We are going to elections in a new situation: the electoral card of the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) has been kidnapped and this is just one of the many maneuvers that the leadership of the Government-PSUV used to fabricate a controlled electoral scenario favorable to the elites in their dispute for political power.
The face of Nicolás Maduro on the PCV’s electoral card ─imposed in an unlawful manner─ is not the photograph of a candidate running for reelection, but the portrait of a satrap.
The authoritarian drift of the government leadership is not a minor detail for the analysis of the political-electoral picture. Its implications in the development of the class struggle are significant, since we find ourselves in a scenario in which the constitutional guarantees for the Venezuelan working class have been suppressed.
But in addition, as a backdrop to these elections, we have the consolidation of a repressive framework to stop the workers and popular counteroffensive. The criminalization and persecution of struggles in workplaces have been institutionalized and the «anti-terrorist» courts are the frequent fate of political, social and union activists who refuse to back down.
We live in times of political degradation; corrupt elites wallow in a mire of moral decomposition, while pointing fingers at each other to try to define ─without any shame─ what is «least bad», whether the looting of the oil industry (as the ruling leadership has done and for which the President of the Republic cynically denies responsibility) or the theft of the nation’s assets abroad (starring the bloc of criminals who have requested military intervention and «sanctions» against Venezuela).
Certainly, these two poles have nothing to offer to a country demanding decent living conditions, since their interests lie elsewhere. Both the right-wing bloc in the National Government and the right-wing bloc in the opposition work laboriously for the control of income for their enrichment. Both are spokesperson for fractions of capital. The difference is that one openly admits it and the other tries to hide it with a crude patriotic rhetoric.
It is these considerations that marked the discussion of the communists during the last eight months since the XVI National Conference was installed. In three moments (October 2023, March and June 2024), more than a hundred delegates elected by the branches of the legitimate membership of the PCV met face to face to give a stark debate and set the tasks of the political moment.
The first major conclusion is that a «new situation» merits a concrete tactic. Reality is not static: the internal contradictions ─which are multiple and complex─ , the struggle of the actors in the scene, the political and economic conditions, mark the transformations of that reality.
Each phase of a historical process demands specific actions with a view to achieving objectives ─which are certainly not divorced from the general strategy─. But, what are the objectives of this peculiar moment in which the working people and the left, in general, have also had their political rights taken away. Undoubtedly, the defeat of the ruling pole is an indisputable task; but, how to do it? By opening the way to the other bloc co-responsible for the national tragedy?
Here is the tactical approach of the Venezuelan communists: This «new situation» demands the regrouping of the genuinely democratic forces willing to work for the restitution of the rights enshrined in the Constitution. Thus, the XVI National Conference of the PCV has set out to build a political-electoral agreement beyond the left, based on a program that has at its core the recovery of wages and social benefits; the release of unjustly imprisoned workers and a legislative agenda aimed at the re-institutionalization of the country, the representation of minorities in the political debate and the transparent exercise of public management.
Of course, the effective realization of these proposals will not only depend on the electoral results. Achieving a correlation of forces favorable to the interests of the people demands organization and struggle. And there, in every class struggle, the legitimate membership of the PCV will be present, ready to build a country for the working class.
Tribuna Popular 