This electoral process will take place in a context marked by the systematic violation of democratic rights, the disregard of the will of the people, and the consolidation of a dictatorial, anti-worker and repressive regime. For these reasons the PSL calls for active abstention and public denunciation of this fraudulent process, and we call to maintain the struggle in the streets to rescue our political rights and democratic freedoms, and against the capitalist adjustment that hits the working people.
The elections of May 25th do not represent a legitimate way for the expression of the will of the people. They are part of the government’s strategy to legitimize the scandalous fraud committed on July 28th, 2024, and to turn the page, by taking advantage of the ebb of popular mobilization, so as to continue applying its capitalist adjustment in agreement with Fedecámaras (Venezuelan Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Production), maintaining authoritarian control of society as a whole.
The call for elections is directly overshadowed by the fraud perpetrated in the presidential elections of July 28th, 2024, where the government ignored the majority rejection expressed at the polls and illegitimately clung to power. This event was not isolated; on the contrary, it was the corollary of a series of fraudulent electoral processes that the government has been carrying out since 2018, and the culmination of a process to remain in power against all odds, ratifying its dictatorial character. The current CNE is at the service of this objective.
The government applies a brutal capitalist adjustment that aggravates the social and economic crisis
The government, in agreement with business sectors, is applying a capitalist adjustment that destroys labour rights, pulverises wages and pensions, reduces the social budget, and makes the living conditions of the working people more and more precarious, a situation that is aggravated by the application of the repudiatory sanctions imposed on Venezuela by the imperialist governments of the United States and the European Union. Education and health, along with public services, are collapsing; inflation is hitting the popular sectors and the tax burden is increasingly regressive, while shortages of essential goods persist.
The bourgeois opposition remains fragmented, incapable of offering a real alternative, and fearful of independent popular mobilisation, just like the government. The different sectors, in conflict, disqualify and brutally attack each other. Some make a direct pact with the government so as to be allowed to participate in the upcoming elections, as is the case of Capriles (co-founder of the Justice First party, from which he was recently expelled for participating in these legislative and regional elections, and former candidate in the 2012/13 presidential elections) and other leaders, whilst Maria Corina Machado (Leader of the Democratic Unity Platform, the largest opposition party in Venezuela) and Edmundo Gonzalez (Opposition candidate in the 2024 elections) continue to wear themselves out, making use of speeches reminiscent of a religious sermon or self-help books, whilst simultaneously continuing to bet on intensifying the imperialist sanctions that only affect the working people, generating expectations of some kind of foreign intervention. They all share in their subordination to business interests and imperialism, and those who are participating in this election cycle do not denounce the anti-democratic conditions of the electoral process, they do not mobilise for the political prisoners, they do not speak out for wage increases, nor do they raise proposals to improve the living conditions of the working majority.
In the face of authoritarianism and austerity, it is urgent to build a broad unity of action among the left, the workers and the popular sectors. In this context, the role played by the Encuentro en Defensa de los Derechos del Pueblo (Meeting in Defence of the Rights of the People) is important.
Our central task is to confront the government’s austerity measures, to strengthen the fight for wages and pensions equal to the basic basket of goods, the release of all political prisoners and the active defence of democratic freedoms, and to promote the struggle to impose a Workers’ and People’s Emergency Plan that will respond to all the ills that afflict the working people.
From the PSL we reiterate that only with mobilization and popular organization can we defeat the dictatorial government of Maduro, restore democratic freedoms, the rights of the working class and create the conditions for a government of the workers.
