Chris manages to see unevenness in what is a clear, steady and steep decline in involvement in communal councils over the past three-year cycle.
He claims that the high point on 2023 is "presumably" due to the idea that "recently Maduro has once again been promoting communes" and that the "fact that communal councils were reactivated at a slower rate in subsequent years reflects the uneven political consciousness and organisation in different localities." As with Andreina, and pro-Maduro leftists in general, Chris presents no evidence to justify these claims. He just creates a narrative to appears to suit the facts and does not bother to check if that narrative has any basis in reality. Unfortunately for Chris, the facts refute this story. For starters, even by the government's own words, the push to reinvigorate communes - and in particular the communal councils with their citizen's assemblies - began in the second half of 2024 (after Maduro's lose in the presidential elections) with the naming of the new Communes minister, Angel Prado. (See for example interview with communes viceminister from September 2024, where he notes: "It’s necessary to reactivate the communal assembly, which is the highest decision-making body in a community. All of the Ministry of Communes’ plans, according to President Nicolás Maduro’s directions, are now focused on this." https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/putting-the-people-and-their-communes-first-a-conversation-with-jose-luis-sifontes/ ) It is also why this year in August the Ministry of Communes was talking about the need to reelect authorities in 22,000 communal councils as part of reaching the target Maduro has set of 6000 communes by the end of 2026, all of this was part of the "push" to promote communes https://www.comunas.gob.ve/2025/08/27/mas-de-22-mil-consejos-comunales-renovaran-sus-vocerias-rumbo-a-la-consolidacion-de-las-comunas/ Instead, so far only about 2000 have re-elected authorities, a far cry from the government's target. Furthermore, if 2023 was the start of some renewed push to promote communes, then we would expect the numbers of renewed communal councils for 2022 to be lower. Instead, it was higher: 18,923. That means not only have we had four years of consistent, steep decline, but more devastating for the idea that the government has been promoting communes is the realisation that if communal council authorities need to be renewed every three years, that means of the almost 19,000 communal councils that were due to do just that throughout 2025 (hence the 22,000 figure, which includes the aim of reactivating dormant ones on top of those that were active 3 years ago), less than 3000 have. Chris says this is all just a question of whether we want to view the glass as half full or half empty. That misses the point. What is in discussion is whether these facts in anyway indicate that the communes have "become the backbone of the country’s political life", or that Venezuela is supposedly replacing bourgeois democracy with some new communal power, as the pro-Maduro left claims. They clear do not. So we should stop pretending they do. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#39990): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/39990 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/116992054/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
