Can People's Power Save the Bolivarian Revolution?
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- Published on Monday, 25 January 2016 00:00
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin .... No. 1211 .... January 25, 2016
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Can People's Power Save the Bolivarian Revolution?
Rightists’ election victory poses major threat to Venezuela's advances
Richard Fidler
Seventeen years after Hugo Chávez was elected Venezuela's President for the first time, the supporters of his Bolivarian Revolution, now led by President Nicolás Maduro, suffered their first major defeat in a national election in the December 6 elections to the country's parliament, the National Assembly.
Coming only two weeks after the victory of right-wing candidate Mauricio Macri in Argentina's presidential election, it was a stunning setback to the "process of change" in Latin America that Chávez had spearheaded until his premature death from cancer in 2013. The opposition majority in the new parliament threatens to undo some of the country's major social and economic... advances of recent years as well as Venezuela's vital support to revolutionary Cuba and other neighboring countries through innovative solidarity programs like PetroCaribe and the ALBA fair-trade alliance.
The election result is an important gain for Washington as it mounts renewed efforts to restore neoliberal hegemony in Latin America and fracture the new continental alliances (UNASUR, CELAC) that Chávez was instrumental in initiating as alternatives to the U.S.-dominated Organization of American States (OAS).
