After the Referendum: Venezuela Faces New Challenges
by Marta Harnecker, Monthly Review
With President Hugo Chávez’s victory in the August 15 referendum, the Venezuelan opposition suffered the third great defeat in its struggle to end his government. The unprecedented recall referendum ratified Chávez’s presidency by a margin of two million votes and was declared valid unanimously by the hundreds of international observers who scrutinized it.
In a part of the world where democracy has been discredited by its failure to solve the problem of poverty, the result provided, in the words of one observer, Eduardo Galeano, “an injection of optimism.”
The victory belongs not to a man but to the project of creating a country guided by humanism and solidarity in its domestic and international spheres. It is also a victory for a development model embracing endogenous development and the social economy as alternatives to voracious, destructive neoliberalism.
With President Hugo Chávez’s victory in the August 15 referendum, the Venezuelan opposition suffered the third great defeat in its struggle to end his government. The unprecedented recall referendum ratified Chávez’s presidency by a margin of two million votes and was declared valid unanimously by the hundreds of international observers who scrutinized it.
In a part of the world where democracy has been discredited by its failure to solve the problem of poverty, the result provided, in the words of one observer, Eduardo Galeano, “an injection of optimism.”
The victory belongs not to a man but to the project of creating a country guided by humanism and solidarity in its domestic and international spheres. It is also a victory for a development model embracing endogenous development and the social economy as alternatives to voracious, destructive neoliberalism.
posted 12:01 PM
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