela has been at the forefront of a continent-wide rebellion against US-enforced neoliberal policies, which for decades have caused intense poverty and misery. His government has pushed an alternative trade model among Latin American nations based on mutual cooperation rather than competition.

Most significantly, Chavez has declared that “the only way to overcome poverty is to give power to the poor”, and Venezuela’s revolutionary foreign policy is matched by an radical internal process of change — the Bolivarian revolution.

This is a battle for power by the working people and poor, and for new, democratic structures for popular power to replace the old political structures of the former elite.

The US has backed undemocratic attempts by the right-wing opposition to topple the Chavez government and reverse the Bolivarian revolution, including a military coup in April 2002, during which Chavez was briefly ousted before an uprising by the poor and the ranks of the military restored him to power.

The Venezuelan revolution has raised the banner of socialism again — a project declared dead and buried after the collapse of the Soviet bloc.

Chavez has called for the construction, internationally, of a “new socialism of the 21st century” — as distinct from the bureaucratic and anti-democratic Stalinist “socialism” of the USSR.

This call carries weight because behind Chavez stand Venezuela’s increasingly radicalised working people.

The conclusion that socialism — a system whereby the economy is run by and for the people rather than privately owned by a rich minority — is the alternative to the crimes of imperialism has been drawn not from abstract theoretical discussions, but from the experience of the living class struggle.

The old state structures, which are dominated by a corrupt bureaucracy, have not proven effective as a tool to achieve change.

The degree by which the revolution has advanced in many cases is the degree by which these structures have been bypassed and new ones created based directly on the power of the working class.

The revolution’s “social missions” — grassroots-driven efforts to provide services like free health care and education to the country’s poor majority — were consciously established outside the old state structures.

There is a struggle to create new popular-based structures to avoid corruption and sabotage by forces that had a stake in the pre-Chavez status quo.

The struggle for socialism has flowed out of the struggle against imperialism — driven by the extreme poverty the masses have been condemned to, despite Venezuela’s extensive oil wealth.

There has been a struggle centred around taking control of the oil resources and using them to solve the major problems facing Venezuela as a result of its past relegation to the role of a semi-colonial nation providing cheap raw materials to complement the economies of the First World.

Solving the problems of the poor has been tied with economic development, partly through the promotion of cooperatives.

Under Chavez, the number of cooperatives has grown from 800 to more than 100,000, involving as much as 10% of the adult population.

The push to empower the poor and redistribute wealth has faced fierce resistance from the old wealthy elite. Through this confrontation, the working people have become increasingly radicalised and organised.

Reality has revealed to both the revolution’s leadership and the working people that it is not possible to overcome the country’s problems without confronting capitalism.

Venezuela’s revolution faces many challenges as it continues to make profound changes to the country’s social and economic structure. Internally, it still faces stiff, if marginalised, opposition from the capitalist elite and attempts to corrupt the revolutionary forces.

Internationally it faces threats, including possible military intervention, from the US and its allies. International solidarity with the revolution is important to help counter attempts to isolate the revolution and to defend the Venezuelan people’s right to self-determination.

The lessons of Venezuela are that people power can make a difference and that the idea that capitalism is as good as it gets has been discredited. Join Resistance — and help change the world! Stuart Munckton/Green Left Weekly

tags: chavez  venezuela  victory  election  socialism  

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