The International Peoples’ Assembly and ALBA Movements Support the Venezuelan Popular Consultation

Venezuelan citizens in a communal council, 2024. Photo: X/ @MichelCaballero

August 25, 2024 Hour: 9:02 am

“We raise our fists in defence of the Bolivarian Revolution,” they stressed.

The International Peoples’ Assembly and ALBA Movements published a statement in support of the second national popular consultation that Venezuela is carrying out on Sunday, August 25.

Below is the statement of these progressive organizations, which encompasses political and social movements from all five continents working at local, national, and regional levels.

“On 25 August, the second National Popular Consultation will take place in Venezuela, where the organized Venezuelan people of the Communes will be able to choose 4,500 projects that will be financed directly by the state.

This consultation is an initiative of the Nicolas Maduro government, aimed at strengthening popular power and communal organization in the country, with an emphasis on local management. This participatory process has a strong assembly spirit because it brings men and women together to discuss the projects in which the state has to invest in order to collectively solve needs.

As Comandante Hugo Chavez said: “The Commune must be the space in which we give birth to socialism. Socialism must not emerge from the Presidency of the Republic, it cannot be decreed, it must be created from the ground up, it is a popular creation, from the masses.”

"When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse. We would have taken all that oil"

— Trump mourning the imperialist loss.

Venezuela, by the way, has 10x more oil reserves than the US! pic.twitter.com/aYkTwWMaw4
— S.L. Kanthan (@Kanthan2030) July 30, 2024

The projects presented to the National Consultation are chosen and managed by the Communal Councils, allowing the full exercise of popular power and the protagonist participation of all the people.

This model of participatory democracy strengthens local levels of organisation and empowers all of the society to defend the direct popular initiative as opposed to the bureaucratisation of the state. This process is broad and constitutes a popular celebration led by leaders and the community, who put all their force into giving life and meaning to the territories with a project born of the revolutionary ideas of Comandante Chavez.

We, men and women, from the profoundly authentic popular struggles, raise our fists in defence of the Bolivarian Revolution and support the brave Venezuelan people in their struggle to make the impossible possible: a democracy born from the ground up.

As ALBA Movements and the International Peoples’ Assembly, we defend communal democracy and we join in the defense of this model of participation, which has a praxis based on the disruption of individualism to affirm the commitment to the collective, developing a life of solidarity and sustainability among all.”