Chavez Urges Supporters to Campaign Non-Stop for Venezuelan Constitutional Reform

Caracas, November 7, 2007 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The campaign in
support of the constitutional reforms, which will be voted on by referendum on
December 2, "is the most important battle" of the Bolivarian revolution so far,
and "destabilization, abstention and the ‘No' vote, are the three principle
adversaries we have to defeat," Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez explained to
the Poliedro Stadium packed with aspiring members of his new socialist party,
on Tuesday.

The event was a swearing in ceremony of the broad National Zamora
Command, launched by Chavez to campaign in favour of the proposed reforms, and
included activists from the new United Socialist Party of Venezuela, (PSUV),
from Caracas,
Miranda, Aragua and Vargas. In addition, almost 100,000 elected spokespeople
and commissioners from the socialist battalions of the PSUV around the country were
also listening to Chavez's speech in meetings at the same time.

Chavez warned that "the
rightwing opposition in Venezuela
plans to utilize a destabilisation strategy well known to the Venezuelan people;"
refusal to recognise the legitimacy of the results of the constitutional
referendum on December 2 because of a supposed "fraud." Therefore, "Our
campaign strategy, our principal objective," he argued, "is to approve the
constitutional reform in a resounding manner."

In August 2004, after the
recall referendum initiated by the opposition against Chavez's presidency was
defeated with 58% supporting Chavez, many opposition sectors claimed fraud,
however the result was recognised as free and fair by international observers,
including former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and the Organisation of American
States.

Chavez recalled that
sectors of the opposition also intended not to recognize the results of the
presidential elections in December 2006. However, he said, "this plan was
neutralized by the people in the streets."

He therefore recommend to
his political supporters to take to the streets, and through popular
mobilization, neutralize destabilization or any possible plan for a coup.

"This is the vaccine
against a coup, against destabilisation, against the oligarchy, against Bush.
This is what happened the 12th and 13th of April [of 2002], the people in the
streets, popular mobilization, and of course, our soldiers together with the
people."

The socialism that Venezuela
is constructing is "totally democratic and humanist," Chavez reiterated, and
the reforms, which recognize new forms of collective, communal, and social
property alongside private property, as well as giving more power to grass
roots communal councils and social programs, among other changes, aim to
establish "a communal, socialist economic system in each commune."

He explained, "this economic system will be managed by everyone, by all
the constituents of the communes."

For example, he argued, gas stations would be managed by the communes,
and that the income from this could be used to provide resources for social
programs and community projects.

To democratise the economy, Chavez argued, "Is the only way to defeat
poverty, to defeat misery and achieve the largest sum of happiness for the
people,"

However, he said, this contradicts the interests of capitalism and
imperialism, and an international media campaign to demonize the reforms and
the revolutionary government in Venezuela,
has already begun, in order to justify a possible military coup or foreign intervention.

"This is a battle, a political war, it is part of an international
conflict," he continued, "because we have declared ourselves free, and we are
constructing freedom and imperialism is not going to take away our vision."

"The United States wants a Venezuela that is on its knees, weakened,
dependent, like a sick person in intensive care, but they are never going to
achieve this, because the Bolivarian revolution will struggle until death to
make sure that Venezuela will be a free and sovereign country for centuries and
centuries."

Chavez then went on to ask questions from the participants and to discuss
in more depth, plans to organise and mobilize people in support of the ‘Yes'
campaign.

"We are not going to leave the streets one single
day in the 27 days that remain of the campaign," he said.